American Islamophobia positioned Muslims as a wholly external other unlike domestic religious minorities

Evidence

In the United States, engagements with Muslims appeared to be a matter of international affairs alone, … “Mohammedans” representing an “other” far more distant than the Jews, Catholics, and other religious minorities who lived among the Protestant majority. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 100

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘distant other vs. lived minorities’ contrast echoes the theme that hate targets are chosen for their distance, connecting to the reader’s interest in how fear projects onto a remote, unknowable subject.