Islamophobic depictions chiefly served domestic critiques unrelated to Islam.

Evidence

These two early examples demonstrate three significant dimensions of Anglo-American Islamophobia that would be rehearsed repeatedly over succeeding centuries. First, depictions of Muslims— and of the final Islamic prophet in particular—often served as a foil serving social critiques of British and American domestic issues entirely unconnected to Islam. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 106

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s guiding question: fear of ‘them’ functions to police ‘us’. Muslims become a screen for the fearer’s own domestic anxieties.