Modern racism required first defeating rival Muslim empires

Evidence

I argue that anti–Muslim racism and Islamophobia are central to the narrative of modern nations—and to modernity itself—because they emerged in the contact between the Old World and the New World. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 104 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The genealogy of the race concept that I trace thus began in the newly formed empire of Catholic Spain in the fifteenth century and sixteenth century and imagined its civilizational others in relation to the Muslim Moor and the indigenous people of the New World. As Nabil Matar (1999) and Anouar Majid (2004, 2009) have persuasively argued, this early recognition of religious di√erence dominated Spanish, and European, identity and may have provided philosophical and intellectual antecedents to the Enlightenment and its humanistic approach. In early Enlightenment philosophical thought, Islam was at the border, and at the margin, of the European imagination of the human subject (Majid 2004). This prototypical racism, which imagined itself as the antithesis of Islam and Muslims, shifted conversations about modernity and its provincialisms; it also created an important framework for thinking through contemporary racism, as well as the basis and existence of anti–Muslim racism. As imperial renewal was taking place in the Reconquista (Reconquest), clear ideas of race were being formed. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 157 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Race-conscious advocacy operates on the premise that the same root causes produce different forms of subordination of racial minorities, including the Racial Muslim. Its proponents understand that one cannot effectively combat anti-Muslim racism without also tackling anti-Black and anti-Latinx racism. Nor can one meaningfully challenge systems of oppression without including all groups harmed by such systems, albeit in different ways. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 1047 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Modern racism against Muslims required European military supremacy over Muslim empires — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 82; Pre-modern anti-Muslim prejudice laid racial groundwork without full racial ideology; Orientalist racial hierarchy of Muslims required European military superiority to arise — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 122 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Anti-Muslim racism emerged from Old World-New World contact #complicates (0.95) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 104
• Anti-Muslim racism predates and informs the modern race concept. #complicates (0.90) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 157
• Combating anti-Muslim racism requires also fighting anti-Black and anti-Latinx racism #complicates (0.85) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 1047
• Anti-Muslim racism remains entrenched despite Muslim inclusion in imperial systems #complicates (0.80)
• Anti-Muslim racism is a normal tool of empire, not crisis response #complicates (0.80)