I would contend that the fixation with Islam offered by Islamophobia provides a useful cover, a means of evading the numerous specific local, regional, and global issues that cause diverse and otherwise antagonistic solidarities to emerge under the rallying banner of Islam. Thus, although Islamophobia fetishizes Islam as the cause and explanation of violence, the phenomenon of anti-Muslim prejudice serves a useful purpose for Islamophobes in screening out the tortuous results of decades of geopolitical meddling by the West across large swathes of the world where Muslims are in the majority.

Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, loc. 513