Muslims were constituted as an inferior race via the figure of Homo islamicus.

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Kumar is not a Critical Race Theorist like myself, but race is central to her argument and analysis. She writes, “My key argument is that notions of race and Muslims as inferior beings could come to the fore in a context where European nations were in a position to actually challenge and eventually dominate once-powerful Muslim empires” (p. 20), evoking the modernity of Islamophobia and its roots in longstanding Crusades-era narratives (which in part inspired the title of my book). Kumar’s book is a foundational interdisciplinary academic text, steeped in her area of research, media studies. It remains the most important text on Islamophobia as a transnational project, leveraged to advance American empire, today. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1826 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Islamic tenets, regardless of whether practiced or believed in fact, impute to Muslims inherent cultural traits that operate biologically to make them inferior in a White Judeo-Christian supremacist society. For example, believing in (nonviolent) jihad, polygamy, Sharia, hijab, fasting, hajj, and the Prophet Muhammad is associated with a Muslim’s purported innate sense of despotism, savagery, and illiberalism. For both religious conservatives and secular liberal elites, these religious beliefs and practices cast Muslims as outsiders to American national identity; more specifically, it casts Muslims as suspected terrorists. A purported “Muslim culture” is taken as fixed, deterministic, and essentialist such that Islamophobia collapses into scientific racism. A Muslim woman’s covering of her hair and body confirms Americans’ beliefs that Islam is misogynistic, which then prompts calls to “save Muslim women” by means of imperial projects. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 131 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: European superiority over Muslim empires enabled racial notions of Muslim inferiority — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1826; Religious beliefs are read as biological traits marking Muslims as racially inferior — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 131; Medieval theologians constructed Muslims as a degraded race descending from the slave Hagar (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• European superiority over Muslim empires enabled racial notions of Muslim inferiority #corroborates (0.90) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1826
• Orientalism converted Muslim identity from a religion into a race. #corroborates (0.90) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 161
• Religious beliefs are read as biological traits marking Muslims as racially inferior #expands (0.85) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 131
• Islam comes to function as a race through racecraft that erases internal ethnic differences #expands (0.85) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 516
• Islam is ideologically expelled from religion itself in its racialization #expands (0.80) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 872
• Islamophobia operates through imputed inferior traits rooted in religious identity #expands (0.80) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 135
• Medieval polemicists fabricated Muslim inferiority to justify Christian superiority claims. #corroborates (0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1252
• Muslims were racialized through cultural signifiers rather than phenotype alone #expands (0.80) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 106
• Islamic religious practice itself is read as proof of Muslim inferiority #exemplifies (0.80)
• Claims about religious disloyalty became claims of racial inferiority #exemplifies (0.80) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 323
• Crusade rhetoric racialized Muslims as a vile and accursed race. #exemplifies (0.75) — Nasar Meer, Racialization and Religion, 12
• Medieval theologians constructed Muslims as a degraded race descending from the slave Hagar #exemplifies (0.70)
• The racist creates the inferiority of the colonized. #expands (0.70)