The image of Muslims shifted with military threat, not with religion per se

Evidence

When Europe, spiritually united under the leadership of the Vatican, began to fracture along national lines, the focus shifted away from the Muslim enemy. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries therefore saw a turn away from polemic toward indifference—until the Ottoman Empire began to advance into Europe in the early sixteenth century, heralding a new threat. This time, however, the enemy was seen as a secular and political threat rather than a religious one. The Ottomans were presented as Europeans of sorts and admired for their many accomplishments; European rulers forged alliances with them against other European rivals. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 95

Categorization

• XREF: Supports the anti-Huntington point: geopolitical interest, not civilizational clash, drives enmity or alliance. — connects to: Post-war Middle East events made violence central to US Muslim depictions — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 521; Muslim dog-men outnumbered Jewish ones because Islam posed a military threat; Diminished Muslim threat let British observers admire Mughal culture despite Orientalist negative stereotypes. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 52 (+19 more)

Broader Connections

• State-perpetuated fear racializes Muslim bodies as terrorist enemies #corroborates (0.82)
• Muslim bodies are treated as potential terrorists until proven otherwise #corroborates (0.80) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 282
• Islamophobic tropes become real violence through perceived enemy images #corroborates (0.75)
• Media frames Muslim terrorists as religion-driven simpletons while psychologizing non-Muslim perpetrators #corroborates (0.60) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 506
• Four interconnected groups jointly project the Muslim-enemy image #expands (0.55) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 537
• Orientalism supplied the pre-existing tropes that the War on Terror redeployed against Muslims #contradicts (0.55)