Islamist groups arise from local conditions, not from anti-American plots

Evidence

September 11, however, precipitated unanimous agreement in the foreign policy establishment that the War on Terror would henceforth frame US foreign policy. Barely had the ashes settled from the Twin Towers when loud proclamations that “Islamic terrorists” represented existential threats to the United States began to echo in the public sphere. From then on, US policy was geared toward “keeping Americans safe” from Muslim “evildoers.” These claims fly in the face of reality, as the previous chapter outlined, since Islamist organizations typically emerge from local conditions and are focused on those conditions. What then lies behind this Islamophobic rhetoric? The agenda behind this focus on the “Islamic threat” is the subject of this chapter. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 376

To even use a singular term such as “Islamism” to categorize various Sunni and Shi’a groups that span the globe runs the risk of homogenization. Political scientist Khalil al-Anani refers to this homogenizing tendency as the “ISISification” of Islamist politics, where the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, or we might say al-Qaeda before that) becomes the face of political Islam. In reality, Islamist groups emerge from particular national and regional contexts and are influenced and shaped by these historical conditions; by no means can they be understood to be identical to one another. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 391

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the concept of ‘ISISification’ as the homogenizing tendency where ISIS becomes the face of all political Islam.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 376; Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 391
• XREF: connects to: American mosques deter extremism rather than breed it — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 582; Foreign terrorism kills vanishingly few Americans relative to other risks; US imperial interests, not Islamist actions, determine Islamist ally or enemy status — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 278 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Islamic militancy emerges from politics and only converges with religion #corroborates (0.80)
• Clash of civilizations framing located terrorism’s cause within Islam itself #contradicts (0.65) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 266
• Islamic religious piety inversely correlates with attraction to violent extremist groups. #corroborates (0.60) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 476