Being an ex-Muslim critic of Islam is a profitable career in the Islamophobia industry

Evidence

A whole slew of people, mostly “ex-Muslims,” have played a role in the legitimation of anti-Muslim racism. It is profitable to be an ex-Muslim because of the lucrative book deals, honoraria to speak at private and state-funded conferences, access to a wide network of media for selfpublicity, and the ability to make connections to people in positions of power who can help advance careers. One such ideologue, Nonie Darwish, is the director of Former Muslims United, co-founded by Wafa Sultan, Walid Shoebat, and Ibn Warraq. Darwish is of Egyptian origin and was raised in Gaza. She believes that Islam “will destroy itself because it’s not a true religion.” Her books (Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror, and Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law) have been endorsed and supported by Pipes, Spencer, and Horowitz. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 690

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Matches the reader’s ch12 emphasis that Muslim-background critics can become validators of Islamophobic discourse; Darwish concretizes the ‘native informant’ mechanism.

Related

• Ex-Muslim identity functions as a profitable career asset in the Islamophobia industry. (similarity 0.87)
• Ex-Muslim status with anti-Islam messaging is a profitable career strategy (similarity 0.87)
• Ex-Muslim ‘native informants’ profit by denouncing Islam to Western audiences (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Ex-Muslim status with anti-Islam messaging is a profitable career strategy #corroborates (0.92)