Politicizing religion functions as assimilation as well as exclusion

Evidence

Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are both unique and similar. A yin and a yang. They are analogous in that they are both projects of majority exclusion, religious stigmatization, and racialized scrutiny by right-wing ultranationalist politicians, organized neo-Nazi hate groups, and conservative media outlets. — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 482 (#expands, via linked claim)

It followed from this that Islam, as defined by its classical texts, was the key lens through which Muslim-majority societies could be understood. If women were oppressed it was because of the teachings of the Koran; if Muslims supposedly lacked an entrepreneurial spirit it was due to “Islamic tradition”; if modernization was rejected, again the Koran was to blame. In short, a whole host of characteristics associated with the West but allegedly absent from the “Muslim world” could be explained by recourse to religious texts and the mentalities they supposedly created. In this book, the term “Muslim world” has been put in quotation marks precisely to challenge the notion that Islam is the single most important factor in defining the people who live in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere, or that there is a single undifferentiated entity called the “Muslim world.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 123 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Citizenship laws made assimilation a virtual act of apostasy for Algerian Muslims; Nation-state formation reframed religious conversion as a demographic-political question.; Sanatan dharma serves politically as a tool of religious assimilation and domination — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 160 (+12 more)

Related

• Attributing every social characteristic to religious texts erases contextual factors (similarity 0.85)
• Philological analysis of key texts established Muslims as static subspecies (similarity 0.83)
• Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are parallel projects of majority exclusion (similarity 0.82)
• Political Islam parallels other modern fundamentalisms rather than stemming from Islam’s essence (similarity 0.82)
• Islamophobia is increasingly theorized as a form of racism rather than mere religious prejudice (similarity 0.82)
• Islamophobia is political rather than religious and must be fought politically (similarity 0.82)
• Entrepreneurship correlates with conversion away from traditional religion (similarity 0.81)
• Islamophobia stems from nationalism’s ambiguities rather than fear of Islam (similarity 0.81)
• Singling out Islam for sexism serves a civilizational contrast narrative rather than fact. (similarity 0.81)
• Political Islam is a contemporary construct, not a natural outgrowth of Muslim societies. (similarity 0.81)
• A religion’s violence depends on context, not inherent character (similarity 0.81)
• Political-religious fusion is neither unique to Islam nor proof of anti-modernity. (similarity 0.80)
• Religion is one factor among many, not the defining one, in Muslim-majority societies (similarity 0.80)
• Treating Islam as monolithic enables claims that it is inherently anti-democratic and violent (similarity 0.80)
• Muslims cannot assimilate into a polity defined against Islam itself (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are parallel projects of majority exclusion #expands (0.70) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 482
• Attributing every social characteristic to religious texts erases contextual factors #complicates (0.60) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 123