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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Tzaeru (talk | contribs) at 10:39, 10 April 2015 (→‎Prejudice/fear/hatred vs opposition in the context of "anti-Islamic sentiment"). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Racism

Islam is not an ethnic group.

Wikipedia must take a neutral and scientific stance. It is impossible to be racist to Muslims based on Islamophobia alone because Islam is not an ethnic group. There is no genetic code for Islam.

There is a political motive in falsely associating a religion with a racial group and Wikipedia should not associate with the racism of associating a race with a religion.

If Islamophobia is racist then Islam represents an ethnic group or a racial group. To associate a religion with an ethnic/racial group is racism, therefore to falsely assume that 'islamophobia is racism' is racism. Wikipedia should not include any blatant racism.

User:AndyTheGrump: For the purposes of ensuring that the article "makes it clear that some sources" consider Islamophobia racism, is this opening better?

Islamophobia is a term for prejudice against, hatred towards, or fear of Muslims. While the term is widely recognized and used, both the term and the underlying concept have been criticized.

Some scholars have defined it as a type of racism, but this has been contested. Some commentators charge that the concept of "Islamophobia" has been used to dismiss any criticism of Islam, including its radical variants, by equating it with prejudice and racism.


Reference is made to it's definition as a form of racism once, rather than twice, which reflects the extent to which this view is held. Hayek79 (talk) 11:39, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It violates "neutrality" by providing parity between mainstream views of Islamophobia and opponents of the concept. While the term Islamophobia can be misused, the wording suggests that it is typically misused. The term racism can also be misused, but that does not make it a meaningless concept. TFD (talk) 17:22, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Even some of the harshest critics of Islam concede that certain forms of an anti-Islamic or a critical-Islamic position may turn into a discrimination of people just for 'appearing Muslim' or being from the middle east (i.e. doesn't automatically mean you are a Muslim.) - for example a man with a long beard and tanned skin, in reality could be an atheist etc. from Cuba but will be looked upon as an Islamic fundamentalist Arabian by appearance alone. As for whether that is racism is up to the debate already raging. Would you present that as well? I'm not sure if that would fix anything to mention the situational factor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.69.176.102 (talk) 20:08, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If someone thinks they can identify Muslims by physical appearance, it is a sign that they perceive Muslims as a race. TFD (talk) 20:49, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Not necessarily - in any case, we can't edit here according to such a claim without a reliable source to back it up. :-) Alfietucker (talk) 20:54, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

According to Wikipedia's own page on the subject; "Some definitions of racism also include discriminatory behaviors and beliefs based on cultural, national, ethnic, caste, or religious stereotypes." There are other words I've heard being suggested such as "creedism" or "religious intolerance" to explain this difference between "racism" in the strict sense and what is perceived by Muslims by non-Muslims, but they still have not caught on and do not have the same weight of hate as the word racism. Why not include in the article this idea of racism not *strictly* being accurate in describing Islamophobia, but the other ways in which it is very similar? Patwinkle (talk) 17:49, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What's important is to describe what Islamophobes think, as described in reliable sources. We cannot say Islam is not a race and therefore Islamophobia cannot be racism in the same may be cannot say there are no races of mankind and therefore no one can be a racist. Islamophobes not only condemn Islam as a religion, but see it as the religion held by a race or races of people and furthermore their race is the reason they adopted that religion. Or at least some of the sources used in the article say that. TFD (talk) 19:49, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
the idea of it being racially motivated to groups who may be perceived to be Muslim can be justified, if one looks at the murder of the Sikh (brown, turbaned, bearded) who was shot after 9/11, or the threats to a very integrated Hindu American who shares little but the colour of her skin with a stereotypical terrorist. It's the same as neo-Nazis may analyse somebody's facial features or political beliefs and conclude that they are "Jewish". '''tAD''' (talk) 12:04, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nathan Lean news piece, plus opinion pieces by Greenwald and Hussain

First, I misplaced the edit quoting Chomsky in the media section, but I don't know where it should be placed, though I think it should be included in the article.
Can the three most prominent New Atheists be taken to be representative of the movement as a whole? If so, should "New Atheism" be described under ideologies? Or should "New Atheists" be described under groups alleged to promote Islamophobia. There are characterizations for both (e.g., Hussain on Harris et al. as ideologues), and (e.g., Greenwald quote below on promoting Islamophobia). Lean does both (see below) in a news piece (can be stated without attribution?).

  • Moreover, not that the issue is already covered on the New Atheism page under Criticism[1], to which I just added a brief statement.

Second, the article by Lean in Salon is a news piece, not opinon.
Lean[2] is author of this award winning book, the title of which was underlined text is the title of a bookbook. Here's a link to the Youtube video featuring Chomsky[3].

Quotes from Hussain:

What Harris and those like him represent is the time-honoured tradition of weaponised racism in the guise of disinterested scientific observation.
what is being pursued today by individuals such as Harris and others under the guise of disinterested observation is something far more insidious. By resurrecting the worst excesses of scientific racism and its violent corollaries, Harris is heir to one of the most disreputable intellectual lineages in modern history.
While those individuals who have provided the intellectual ammunition for the excesses of the present era will inevitably find themselves as dishonoured as their racist predecessors, in the present they should nonetheless be recognised as the dangerous ideologues which they are.
Just as it is incumbent upon Muslims to marginalise their own violent extremists, mainstream atheists must work to disavow those such as Harris who would tarnish their movement by associating it with a virulently racist, violent and exploitative worldview.http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/04/20134210413618256.html]

Quotes from Greenwald:

That said, what I did say in my emails with Harris - and what I unequivocally affirm again now - is not that Harris is a "racist", but rather that he and others like him spout and promote Islamophobia under the guise of rational atheism.

Contrary to the assumptions under which some Harris defenders are laboring, the fact that someone is a scientist, an intellectual, and a convincing and valuable exponent of atheism by no means precludes irrational bigotry as a driving force in their worldview. In this case, Harris' own words, as demonstrated below, are his indictment.
…Harris defenders such as the neoconservative David Frumwant to pretend that criticisms of Harris consist of nothing more than the claim that…"it's OK to be an atheist, so long as you omit Islam from your list of the religions to which you object." That's a wildly dishonest summary of the criticisms of Harris
Harris… has insisted that there are unique dangers from Muslims possessing nuclear weapons, as opposed to nice western Christians (the only ones to ever use them) or those kind Israeli Jews: "It should be of particular concern to us that the beliefs of devout Muslims pose a special problem for nuclear deterrence." In his 2005 "End of Faith", he claimed that "Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death."
Indeed, he repeatedly posits a dichotomy between "civilized" people and Muslims: "All civilized nations must unite in condemnation of a theology that now threatens to destabilize much of the earth."
As this superb review of Harris' writings on Israel, the Middle East and US militarism put it, "any review of Sam Harris and his work is a review essentially of politics": because his atheism invariably serves - explicitly so - as the justifying ground for a wide array of policies that attack, kill and otherwise suppress Muslims. That's why his praise for European fascists as being the only ones saying "sensible" things about Islam is significant: not because it means he's a European fascist, but because it's unsurprising that the bile spewed at Muslims from that faction would be appealing to Harris because he shares those sentiments both in his rhetoric and his advocated policies, albeit with a more intellectualized expression.
Whether Islamophobia is a form of "racism" is a semantic issue in which I'm not interested for purposes of this discussion. The vast majority of Muslims are non-white; as a result, when a white westerner becomes fixated on attacking their religion and advocating violence and aggression against them, as Harris has done, I understand why some people (such as Hussain) see racism at play: that, for reasons I recently articulated, is a rational view to me. But "racism" is not my claim here about Harris. Irrational anti-Muslim animus is.[4]

Other quotes from Lean (aside from Chomsky):

The New Atheists, they are called, offer a departure from the theologically based arguments of the past, which claimed that science wasn’t all that important in disproving the existence of God. Instead, Dawkins and other public intellectuals like Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens suffocate their opponents with scientific hypotheses, statistics and data about the physical universe — their weapons of choice in a battle to settle the scores in a debate that has raged since the days of Aristotle. They’re atheists with attitudes, as polemical as they are passionate, brash as they are brainy…The New Atheists became the new Islamophobes, their invectives against Muslims resembling the rowdy, uneducated ramblings of backwoods racists rather than appraisals based on intellect, rationality and reason. “Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death,” writes Harris, whose nonprofit foundation Project Reason ironically aims to “erode the influence of bigotry in our world.”
For Harris, the ankle-biter version of the Rottweiler Dawkins, suicide bombers and terrorists are not aberrations. They are the norm. They have not distorted their faith by interpreting it wrongly. They have lived out their faith by understanding it rightly. “The idea that Islam is a ‘peaceful religion hijacked by extremists’ is a fantasy, and is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge,” he writes in “Letter to a Christian Nation.”
That may sound like the psychobabble of Pamela Geller. But Harris’s crude departure from scholarly decorum is at least peppered with references to the Quran, a book he cites time and again, before suggesting it be “flushed down the toilet without fear of violent reprisal.”
How the New Atheists’ anti-Muslim hate advances their belief that God does not exist is not exactly clear. In this climate of increased anti-Muslim sentiment, it’s a convenient digression, though. They’ve shifted their base and instead of simply trying to convince people that God is a myth, they’ve embraced the monster narrative of the day. That’s not rational or enlightening or “free thinking” or even intelligent. That’s opportunism. [5]

--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 12:45, 14:55, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I removed your edit for several reasons, but in part because it incorrectly lumped Chomsky in with the three guys accusing atheists of "islamophobia". Did you listen to the YouTube clip you provided? Not a single mention of Islam, Islamophobia or related bigotry in it. Chomsky was criticizing them for claiming to be secularist yet believing "in the state religion ... we must support the violence and atrocities of our own state, because it's being done for good reasons", which Chomsky considers more dangerous and destructive than religions, for the most part. Your wording made it sound as if he was criticizing someone for being islamophobic, which he did not. (Although Greenwald and Lean might try to misleadingly suggest that he did.)
I also removed your edit, in part, because you are inserting talking-head commentary into a section previously containing almost exclusively information from studies and more reputable sources. Nathan Lean is not a news journalist; he's a writer and editor of Reza Azlan's website — and everything he writes is about Islam, so obviously he would be hostile to critics of religion. Is your reason for wanting to insert this information about several living people based just upon the rants in the above listed articles, or can this information be found in better quality and more reliable sources? Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 17:26, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There is now a secondary source in the form of the following article from the Independet discussing all three (Greenwald was already secondary for Hussain, and Lean for Chomsky) pieces by Lean, Hassain and Greenwald. I'm just going to copy and paste that comment from the Harris Talk page, and add the comment about Chomsky from the Independent piece for context., which involves ME policy and neoconservatives, as documented by Greenwald.

I find these objections to the New Atheists completely warranted,” Greenwald concludes. “In sum, [New Atheism] sprinkles intellectual atheism on top of the standard neocon, right-wing worldview of Muslims.”

Note that I really don't want to hear any more stonewalling and dismissing of sources. Lean is also an academic and published in numerous mainstream media news outlets, and as the Independent article mentions, he is a ME specialist. I hope the following sources meet with your approval.
  1. Atheists Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris face Islamophobia backlash

    Hussain reserved particular ire for Sam Harris, a neuroscientist by trade whose atheist tracts “The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation” have made him one of the leading anti-religious polemicists of his age.
    Like Chomsky, who has also been a vocal critic of New Atheism, he blames writers like Harris for using their particularly anti-Islamic brand of rational non-belief to justify American foreign policies over the last decade.

  2. Unholy war: Atheists and the politics of Muslim-baiting
  3. Modernization, Identity and Integration: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Islam in Europe
  4. The New Atheism and Islam
If you don't want your sources dismissed, there is a solution for that. As for Lean being a ME specialist, so am I *shrugs*, and The Independent doesn't say he's an academic. Have you figured out yet what information you want to convey to the readers? Care to propose your text here, with citations and an indication of where in the article it should appear? Will it be with the already existing Harris material? (Oh, and I'll reiterate, Chomsky said absolutely nothing about islamophobia or Islam.) Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 21:32, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, I haven't, because there are at least two options, and I'd prefer more discussion and input from others before evaluating the approach.
You are right, of course, that in his statements in that video clip Chomsky does not address Islamphobia directly, but his comments should be situated with respect to US policy in the ME; in that regard, Greenwald ties Harris to neocons. I think it is relevant that both Lean and Greenwald mention Chomsky in hte context of discussions about Islamophobia, but I don't intend to belabour the point.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 21:42, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merge with Islamophobia in the media

Unwarranted WP:SPLIT with a very limited point of view and WP:RECENTISM. For balance, comprehensive secondary/tertiary sources should be used rather than isolated articles and opinion pieces. --Animalparty-- (talk) 03:05, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. Merging a page on anti-Muslim xenophobia into a small redirect would not do justice to the importance of this subject. Islamophobia in the media is arguably responsible for much of our military interventionism in the middle east over the past few decades. The amount of media coverage this issue has received would mean that merging would amount to saying "xenophobia in newspapers is unimportant" or "lets obscure the fact that these broadcasters demonize Muslims". 89.242.90.7 (talk) 14:25, 28 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

New atheists

I have removed the WP:BOLD addition of a section about New atheism by Ubikwit as WP:UNDUE. There are many religious-political groups that have been accused of Islamophobia but they are not mentioned here. The singling out of atheists is UNDUE in this case. I would not be opposed to creating a new subsection to include these groups, but am opposed to only including atheists. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:05, 14 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@EvergreenFir: I think that the New Atheists (not atheism in general) have been singled out as a group of intellectuals for promoting a particular ideological position, generally speaking, rather than as a religious group per se. --Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 23:35, 14 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Above and beyond, say, Evangelicals? I am not opposed to the content, just feel it's undue. I admit this area is not my forte, but my understanding is that there are other groups that deserve mention. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 00:16, 15 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it is somewhat unwieldy content to integrate, which is why I started the thread above, because I originally placed some of it under "Media", but that didn't make sense.
Regarding Evangelicals, I did a google search for books on "Evangelicals, Islamophobia" and looked at the statements[6][7] in the first book--by academic Deepa Kumar. So you are right that there is material there.
I don't know whether intellectuals such as those in the New Atheism movement belong in the same category as conservative Christian clergy, though, even though they are both polemical and the "clash of civilizations" subterfuge would appear to be a shared theme. The New Atheists represent a new stream of backward discourse that is notable, in my opinion, because it is at least partially associated with academia.--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 01:01, 15 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is this definition notable enough, or just another columnist?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/islamophobia-is-not-a-myth/384502/

Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic defines Islamophobia as a fear of mainstream Muslims, entirely separate from opposition to extremism, but applying a fear of extremism to fear of all of them. '''tAD''' (talk) 21:04, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Recent Reversed Edits I Made

/Users/cadeemlalor/Desktop/Screen Shot 2015-02-27 at 8.48.08 PM.png


I don't know if the screenshot will be visible, but as part of an assignment, I attempted to add factually cited info to the wikipedia page. Less than two hours later, they were deleted. The citations were also formatted correctly, allowing them to be viewed in the citation section and with clickable links that could direct users directly to the newspapers I cited.

Does anyone have any idea why they would be deleted. The below ones are not in WIkipedia's format since I am just pasting them directly from a word document I was working on.

Ibrahim Hooper, the communications director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations attributes the spike in recent anti-Muslim attacks to the Charlie Hedbo attacks, as well as news coverage of "...'radical Islam' being on the news recently."(Daleida) It is likely that Hooper is referring to mainstream news coverage of ISIS. As journalist Julian Burnside states, "Of course Muslims are an easy target: Islamic State (ISIS) is doing a pretty bad PR job for Islam (Burnside).

Burnside, Julian. “The Islamophobia Stirred Up By Abbott and Bolt Is A Bigger Threat To Us Than Terrorism.” The Guardian. The Guardian., 25 February 2015. Web. 27 February 2015.

Daleida, Colin. “Hate Crimes and Hate Speech: Islamophobia’s Rise In The U.S.” Mashable. Mashable., 17 February 2015. Web. 27 February 2015. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cmlalor (talk • contribs) 18:13, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

March 2, 2015

Requested move 21 March 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved, largely based on the current name being the common one. Number 57 16:27, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Islamophobia → Anti-Islamic sentiment – As the opening text of the article presents: "Anti-Islamic sentiment or Islamophobia is a term for prejudice against, hatred towards, or fear of the religion of Islam, Muslims, or of ethnic groups perceived to be Muslim. This is prejudice and, in a straight forward way, should be studied, researched and tackled as such.

At essence the current title fundamentally fails WP:AT. The topic area is not a Phobia and, as far as the Venn diagram system of analysis is concerned, the topic of this form of prejudice certainly does not fall within the category of anxiety disorder. Sources are contain a great many topic relevant references to terms such as "against muslims", "against islamic", "anti-Islamic", "anti-Islam" which provide further justification for the move. Clearly issues related to presentation as Islamophobia can be presented in the article but I don't think we should place the cart before the horse.

The topic should be treated in the same way in Wikipedia as in any parallel condition of prejudice such as: Anti-Catholicism, Anti-Christian sentiment, Anti-Hinduism, Anti-Mormonism and other articles that use the same "Anti-..." format common to articles found in Category:Persecution and connected categories. Many other topic areas are currently catered for by the 209 uses in Wikipedia of the "Persecution of ..." article title format.

Also at issue is that "Islamophobia" is a neologism and this is shown in that the article is found both in Category:Words coined in the 1980s and Category:Political neologisms. See also WP:NEOLOGISM.

As mentioned in the article section Islamophobia#Criticism of term and use: Salman Rushdie criticized the coinage of the word 'Islamophobia' saying that it "was an addition to the vocabulary of Humpty Dumpty Newspeak. It took the language of analysis, reason and dispute, and stood it on its head". I see the point and don't think that this is the kind of content that benefits an encyclopaedia.

GregKaye 07:05, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment there is a wide range of content on the subject found in a scholar search on (Prejudice OR persecution) AND (Islam OR Islamic OR Muslims) but any word beginning "Islamo" only appeared on the results pages once each on the third and sixth pages. A more important issue is to describe the subject so that it can be appropriately assessed and tackled. GregKaye 10:27, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Seriously?[8][9][10]--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 10:34, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly. We should present content and descriptions that help readers work through and understand the topic. We need accurate and descriptive content. GregKaye 20:21, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The term Islamophobia fails in the neutrality domain as well. It is a politically motivated neologism the use of which to describe Anti-Islamic sentiment is contentious. We certainly need an article that covers Anti-Islamic sentiment, and this article for the most part does that, hence it should be named accordingly. The neologism Islamophobia also obviously needs to be discussed in an article, including the debate about its use. The question should be whether it should be covered in a separate article Islamophobia, or just discussed in the article Anti-Islamic sentiment. I think discussing the use of the term in the same article would suffice. Since they have almost identical meaning, there is no point in creating a new article for an alternate name of the same concept. In any case, an article discussing the notion of Anti-Islamic sentiment under the title Islamophobia is in violation of WP:POVTITLE, when we have an equally recognizable neutral alternative. If the article Islamophobia is decided to exist in its own right, it should only describe the term itself and the debate around its use, not the Anti-Islamic sentiment in general.--Cfsenel (talk) 04:36, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose – This is nonsense. Are we going to rename Homophobia? Mincing words over what is and isn't a phobia is unacceptable. This is the common term in RS, just as with Homophobia. The use of the "-phobia" suffix in this manner is a standard part of the English language. I would argue that the proposed term is more of a neologism than the present term, given the wide-range of use that the current title has by comparison. We don't rewrite English usage on Wikipedia. RGloucester — ☎ 05:23, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
RGloucester There is certainly no mincing on my part over what a phobia. Why do you assert that this is nonsense? Oxford dictionaries define phobia as "An extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something". This does not fit in with a description of the discriminatory practices against any such religious group of people and, if anything, the mincing of words was done by the people who tried to shoehorn this topic area under the title "Islamophobia". Certain people that claim to be Muslims may make unwarranted attacks on Buddhists, Christians, Yazzidis, etc. and we rightly define it as prejudice. Other people make unwarranted attacks on Muslims and we define it as "phobia". This seriously is a nonsense mincing of words. Prejudice should be addressed and tacked as prejudice and hatred should be addressed and tackled as hatred. It is no good pretending that a thing is something that it's not. I quite agree that some content on the topic of Anti-Islamic sentiment may fit into the a subset section covered as Xenophobia but this is just one area of the wider topic covered within Category:Prejudice and discrimination but I do not think it acceptable to have one set of presentation in relation to groups such as Catholics, Christians, Hindus, and Mormons and another type of presentation in relation to Islam. GregKaye 07:55, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about an "aversion to Islam and associated things", and fits the OED definition perfectly. That's exactly what this article is about, and that's also what "Anti-Islamic sentiment" would mean if such a phrase were created. I'm sorry if you find the label inappropriate, but that's not something we're supposed to care about here. What matters is use in reliable sources, and the present term dominates the discourse. Your distinction between "phobia" and "prejudice" is mincing words, and is a failure to recognise what "Islamophobia" or "Homophobia" means. Neither of these classical compounds are referring to anxiety disorders, which demonstrates just how far off course you are. RGloucester — ☎ 15:54, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
RGloucester on the contrary it is the very use of "Islamophobia" that minces words with its Psychobabble puffery. It is the straightforward description of "Anti-Islamic sentiment" that gets straight to the point and outlines the issues as they are. You are justifying an inequality in the treatment of religions in Wikipedia due to utterly unrelated treatment of terms related to sexuality.
True, there are a range of topics in Category:Sexual and gender prejudices in the format: Biphobia, Erotophobia, Homophobia, Lesbophobia and Transphobia and these topics may be seen to have understandable roots in the context of such issues as Sexual maturation disorder and anxieties and fears that may exist in a person's Psychosexual development. There is no natural rationale why a person should have fear in relation to a persons' religion and I don't think that topics of sexuality should be confused with topics on religion.
"Anti-Islamic sentiment" is a straightforward terminology that does not get sidetracked with the unjustified neologism, Psychobabble of "Islamophobia". It's not a phobia. An encyclopaedia should use plain English.
We have articles such as Anti-British sentiment and much of the content is in reaction to things that the people associated with Britain have done and are doing. We have articles such as Anti-Christian sentiment and rightly much of the content is in reaction to things that the people associated with Christianity have done and are doing. The same conditions should apply, without prejudice and bias, equally to all topics in the same category. The Wikipedia setup itself should be without discrimination and prejudice. Issues in similar categories should be handled equally. This is not the place for WP:SYSTEMICBIAS. GregKaye 10:48, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Shouldn't the arguments presented be supported by sources?--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 11:20, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Phobia" in plain English is neither "psychobabble" nor referring to an anxiety disorder. It has nothing directly to do with "fear" in the clinical sense. It has to do with "aversion". This is a classical compound, one of many similar compounds using the suffix "-phobia". These include xenophobia and homophobia, neither of which refer to "fear" or "anxiety" in the sense you are referring to, but to a strong aversion. In fact, the use of "-phobia" referring to anxiety disorders is more of a neologism than "-phobia" in the sense used here. There is no "systemic bias". We use the terms used in sources. RGloucester — ☎ 17:06, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
RGloucester , this is not true in the case of Xenophobia. In the article we read: "Xenophobia is the unreasoned fear of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange." How does this apply to Anti-Islamic prejudice? How? How id the presentation of "Islamophobia" not psycho-babble. There were sensible presentations of words that could have given straightforward presentations of this side of an interaction problem and certain people created the unprecedented word for one religion as "Islamophobia". GregKaye 19:08, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't "unprecedented". The standard words for those are Anglophobia and Christophobia. They have merely veered from common usage, likely at the behest of editors such as yourself. Russophobia was also recently eliminated, sadly, replaced with a neologism that is both a nonsense and far from common usage. "Phobia" has nothing to do with psychology. I'm sorry that the English language is difficult. RGloucester — ☎ 20:49, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as the term is what is used inventing a new term for it would be counter-intuitive. The suggested term is also very bad since islamophobia is not necessarily directed at Islam, but against Muslims and people of Muslim background. If anything it would be renamed to something like Anti-Muslim racism to describe what it is. // Liftarn (talk) 11:22, 25 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Prejudice/fear/hatred vs opposition in the context of "anti-Islamic sentiment"

I feel that this article takes many liberties in mixing up terminology with the subjective opinions of individual authors. While the term "Islamophobia" can have a specific origin and thus a specifically conceived meaning, the term "anti-Islamic" is a general construct and it would be difficult to trace its origin to any specific journal or column. It merely means "sentiment of opposition to Islam". It would be awfully single-minded to see that opposition to a specific religion has to be a derivation of fear, hatred or prejudice, as the article currently states in its introducting phrase. One of the linked references (145) even says, "We will not take the term [Islamophobic] for granted by assigning it only one meaning, such as anti-Islamic discourse."

There are examples of better wording in Wikipedia itself. Take, for example, the article Anti-Christian sentiment. It offers the definition, "..an opposition or objection to Christians, the Christian religion, or its practice". Would "anti-Islamic sentiment" be defined, it should follow a similar wording.

On an additional note, Anti-Islam leads to a disambiguation page, suggesting that an anti-Islamic sentiment can be viewed in a wider context than what is offered by this article. Therefore, there's a self-contradiction.

Due to these points, I edited the article to drop the starting reference to "anti-islamic sentiment". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tzaeru (talk • contribs) 06:41, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted your WP:BOLD edit because it does seem to accurately reflect the article. There's lots of discussion of anti-Islam and anti-Muslim in the article. As the article currently stands, I feel that needs to be in the lead sentence. Happy to hear other opinions though. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 06:54, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@EvergreenFir: The term "anti-Islam" occurs thrice in the article. First occurrence is merely a quote about how the overarching terminology around the subject is ambigious; "academics are still debating the legitimacy of the term and questioning how it differs from other terms such as racism, anti-Islamism, anti-Muslimness, and anti-Semitism"
Second occurrence is likewise a somewhat ambigious quote; "Jocelyne Cesari, in her study of discrimination against Muslims in Europe,[145] finds that anti-Islamic sentiment is almost impossible to separate from other drivers of discrimination.". In the actual study, the author infact says that, "We will not take the term [Islamophobic] for granted by assigning it only one meaning, such as anti-Islamic discourse."
Third occurrence is using the term as an adjective for an organization; "Paul Jackson, in a critical study of the anti-Islamic English Defence League"
As seen, there is, in fact, no actual explanation for the origins or the use of the term "anti-Islam" itself. Instead, there's even a contradiction with some of the sources and the use of the terminology as the sources often do make a distinction between "Islamophobia" and "anti-Islamism".
Tzaeru (talk) 07:03, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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