Lewis located Muslim hostility in Islam rather than Western conduct

Evidence

After surveying the history of Islam’s tumultuous relationship with the West, Lewis turns to the question at hand: why do Muslims have so much hostility toward the West today? Lewis addresses a long inventory of possible causes of anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism: American support for Israel; American backing of unpopular regimes in the Middle East; the West’s history of sexism, racism, and imperialism. Over and over again, Lewis rejects these candidates as viable explanations for the “roots of Muslim rage.” Such hatred, he argues, cannot be explained by anything “we” in the West have done. The explanation must lie within Islam alone. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 217

Categorization

• XREF: This internal-versus-external causal move is exactly the shape of the distinction between religion-based and grievance-based explanations — where the author’s line between ‘a religion’ and ‘a people’ gets tested. — connects to: 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; Lewis attributed Muslim animosity to jealousy over Western dominance — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 218; Lewis argued Islam inherently tends toward fundamentalist violence. (+4 more)
• SEED: Angle: the argumentative move of dismissing all material grievances and locating causation in the religion itself — the rhetorical core of Islamophobic discourse.

Broader Connections

• Lewis attributed Muslim animosity to jealousy over Western dominance #corroborates (0.70) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 218
• Lewis argued Islam inherently tends toward fundamentalist violence. #expands (0.60)
• Lewis’s Orientalist framework reduces Muslims to a monolithic, irrational, enraged mass #complicates (0.60) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 220
• Bernard Lewis justified the essentialist category of Islamic terrorism #expands (0.60) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 398