The eighteenth-century Muslim male was stereotyped as pedophile and child murderer

Evidence

One of the interesting complexities in this text is that Vathek, identified as an Arab Muslim, is persuaded to reject Islam and follow the path of Satan. Beckford’s treatment of the Muslim male is predicated on the idea that he is essentially evil, a homosexual, a pedophile, and a child murderer. The culmination of evil is expressed in the immolation of 50 young boys, who are stripped naked and observed by Vathek and the Indian, who display both “demonic powers and physical monstrosity.” This horrible scene is described in great detail in the text: The fifty competitors were soon stripped, and presented to the admiration of the spectators that suppleness and grace of their delicate limbs. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 511

Categorization

• QUESTION: Is the pedophile-child-murderer charge against Muslim men rooted specifically in the Islamic threat narrative to Europe, or imported from broader anti-Semitic/anti-Catholic tropes of child sacrifice?