Hostility today targets Muslims as a people, not Islam as a faith.

Evidence

It also misses the point about what it is that is being attacked: ‘Islam’ as a religion was the enemy in the past: in the crusades or the reconquista . It is not the enemy now: Islam is not threatening to win large segments of western European society to its faith, as Communism did, nor is the polemic, in press, media or political statement, against the Islamic faith. There are no books coming out questioning the claims of Muhammad or the Koran. The attack now is against not Islam as a faith but Muslims as a people, the latter grouping together all, especially immigrants, who might be covered by the term. Equally, the ‘Islamophobic’ attack is against states which may be among the most secular in the world, as Saddam Hussein’s is. If we take the study as one of negative stereotyping, of what in German is called the Feindbild, the enemy image, then the enemy is not a faith or a culture, but a people. Hence the more accurate term is not ‘Islamophobia’ but ‘anti-Muslimism’. — Fred Halliday, ‘Islamophobia’ Reconsidered, 48

For Halliday, the report’s use of ‘Islam’ as a marker ensures that it is little more than a unitary object, something of a relative abstraction. The importance of differentiating between ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islamic’ has previously been discussed, but when a model is established that suggests that the ‘closed views’ are against ‘Islam’ as opposed ‘Muslims’, only two conclusions can be drawn. The first is that the dynamics of the phenomenon are against the actual religion of Islam, where it is the religion that is hated, feared, disliked and so on; the second being that if the model assumes a shared identity of all Muslims without differentiation behind a homogenising marker of ‘Islam’, so the diversity of Muslims and their respective communities is reduced to a single abstraction that is neither representative nor real. If the first is to be assumed, then questions must be asked about the validity of both the terminology and model because as Halliday suggests, whilst historically it is has been Islam that has been the focus for hostility and conflict, in the contemporary setting that focus has shifted much more towards a phenomenon against Muslims. This would appear true where despite Islam remaining misunderstood in the current climate, it is the proximity and closeness of Muslims – real people in real environments – that are much more the focus of today’s hostility. As Islam is therefore no longer the primary focus, it is therefore questionable as to how applicable and relevant the neologism of Islamophobia is. Consequently, Halliday’s preferred terminology appears to be ‘anti-Muslimism’. — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 394

Categorization

• DEFINE: Halliday’s central terminological argument: ‘anti-Muslimism’ over ‘Islamophobia’ rests on the shift from attacking the faith to attacking a people.
• XREF: This is the Halliday position in the book’s contested definitional debate, set against Bleich’s social-scientific concept-formation and the Runnymede 2017 racialization turn. — connects to: Retaining the term Islamophobia centers hostility on Islam itself. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 615; Focusing only on Muslims cannot redress hostility directed at Islam itself — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us…, 637; Halliday argues modern hostility targets Muslims as a people, not Islam as a faith. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 87 (+8 more)
• QUESTION: Is the claim that no one questions Muhammad or the Koran empirically dated? The post-9/11 Sam Harris/Hitchens era clearly did polemicize against the faith itself.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Fred Halliday, ‘Islamophobia’ Reconsidered, 48; Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 394

Related

• Halliday argues the contemporary phenomenon targets Muslims as people, not Islam as faith (similarity 0.91)
• Halliday argues modern hostility targets Muslims as a people, not Islam as a faith. (similarity 0.90)
• Anti-Muslim rhetoric still targets Islam as a religion, not just its adherents. (similarity 0.88)
• Focusing only on Muslims cannot redress hostility directed at Islam itself (similarity 0.87)
• Casting hostility to Muslims as perennial misattributes contemporary causes to religion. (similarity 0.86)
• Muslims suffer hostility for perceived identity beyond any voluntary religious choice. (similarity 0.84)
• Halliday rejects the report’s claim that history explains contemporary anti-Muslim sentiment (similarity 0.83)
• Muslim identity is real but never the sole or primary form of social self-understanding. (similarity 0.83)
• Muslim identity cannot be reduced to religion alone (similarity 0.83)
• Islamophobia may target Islamic doctrine and Muslims separately or together (similarity 0.82)
• Islamophobia need not rest on false beliefs about Islam or Muslims. (similarity 0.82)
• Fred Halliday — ‘Islamophobia’ Reconsidered (similarity 0.81)
• Anti-Muslim polemics function to define their authors’ identity rather than describe Islam. (similarity 0.80)
• Retaining the term Islamophobia centers hostility on Islam itself. (similarity 0.80)
• Islamophobia is an ideology sustaining negative meaning about Muslims. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Halliday argues modern hostility targets Muslims as a people, not Islam as a faith. #corroborates (1.00) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 87
• Halliday argues the contemporary phenomenon targets Muslims as people, not Islam as faith #corroborates (1.00) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 684
• Anti-Muslim rhetoric still targets Islam as a religion, not just its adherents. #contradicts (0.95) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 89
• Muslims suffer hostility for perceived identity beyond any voluntary religious choice. #expands (0.85) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 96
• Muslim identity functions as a civic marker rather than mere religious belief. #expands (0.82) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 469
• Islamophobia need not rest on false beliefs about Islam or Muslims. #expands (0.80) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 826
• Being negative toward either Islam or Muslims counts under family resemblance. #qualifies (0.75) — Erik Bleich, What Is Islamophobia and How Much Is…, 83
• Casting hostility to Muslims as perennial misattributes contemporary causes to religion. #qualifies (0.72) — Fred Halliday, ‘Islamophobia’ Reconsidered, 48
• The image of Muslims shifted with military threat, not with religion per se #expands (0.72) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 95