Racial homogeneity assumptions enabled sweeping claims about the ‘Muslim mind’

Evidence

Starting from this idea that Muslims are a race, Orientalists claimed to be able to explain the “Muslim mind” or the “Arab mind.” Because race-based theories assume that the members of a race are all alike, scholars within this tradition could make sweeping generalizations about how Muslims think and behave. Most of all, the “Muslim mind” was disparaged; as the British poet Rudyard Kipling wrote, “You’ll never plumb the Oriental mind. And even if you do, it won’t be worth the toil.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 126

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Orientalist scholarship conflates Muslims and Jews into one racial type; The monolithic Islamic mind is a projection, not a reality; Orientalist dissenters defended Islam’s internal diversity against essentializing stereotypes (+13 more)

Broader Connections

• Religious identity racializes Arab and South Asian Muslims along shared lines #expands (0.70)
• Cultural practices become racialized when they are essentialized as innate to Muslims #expands (0.65) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 274
• Islamophobia and racial prejudice are entangled in distinct ways across Western contexts #expands (0.60) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 64
• Islamophobia is increasingly theorized as a form of racism rather than mere religious prejudice #expands (0.60)
• Muslim men can be racialized by ethnicity alone, not only by disclosed religion #expands (0.55)