My question is how would a Muslim react to a (evil) vampire? The standard Christian response is to hold up a cross, of course, and I suppose the Star of David would work for a Jewish person. I may well be asking this in too simplistic a way-if someone has a better way to phrase it, please feel free or if you feel it belongs elsewhere. Perhaps more of a Cafe Society question: have there been any movies with Muslim vampires (apart from A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night)?
My first thought is that it’s the vampire who believes in / fears the cross, regardless of the faith of the cross bearer. But perhaps your question is more along the lines of if Muslim vampire lore is different than Christian? In that case, good question!
I’ve long thought that it is the faith, itself, that repels the vampire, not the specific symbol used. If you’re weak on faith, nothing can help you.
So an atheist with a crucifix is powerless against a vampire?
In the TV series Castlevania, they explained that a vampire’s super-keen senses were somehow dazzled by seeing right angles close-up in their field of vision. Religious symbology had nothing to do with it in that case.
That’s one theory, yes. Another is (as was mentioned) that it’s the faith of the vampire that causes them to react to the cross. Yet another is that there’s some actual power in the holy symbol.
Stephen King explored the first in Salem’s Lot. The second was explored in the film Dracula 2000. And the third is just an extension of the “one true god” idea.
Have you not read 'Salems Lot? The cross didnt work for the priest who lost his faith.
Yeah, and seen the TV mini-series, but a long time ago.
I guess this would be a good test to see whether Pastafarians really do believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Never work. The vampire would have to individually count each noodle.
Vampires seem to be on the South Beach Diet. They would never go for pasta.
Right, I’ve read both versions of the reason why a “holy symbol” repels a vampire
One is that it requires belief, a connection to the Divine, on the part of the charm wielder to work. The one that sticks in my mind is a Marvel comic* I read long ago where Kitty Pryde is attacked by a vampire (don’t ask…) and waves a crucifix at it to no effect, but is saved at the last minute from being bitten by the Star of David pendant worn around her neck.
The other, which I believe is prominent in the vampiric lore in the influential Anne Rice novels, is that it’s the unconscious belief of the vampire that matters - a reminder that they are an unnatural, “outside of God’s plan” creature, that at a core level, they know themselves to be and regret/hate themselves for being.
And finally, mostly in a comedic context but obviously it could apply in a dramatic one as well, the interpretation that either rule can apply. In fact, I’ve also seen it depicted as a vampire being repelled by “any holy symbol” recognized as such by the vampire as a kind of “rules of the game” thing.
*Uncanny X-Men #159!
Heyooooo!!! 
I’ve seen references that it’s the faith of the believer that repels the vampire from the symbol. So a Muslim would be protected by a Quran just as a Christian is protected by a cross.
I read a comic book series Vamps, which used this idea. In one scene, a crazy guy living on the streets warded off a vampire by holding up a hubcap - because he sincerely believed that the hubcap was a holy shield that protected him.
It was also a minor plot point in Fright Night; that the cross that Peter Vincent held didn’t work to repel the vampire because he didn’t believe.
You ignorant heathen! It’s the colander that does it!
Crosses work on vampires because the people who created vampire legends believed that Christianity was the true and only true religion. Trying to retrofit other explainations and other religions into it is something that is going to be done on a writer-by-writer basis.
That was also in Blindsight by Peter Watts in 2006. Anyone know of uses before that?
Call her Kate.
(Don’t call her an alcoholic. She seems to be one now, but don’t call her that.)
Didn’t work in “Love at First Bite”.
“True Faith” is the usual reasoning I hear. Which makes sense since, without the context of faith, a cross is just a lower case letter “t” (versus a crucifix with an icon of Christ on it).
Once you’ve decided that true belief in (whatever flavor of) God is what makes a cross a cross, it’s easy enough to extend to other symbols of faith.
Since there are no hard-and-fast rules for this kind of thing*, each writer is free to speculate on his own.
The usual reply I get is that vampires react negatively to any symbol of faith. More than one work of fiction has vampires backing away from a Star of David. In Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend a Jewish vampire backs away from a Torah.
If you go with that reasoning, a Muslim vampire might be deterred by a Koran, or even by a crescent moon symbol.
Are Hindu vampires deterred by “Om” signs? Richard Burton doesn’t even address the issue in Vikram and the Vampire. But, of course, that was pre-Dracula, so the trope wasn’t even established yet.
*Bram Stoker actually made up a lot of the “vampire lore”, and codified the rest. Although the stake-through-the-heart is a lot older than Stoker, and so is garlic as a repellant (although not the way he used it), I don’t recall any prior vampire fiction (or non0-fiction, for that matter) using a crucifix to ward off vampires.