Was Hicks’s fear and hatred of Islam irrational, or was it fueled by the stereotypes of the faith and its followers he regularly heard on the radio and watched on television, and, therefore, rational? Furthermore, was he a deviant actor whose horrific acts were the result of his own motives alone? Or was Hicks collaborating in the broader national project of policing, prosecuting, and punishing Muslims—the formal mission of the war on terror, that ambiguous and unconventional war authorized by counterterror laws like the USA PATRIOT Act, Countering Violent Extremism, and, two years after the triple murder, the Muslim ban enacted by President Trump?

QUESTION: The highlight poses the core question the book pursues: whether individual terror acts are deviant or participate in a sanctioned national project.

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Unde…, loc. 101