Ex-Muslim autobiographical critiques recycle Orientalist tropes to advance conservative agendas

Evidence

In the group that “Fear Inc.” has described as validators of Islamophobic discourse, one can find, depending on the definition, a rather long list of names. Men and women who are either laying claim to their Muslim identity and thus speak on behalf and/ or against fellow Muslims, as well as a number of former Muslims who have renounced their affiliation with Islam but claim intimate knowledge of the religion, its practices, and its cultures. Much has been written about the politics of these “critical Muslims” including Irshad Manji, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Azar Nafisi, Nonie Darwish, and others. Saba Mahmood has argued that the “autobiographical genre attesting to Islam’s patriarchal ills … is significant not only for its extensive reliance on the most exhausted and pernicious Orientalist tropes … but also for its unabashed promotion of the right-wing conservative agenda now sweeping Europe and America, particularly in regard to Islam.” — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 557

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the category of ‘critical Muslims’/‘ex-Muslim validators’ whose ex-Muslim status lends authenticity to Islamophobic claims.
• SEED: The ‘authenticity arbitrage’ of ex-Muslim apostates lending insider credibility to Islamophobic discourse is an essay angle.