Reproducing Fear: Islamophobia in the United States

Abstract

Islamophobia in the twenty-first-century United States is of recent vintage, and yet hearkens back to debates predating the emergence of the United States herself. Contemporary discourses that express and encourage anti-Muslim sentiments echo and reproduce aspects of a far older discursive tradition about Islam. This chapter examines ways in which contemporary discourses draw from, and depend upon, historical precedents. It explores how America’s Founding Fathers invoked Islam as they sought to define the institutional character of their fledging nation. Islam served as a multivalent trope that could be invoked in favour of both the permitting and prohibiting of religious tests, and for establishing or disestablishing religion. It also appeared in the emergence of Oriental spy literature produced as part of a desire to galvanise citizens in support of a common vision of both America’s national identity and its projected global mission. Understanding how Islam functioned in the nation’s early debates provides insight not only into the rhetorical precedents of current anti-Muslim stereotypes, but also the mechanisms through which anti-Islamic narratives are perpetuated. This chapter adopts a historical approach in order to develop a deeper understanding of how, and in what forms, the fear of Muslims has manifested itself within the United States.