Chronicles written during later crusades devoted much less attention to portrayals of Saracens as idolaters. Nonetheless, the image of the Saracen pagan lives on in the European imagination. Festivals of Moors and Christians take place to this day in small towns throughout contemporary Spain. These festivals commemorate Christian victories over the Moors, or Muslims of North African origin, during the Reconquista. Some of these festivals include reenactments in which locals, dressed up as Moors, conquer a citadel and erect a Mahoma—an effigy of Muhammad—on the walls. Christian troops then attack the citadel and destroy the Mahoma. The reenactment taps into visions of Saracen idolaters from long ago.

SEED: The continuing Spanish Moors-and-Christians festivals with Muhammad effigies present a live, underreported angle on how medieval religious propaganda survives in modern civic culture.

Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Intro…, loc. 127