Capital, not religious ideology, drives Islamophobia’s political deployment.

Evidence

Islamophobia has remained a stable and potent rallying call for right-wing nationalists and is liable to be deployed with cynicism by elites when the need arises. Its utility survives shifts of emphasis within capitalism from nationalist to globalizing phases and back again. … As Amin says, “It is not the fundamentalist ideology with religious pretensions that is in the driver’s seat and imposes its logic on the real holders of power, i.e., capital and its servants in the state. It is capital alone that makes all the decisions that suit it, and then mobilizes this ideology to its service.” It is up to us whether literature stands in thrall to this ideology or uses its interrogative power to challenge the ideology. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 59

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the materialist/uprising framework in the reader’s broader interest in how ideology serves capital; ties to the Morey thesis that literature can contest or reinforce the frame rather than just illustrate it.
• DEFINE: Defines the book’s core analytic bet: that Islamophobia is a framing ideology in service of capital, and that literature’s task is to interrogate rather than accede to the frame.