Mere religiosity triggers US state suspicion apart from any political dissent

Evidence

Less dangerous, though still subject to heightened state scrutiny and public suspicions, is the Religious Racial Muslim, who is either apolitical or supports mainstream politics particularly with regard to US policy in Muslimmajority countries. Even though Muslims in this category do not challenge the political status quo, their religiosity alone prompts state scrutiny and public suspicions. Praying five times a day, fasting during Ramadan, growing a beard or wearing a hijab, socializing with other religious Muslims, attending Islamic school, and regularly attending a mosque triggers government suspicion. Just being religious makes a Muslim vulnerable to recruitment by Islamic terrorist groups, according to this racialized reasoning. The Religious Racial Muslim’s visible religious identity and lifestyle also triggers suspicions by neighbors and coworkers influenced by right-wing Islamophobic conspiracy theories of Muslims as a fifth column or Trojan horse waiting to Islamicize America from within. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 83

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘religiosity alone triggers suspicion’ claim parallels the author’s earlier work and connects to the broader literature on racialized religious profiling, e.g. the NYPD’s Muslim Surveillance Program. — connects to: A state channels domestic religious zeal outward to protect its own rule. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1904
• SEED: Essay angle: ‘the loyalty of piety’ — the paradox that devout religious observance itself is read as security risk, comparing Muslim religiosity to how other immigrant religiosities (Catholic, Orthodox Jewish) were once viewed with suspicion.
• ADDENDUM: The ‘fifth column / Trojan horse Islamicizing from within’ framing connects to the author’s earlier claims about how moral panics over religious practice map onto identity politics.