The little drama queen probably never saw JJ Abrams’s Lost, which featured the Muslim Syed, well after 9/11. And Syed was one of the coolest characters in all of JJ’s works.
I suppose heroism in the context of unidentified beneficiaries who are plausibly Islamic themselves, would fly as a cartoon meme even before imams with their fatwa pens.
It’s a bittersweet situation. I observe that many Muslims (at least in name), even knowing their life is overshadowed by hell, participate in defiances of this hell through various customs that are warm and humane. These are not the people who grab the headlines; the bombers do. We also don’t know what they will choose eternally.
Syed was a really interesting character. Locke was also up there.