Media mentions of Wahhabism surged only after September 2001, reviving 19th-century polemic.

Evidence

According to M. Reza Pirbhai, Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University, notions of a “Wahhabi conspiracy” against the West have in recent times resurfaced in various sections of the Western media; employing the term as a catch-all phrase to frame an official narrative that erases the concerns of broad and disparate disenchanted groups pursuing redress for local discontentment caused by neo-colonialism. … Between 1931 and 2007, The New York Times published eighty-six articles that mentioned the word “Wahhabism”, out of which six articles had appeared before September 2001, while the rest were published since. … By the 2000s, the 19th century terminology of “Wahhabism” had resurfaced, reprising its role as the ” ‘fanatical’ and ‘despotic’ antithesis of a civilized world. — Wikipedia contributors, Wahhabism, 170

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the disciplined ‘obsession’ framing in The New Crusades and the Othering-as-monster argument in Muslims in the Western Imagination.