Locke and others used fictive Muslims to indicate the extremity of their inclusivity, knowing how acutely their audiences would view any actual Muslim presence as a threat. Each time statesmen took Muslims as an extreme example, they helped reinscribe the liminality of Muslims in the popular imagination.

XREF: Connects to colonial-era discourse analysis, how rhetorical examples in philosophy silently shaped social hierarchies — resonant with Said's Orientalism.

Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ Th…, loc. 122