FROM ISLAMOPHOBIA TO NEO-ISLAMOPHOBIA: A STORY OF THE ENEMY IMAGE OF MUSLIMS

Abstract

The Islamophobia is more often considered a new label for an old concept -Orientalism, which was later called Neo-Orientalism since it portrayed the Islam as a threat to Western civilization. Orientalism refers to Eurocentric hatred for the Arabo-Muslim population, which has now grown to hatred for all Muslims, transforming the socio-political order into an Islamophobic one. Primarily, this transformation has constructed image of Muslims as enemies of the West with rampant change in its patterns of manifestation, challenging the recent research findings aimed at exploring the antecedents and nature of Islamophobia. This study peeps through history to evaluate Muslims’ enemy image and attempts to map its impact on contemporary anti-Muslim state. The findings showed three Islam/Muslim-related phobias: religious, political, and civilizational, which resulted in enemy image of Muslims and justified wars against them. The study concludes that Islam/Muslim-related phobia and the ensuing global war on terror, combined with media influences, have transformed this image into arch-enemy, altering old notion of Islamophobia into neo-Islamophobia. Neo-Islamophobia become a globalized phenomenon and has transformed the prevailing social and political order of Western societies into an Islamophobic one. Based on this notion, a 'new world order' is in the making.