‘Religion-building’ and foreign policy

Abstract

Research on Islamophobia has, at least up to this point, predominantly focused on the rising tide of racism and discrimination effecting Muslims in Europe, North America and Australia, with limited works covering Russia, Eastern Europe and New Zealand. Published works covering these regions are extensive, increasing daily and multidisciplinary in nature, which is understandable considering the intensity of hostility including direct violence and the impact of the rising tide of bigotry and xenophobia in the Global North. Furthermore, the bibliographical entries of scholarly works on the above regions are extensive and publications are beginning to take a more specialized trajectory to address specific areas within the emerging Islamophobia Studies field. A gap, or more accurately a major blind spot, in the scholarly research, is the existence of an Islamophobic phenomena in Muslim majority states that has historical roots but is rapidly intensifying and structurally being linked to the global Islamophobia industry. Theorizing and understanding the Islamophobia phenomena in Muslim majority states is urgently needed; how it developed, what are its distinctive features and how it differs from anti-Muslim discourses manifested in the Global North. I use Talal Asad’s work on secularism to help provide an approach to understanding the distinctive nature of Islamophobia in Muslim majority countries and how it is utilized in internal political, social, economic and religious contestations.