European travelers in the Orient also claimed that human/animal hybrids roamed the land and water. In Egypt they claimed to have observed a human/crocodile hybrid, which is not the only Muslim monster that occupies the Orient. With a few exceptions, the monsters of Orientalism are radically different from their predecessors—human-animal hybrids, sea monsters, and the like were replaced by images of Muslim men as morally depraved and hyper-violent villains.

XREF: Connects to Edward Said's Orientalism and the discourse of Western stereotyping of the Muslim world.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 378