Islamophobia is best defined as indiscriminate negative attitudes toward Islam or Muslims

Evidence

In recent work (Bleich 2011), I have drawn on scholarship on concept formation (Goertz 2006) to develop a definition of Islamophobia that can be useful in social scientific analysis. I propose that Islamophobia can best be understood as indiscriminate negative attitudes or emotions directed at Islam or Muslims. Because not all criticism constitutes Islamophobia, terms like indiscriminateor cognates like undifferentiated or un-nuancedcover instances where negative assessments are applied to all or most Muslims or aspects of Islam. — Erik Bleich, Defining and Researching Islamophobia, 35

Categorization

• DEFINE: Supplies the operative definition of Islamophobia and the key qualifier ‘indiscriminate’ that separates criticism from prejudice.
• XREF: Parallels the reader’s interest in homophobia/xenophobia as structurally similar ‘-phobia’ concepts that describe attitudes toward group membership rather than ideas.