The Wahhabi threat was a category Britain could not stop thinking even beyond evidence.

Evidence

The event that most inculcated this fear and, until 1857, served as the primary justification for it was the “Wahhabi movement.” As Hardy put it, “In thinking about Muslims after 1857, the socalled Wahhabis were for the British the great unthinkable that was always thought.” — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 76

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The alleged Wahhabi conspiracy was a British phantom conflating disparate Muslim movements. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 76; British fear of Wahhabis vastly exceeded the real threat they posed — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 141; A worldwide Muslim threat narrative came to frame British perceptions

Related

• British fear of Wahhabis vastly exceeded the real threat they posed (similarity 0.90)
• A feared Muslim conspiracy can dwarf the actual threat it purports to describe. (similarity 0.88)
• British conflated diverse Indian Muslim movements into an imagined Wahhabi conspiracy (similarity 0.85)
• The alleged Wahhabi conspiracy was a British phantom conflating disparate Muslim movements. (similarity 0.83)
• British Islamophobia was weak pre-1857 partly because Muslims posed no threat. (similarity 0.82)
• A worldwide Muslim threat narrative came to frame British perceptions (similarity 0.82)
• A minority of Americans and Britons valued Islam despite dominant fear-based publications. (similarity 0.81)
• British conspiracy fears rested on reifying Islam as a self-motivating agent (similarity 0.80)
• Both Americans and Britons held Islam a perennial menace by its proselytizing and violence (similarity 0.79)
• Americans and Britons alike viewed Islam as inherently expansionist and violent. (similarity 0.79)
• Americans feared Muslims before any meaningful Muslim presence existed in the hemisphere (similarity 0.79)
• Most Americans and Britons seemingly accepted that the inherent fanaticism of (male) Muslims produced their violent success. (similarity 0.79)
• The Muslim threat was framed as infesting Britain’s body and values (similarity 0.78)
• Islamophobia is one of several challenges British Muslims confront. (similarity 0.78)
• Reifying Islam as a unified agent underwrote conspiracy theories of a pan-Indian jihad (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• British fear of Wahhabis vastly exceeded the real threat they posed #corroborates (0.95) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 141
• A worldwide Muslim threat narrative came to frame British perceptions #expands (0.80)