A doctrine about an enemy’s beliefs is built by denying the enemy a voice.

Evidence

In this way is constituted a body of belief about what another group of people believes. A ‘real truth’ is identified; this is something that contrasts with what the enemy say they believe; they must not be allowed to speak for themselves. This doctrine about doctrine is widely repeated, and confirmed by repetition in slightly varying forms. The experts, perhaps because their proximity to the facts is a constant stimulus to their zeal, contribute most to the process, and they are themselves wholly convinced by it. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 42

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels Said’s Orientalism and the vault’s Anidjar/Aziz claim that ‘Islam’ is constituted by outsiders who refuse Muslims self-representation — this canon-forming via denied voice is the very mechanism Razack traces.
• DEFINE: Names the core mechanism of the book: a ‘doctrine about doctrine,’ canon formulated through repetition that excludes the subject’s own testimony.
• QUESTION: Who count as ‘the experts’ here — early Latin polemicists? And at what point does expert zeal tip into the wholly sincere conviction described?
• SEED: Angle for a piece on how modern Islamophobia expertise — think tanks, terrorism ‘experts’ — reproduces this same structure of confident outsiders defining a faith whose adherents cannot speak for themselves.
• ADDENDUM: This is the equivalent of the vault’s core claim that the ‘Racial Muslim’ is constituted by state and policy discourse rather than self-definition — supports ‘Grafting & Growth’ style genealogical argument about constructed categories.