# Islamophobia Islamophobia refers to prejudice, hostility, and discrimination directed at Muslims and those perceived as Muslim. While anti-Muslim sentiment has deep historical roots, the modern Islamophobia industry in the United States accelerated dramatically after 9/11 and the launch of the [[War on Terror]], which provided both the political cover and the institutional infrastructure for mainstreaming anti-Muslim bias. A well-documented network of think tanks, media figures, and donors has spent billions promoting [[Propaganda]] that frames Islam as inherently violent and incompatible with Western values. This narrative feeds directly into the [[Great Replacement Theory]] and has been cited in the manifestos of mass shooters targeting Muslim communities. Islamophobia also serves as a gateway to broader [[Nationalism]] and [[White Nationalism]], functioning as an acceptable entry point for more extreme ideological commitments. ## The industry and its architecture The vault treats American Islamophobia as an *organized* phenomenon with a documented supply chain rather than a diffuse prejudice. The counter-jihad network of the 2000s — Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, David Yerushalmi's model legislation — produced the [[Anti-Sharia Movement]]'s 201 bills in 43 states, the 2010 "Ground Zero mosque" campaign, and the first-term travel ban; the [[Islam Timeline]] carries the chronology from 1990 to 2026 and the [[Airport Protests 2017]] page the ban's reception. Its intellectual scaffolding is [[Orientalism]] as Edward Said defined it — the Muslim world as a single, static, threatening object — repurposed for a domestic audience; its European form runs through [[Laïcité]] in France and the [[Algerian War]]'s afterlife, and its transnational one through the [[Great Replacement Theory]], which the [[Christchurch Mosque Shootings]] manifesto made lethal. The terms it deploys — [[Jihad]], [[Sharia]], [[Caliphate]], [[Wahhabism]] — are handled on their own pages precisely so that the concept and the propaganda use of the concept can be told apart; the [[Islamic Golden Age]] and [[Sunni Islam]] entries are the counter-context. [[Religions and Right-Wing Politics]] places all of this in the vault's larger map of religion as a political resource. ## See also (added 2026-08-16) - [[Anti-Sharia Movement]] — the legislative program: 201 bills, 43 states, and its author's on-the-record statement that the purpose was "heuristic" - [[Islam Timeline]] — the parallel-track chronology of the American counter-jihad industry, 1990–2026 - [[Orientalism]] — the representational frame the industry operationalizes - [[Sharia]] · [[Jihad]] · [[Caliphate]] — the three terms it most relies on being misunderstood - [[Al-Qaeda]] · [[Taliban]] — the organizations, as organizations rather than as expressions of a religion ## See also (added 2026-09-12) - [[Islamism]] — the political ideology this page's subject is built on conflating with the religion - [[Eurabia]] — the counter-jihad movement's founding conspiracy theory, and the ancestor of [[Great Replacement Theory]] - [[Entryism]] — the mechanism at issue in the European debate, and the one the counter-jihad network itself practises