Criticizing the Iranian regime can mask an attack on Islam in general

Evidence

Although the book seems at first glance to be a targeted indictment of the instrumentalization of religion by the Islamic Republic, in fact it attacks Islam as a whole for legitimizing oppression. There is no clear view of whether politically ambitious clerics have hijacked the religion or whether the religion itself is a tool historically shaped for use by aggressors—although the latter is implied by Nafisi’s wholesale dismissal of Islam in all its manifestations. Nowhere does Islam feature as a spiritually fulfilling site of comfort, only occasionally as a desperate security blanket resorted to by those seeking protection against social suspicion on the one hand and the unnerving challenges of real autonomy on the other. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 227

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates the analytic move of distinguishing targeted indictment of a regime from wholesale dismissal of a religion.
• XREF: Directly relevant tool for the reader’s hinge between Morey’s contesting-vs-reinforcing distinction and Naqvi’s and Hamid’s treatment of Islam vs. Islamism.