.... The term can certainly be misused in that way but the essence of Islamophobia is fear, hostility and rejection directed against Muslims as people. Intentionally or not, denying the reality of Islamophobia helps to legitimise prejudice and discrimination.
Phillips, however, adopts a meme that is especially popular among the American far right and claims the concept of Islamophobia "was invented by the Muslim Brotherhood to mimic antisemitism".
.... In fact, the word “Islamophobia” been around for more than a century. Its first recorded use was in French – as islamophobie – in 1910. It appeared in a book, La politique musulmane dans l’Afrique Occidentale Française by Alain Quellien, describing the attitude of French colonial administrators towards the culture of the countries they were governing.
According to Robin Richardson, in a brief history of the word, it appears to have been first used in English in 1985 by Edward Said who linked it to antisemitism, saying that “hostility to Islam in the modern Christian west has historically gone hand in hand” with antisemitism and “has stemmed from the same source and been nourished at the same stream”. [al-bab.com] Read more
