The West’s Muslims are fictional characters in a story about itself.

Evidence

The same delusions have contributed to the ideological alienation of Muslims from normativity, leading to the ways in which Muslims are seen today, as characters in a story the West has created about itself. The Orient, like the Western-created category called mysticism, which is often employed to describe “good Muslims” (i.e., Sufis and secularists), is a concept both “uncompromisingly Western and Christian.” Both the Orient and the Muslim exist in the mind of the West, bearing little semblance to reality. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 44

Categorization

• XREF: Core thesis parallel to the reader’s projection framework — the Muslim monster as container for what the West cannot face.
• SEED: The ‘good Muslim’ mysticism category could anchor an essay on how even positive portrayals remain Western inventions.