During earlier centuries, there was a fear of bodily mutilation and dismemberment, an anxiety that contributed to the resurrection narrative expressed in the cannibalism mythologies that dominated medieval narratives featuring Muslim monsters. During the years leading up to the Renaissance, in the period often identified by scholars as the proto-Renaissance, some of the taboos surrounding dissection and autopsies were lifted, resulting in the (purported) discovery of miracles hidden inside the bodies of saints and martyrs. These miracles served as proof that the miracle of Christ was evident in the mutilated bodies of his most devoted followers.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 256