The race science of the Semites masked a theological construct.

Evidence

In the eighteenth century and nineteenth century, the story of the race concept followed a path toward secularization through the emergence of scientific racism and, subsequently, eugenicist philosophy that was shored up in the ideology of white supremacy throughout Europe and the Americas. Racism in its modern, Enlightenment form privileged biological di√erence as natural di√erence without including religion, which was seen as a discrete form of prejudice and persecution. Hence, the modern form of racism displaced religion and, consequently, Islamophobia as racism. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 156 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The force of race begins to take hold among Europeans as the social hold of religion shifts in face of increasing individualization and the emerging power of scientific rationality, epistemological auto-foundationalism, and the grounds of moral self-generation. Race assumes increasing social hegemony as monogenism gives way initially to speculations around polygenesis, differentiated origins, and species proliferation from the later sixteenth century on, then to elaborations of evolution and eugenicism in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The thick resonances of the theological are evident in the underlying referent points of both monogenism (Adam as the source of all humanity, differentiation thus the effects of environmental determination) and polygenism (there are human beings whose origins predate Adam, which accounts for their more animal-like characteristics). Over time, race comes to generate a secularized theology and a civic religion, underpinned initially by appeals to God’s dictum but increasingly resorting to claims to scientific validation. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1345 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Anti-imperial and antisemitic ideology fused Semites with desert nomadism; Modern scientific racism displaced religion from the race concept. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in…, 156; Race became a secular theology as scientific authority replaced religious justification — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1345 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Modern scientific racism displaced religion from the race concept. #complicates (0.75) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 156
• Race became a secular theology as scientific authority replaced religious justification #complicates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1345