Islamophobia requires both fear of Muslims and discriminatory intent

Evidence

A measure was categorized in the content area of Islamophobia if it included items that captured both (1) non-Muslims’ fear or perceived threat of Muslims or Islam, and (2) prejudicial attitudes and/or discriminatory actions towards Muslims or Islam. For example, the validated, multi-item measure, Islamophobia Scale (Lee et al., 2009), has been used in multiple studies (e.g., Hopkins & Shook, 2017, Lopes & Jaspal, 2015, see Table 1 for more) and included items capturing respondents’ fear of Islam (“Islam supports terrorist acts”) and discriminatory actions towards Muslims (“I would support any policy that would stop the building of new mosques [Muslim place of worship] in the U.S.”). … In comparison to the other content areas, the Islamophobia content area has the greatest number of validated measures, a total of 12 unique measures. It also includes non-validated measures (n = 12). The Islamophobia content area measures have been validated in multiple contexts including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, UK, and USA. — Ummul-Kiram Kathawalla, Fei Bi Chan, Quratulain Gulamhussein, Amy Riegelman, and Moin Syed, Conceptualization and Measurement of…, 92

Categorization

• DEFINE: The operational definition of Islamophobia used here is a compound: perceived threat plus prejudicial attitudes or discriminatory action.
• XREF: Connects to the notes on Islamophobia scholarship diverging over its core driver (fear, racism, or nationalism) and to the claim that Islamophobia resists fixed definition.
• SEED: An essay arguing that the real debate in Islamophobia research is measurement, not definition — how you operationalize the construct determines what you find.