Reply To: Are we Islamaphobic?

[Gallup’s Mirror]

So that brings me to another question. Is islamaphobia real? Or do you perhaps feel this is in fact a term made up by apologists in order to allow Muslims “play the victim”.

“So, [Ayaan Hirsi Ali] was going to speak at Brandeis [University], but she called Islam the new fascism, so they said she could not speak. And they said she is Islamophobic, who my friend Sam Harris reminded me today our deceased friend Christopher Hitchens said Islamophobic is a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.” –Bill Mahar

I’m starting to think that maybe there is something to this claim of islamphobia. I personally don’t agree with Islam as a religion; but I don’t support generalising Muslim people or anyone else as a whole. I just don’t see how stereotyping an entire group is accomplishing anything; apart from the fact that it highlights ignorance.

Islam is not a people, race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. Islam is a set of ideas (bad ones). Yet the charge of islamophobia is leveled as though comparable to homophobia, racism and misogyny, the words used to describe prejudice against LGBT people, blacks or women.

Islam is no more immutable than phrenology. But phrenolophobia has yet to enter the English lexicon and nobody calls you a bigot for disparaging phrenology or saying phrenologists are foolish to believe in it.

The word Islamophobic is used to shut down critics like Ayaan Hirsi Ali with the false and unethical charge that criticism of Islam is hateful.