John Buchan (1875–1940) was the director of British Intelligence in the
last two years of World War i and a novelist, too. His novel, Greenmantle
(1916), examined the decaying stages of the Ottoman empire with
a specific focus on radical Islamic movements. Greenmantle reveals
Buchan’s Western elitist views and the continuation of his imperialist
conviction of the deterioration in the East and Islam in comparison
to the Christian West. In fact, he presents Muslims as medieval and
superstitious people who can easily be mobilized for Jihad. The chapter
argues that Buchan’s novels can be read as tools to influence the beliefs of
a whole generation and as works that echo the prevalent cultural and
political views and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims in Britain at the
time of World War I.
