The Crusades were tied to enduring European xenophobia rooted in Greek thought

Evidence

This myth has a long history. As we saw in chapter 1, its origins go back to the eleventh century and the start of the Crusades. One contemporary echo can be found in a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005. This cartoon featured the Prophet with a bomb on his turban, implying that Islam came into being with violence at its core. Muslims around the world protested angrily, but thanks to the actions of a small number of Islamists, the protests were interpreted in the West not as legitimate offense against an ancient slur but as a dogmatic response to the publishing of an image of the Prophet. Liberal columnists endorsed this position, defending the cartoonists on the grounds of free speech, and many US newspapers carried the cartoon on the same grounds, without recognizing or acknowledging that the cartoon itself endorsed the myth of an inherently violent Islam. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 193 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Egyptian thought seeded Greek intellectual and scientific development — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 437; Historical memory of the Crusades drives Europeans’ anti-Muslim votes and stares; European Islamophobia frames Muslim migration as soldiers in a renewed crusade. (+15 more)

Related

• Historical memory of the Crusades drives Europeans’ anti-Muslim votes and stares (similarity 0.91)
• European Islamophobia frames Muslim migration as soldiers in a renewed crusade. (similarity 0.84)
• The violence-of-Islam myth traces to the Crusades and shapes coverage of the Danish cartoons. (similarity 0.83)
• Crusades imagery actively shapes European Islamophobia more powerfully than in America (similarity 0.83)
• The Crusades were less coherent religious triumph than convenient enemy-making (similarity 0.82)
• Many historians trace the structural distortions of Islam represented by modern Islamophobia to medieval Europe, and aversive portrayals emerged nearly as early as Islam itself. (similarity 0.81)
• Direct exposure during the Crusades did not reduce anti-Muslim mythmaking (similarity 0.81)
• The Eurabia conspiracy theory migrated from Europe into US Islamophobia (similarity 0.80)
• European travelogues about the Middle East resembled Crusade-era mythic returns (similarity 0.80)
• European Islamophobia is deeper and more institutionally embedded than America’s. (similarity 0.80)
• Islam became the convenient enemy to mobilize Europe’s territorial ambitions (similarity 0.80)
• The Crusades used religion to mask social and economic conflicts (similarity 0.80)
• Crusades-era xenophobia descended from ancient Greek intolerance of barbarians (similarity 0.79)
• Europeans once considered the Ottomans ethnically European (similarity 0.79)
• Islam has been framed by passion, prejudice, and political interests since the Middle Ages (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Historical memory of the Crusades drives Europeans’ anti-Muslim votes and stares #exemplifies (0.60)
• European Islamophobia frames Muslim migration as soldiers in a renewed crusade. #exemplifies (0.55)
• The violence-of-Islam myth traces to the Crusades and shapes coverage of the Danish cartoons. #exemplifies (0.55) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 193
• A shared dehumanizing logic links War on Terror crusades across hemispheres #expands (0.50)
• Europeans project their repressed evil onto the racialized Other #expands (0.50)
• The Crusades used religion to mask social and economic conflicts #complicates (0.50) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 61
• Islamophobia stems from nationalism’s ambiguities rather than fear of Islam #complicates (0.50)
• Islamophobia rests on a false notion of European ethnic purity #expands (0.50) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 731
• Islam became the convenient enemy to mobilize Europe’s territorial ambitions #corroborates (0.50) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 60
• Racism is a structural feature of European civilization, not the exception of colonial adventurers #expands (0.50) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 338
• Islamophobia has material and political causes beyond ignorance or xenophobia #complicates (0.50) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 706
• Medieval depictions of Islam as heresy served to justify violence and resist conversion #expands (0.50) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 139
• A colonized intellectual living in Europe acquires Europe’s racist unconscious #expands (0.45)
• Aristotle is the last Greek philosopher to face the world cheerfully #exemplifies (0.30) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 957