It might seem obvious that it’s good to read in ways that are literary, critical and modern. But Michael Allan argues that viewing certain ways of reading as literary, critical and modern also involves constructing a stereotype of a bad reader who is unliterary, uncritical and backwards. In colonial Egypt, British authorities relied on stereotypes of Islamic reading practices to treat local people as merely memorising and repeating what they read. As a result, local people were considered incapable of thinking critically and of holding valid political opinions.