Strategies to Understand Islamophobia on the Basis of Orientalism

Islamophobia is said to be an ‘unfounded hostility towards Islam and Muslims’. It is our contention that we need to rethink this definition, and see Islamophobia not as an ‘unfounded hostility’, but a hostility for which some reasons may exist. It is important to acknowledge that Islamophobia attitudes are rooted in a complex socio-political ideology. In order to understand Islamophobia, one should be familiar with classical texts and contemporary works related to explanatory frameworks such as Clash of Civilizations and Orientalism. In this article, Orientalism (especially Edward Said’s critical approach) as one of the most important conceptual frameworks will be discussed in detail. First, we review the history and definitions of Orientalism, its political functions and interaction between Islam and Orientalists during the past three centuries. After that, the main hypothesis of this article is examined: the concept of Islamophobia draws extensively on Orientalist cultural stereotypes; stereotypes that depict the Orient as “backward, crude, aberrant, irrational, invariable, fanatic, evil, militant, extremist, terrorist, feminine and sexually corrupt”. Overall, this article claims that Orientalism provides a classical framework in understanding relationships between the ‘West’ (and the ‘Rest’) and Muslims in particular.