" Cultural critic and author Edward Said wrote in "Orientalism" regarding Dante's depiction of Muhammad:Empirical data about the Orient...count for very little; ... What ... Dante tried to do in the "Inferno", is ... to characterize the Orient as alien and to incorporate it schematically on a theatrical stage whose audience, manager, and actors are ... only for Europe.
Danes je v nekaterih muslimanskih državah, zlasti v Turčiji in Iranu, na voljo več milijonov zgodovinskih reprodukcij in sodobnih slik, na plakatih, v obliki razglednic in celo namiznih knjig, vendar so v večini ostalih delov islamskega sveta neznane; če musliman od drugje naleti nanje, ga lahko močno osupnejo in prizadanejo.