European superiority over Muslim empires enabled racial notions of Muslim inferiority

Evidence

Kumar is not a Critical Race Theorist like myself, but race is central to her argument and analysis. She writes, “My key argument is that notions of race and Muslims as inferior beings could come to the fore in a context where European nations were in a position to actually challenge and eventually dominate once-powerful Muslim empires” (p. 20), evoking the modernity of Islamophobia and its roots in longstanding Crusades-era narratives (which in part inspired the title of my book). Kumar’s book is a foundational interdisciplinary academic text, steeped in her area of research, media studies. It remains the most important text on Islamophobia as a transnational project, leveraged to advance American empire, today. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1826

Categorization

• XREF: This is the Kumar thesis the reader is reading The New Crusades alongside; confirms Kumar frames Islamophobia as an imperial project for American aims. — connects to: European colonial racial practice of differentiating Islam preceded and enabled modern Islamophobia; Islam was historically perceived as a non-white and Black religion by Europeans — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 199; Crusade rhetoric racialized Muslims as a vile and accursed race. — Nasar Meer, Racialization and Religion: Race,…, 12 (+22 more)