This exchange encapsulates all that has gone before and puts Shahid (and Kureishi) in the company of those writers who in the days after 9/11 were to reassert the liberal universalism of the Western literary tradition as a main line of defense against Islamic terrorism. Here, I would draw attention to the way in which Shahid's reply underwrites the novel's broader disavowal of positions that are seen as a threat to foundational cultural values. … The rearticulation of the notion of an unfettered, free-floating artist, responsible to no one but himself, is juxtaposed against a kind of fanaticism in the Other that is central to contemporary Islamophobia: the herd mentality, the absence of critical thought, the propensity for violence.

DEFINE: Describes 'liberal universalism of the Western literary tradition' as positioned in defense against Islamic terrorism, framing the free-floating artist ideal against a caricatured fanatic other.

Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, loc. 178