Pandemic-era Islamophobia sustained and extended preexisting anti-Muslim campaigns

Evidence

An absurd world birthed absurd tales, particularly in relation to a crusade against Muslims that no pandemic or plague could quarantine. I learned from the voices of Muslims already confined by an Islamophobia that preceded, and will outlast, this or any pandemic. They spoke and I listened. They painted portraits with colors so vivid that they changed my outlook on matters I believed I knew well. They shared stories and sentiments that seeped into the pages of this book, and even more deeply, into the diary in my mind. They changed me, profoundly and permanently. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 159