Medieval theologians constructed Muslims as a degraded race descending from the slave Hagar

Evidence

Critical race theorists call this process “racialization,” and contend that “races are not biologically differentiated groupings but rather social constructions.” Races, and racial categories, therefore, are fluid and dynamic constructs that are shaped and reshaped in line with political, economic, and cultural interests. In line with this process of racialization, Orientalism (re)made “Muslim” into a race. This conversion of Muslim identity from a religion into a race changed a diverse population represented in every corner of the globe to the narrow form of the Arab, or as stated by Islamophobia scholar Erik Love, anybody “who looks Middle Eastern.” — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 161 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: European slavery predated Islam and was already heavily rationalized; Islamic societies originated modern racial stratification and racialized slavery; Crusaders justified conquest by recasting Muslims as pagan Roman idolaters — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 125 (+18 more)

Related

• Muslims were constituted as an inferior race via the figure of Homo islamicus. (similarity 0.90)
• Orientalism converted Muslim identity from a religion into a race. (similarity 0.86)
• Islam’s racialization dates to American slavery, not modern immigration debates (similarity 0.84)
• Converts to Christianity became human while Muslims were literally a lump. (similarity 0.84)
• Orientalist scholarship conflates Muslims and Jews into one racial type (similarity 0.84)
• Theology racialized Muslims as degenerate descendants of the slave Hagar (similarity 0.83)
• Islam functions as a full race in American and European hierarchies (similarity 0.83)
• Islam comes to function as a race through racecraft that erases internal ethnic differences (similarity 0.83)
• Muslims move down the racial hierarchy rather than becoming a new race (similarity 0.83)
• Islamophobia has coalesced Muslims into a distinct racial group and Islam into a race. (similarity 0.82)
• Islamic culture seemed monolithically tyrannical to Southey (similarity 0.82)
• Islam was historically perceived as a non-white and Black religion by Europeans (similarity 0.82)
• Crusade rhetoric racialized Muslims as a vile and accursed race. (similarity 0.82)
• Islam itself constitutes a race produced by Islamophobic racecraft. (similarity 0.82)
• Islam has become a race despite scholars’ hesitation to name it so (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Muslims move down the racial hierarchy rather than becoming a new race #expands (0.70)
• Orientalism converted Muslim identity from a religion into a race. #expands (0.70) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 161
• Medieval writers represented Jewish and Muslim bodies as jointly diseased and degenerate #corroborates (0.60)
• Blackness itself, not monstrosity, signified Muslim evil in medieval imagery #complicates (0.60) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 201
• Medieval female Muslim monsters fused misogyny and racism #expands (0.60) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 189
• Jews and Muslims shared a canine monstrous identity in medieval literature #corroborates (0.55) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 226
• Medieval Christians used Islam’s marital norms to claim moral superiority #corroborates (0.50) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 67
• Medieval Christians classed non-Egyptian Africans with Saracens as monstrous races #expands (0.50)
• Tens of thousands of colonial slaves were Muslims #exemplifies (0.35)