Thus, if we actually look, even briefly as we have above, at the diversity of the people who follow Islam, we find not only that there is no biological or ethnic basis for homo islamicus but that the notion of a monolithic Islam immediately falls on its face. So too does the Orientalist claim that there is a transhistoric "Islamic civilization" which is based on a core set of values and from which one can explain a host of contemporary phenomena. Yet this is precisely the logic we will find at work in the following myths, which assert that Islam is inherently sexist, irrational, violent, and undemocratic. The homogenization of Islam and of Muslims is so taken for granted that it functions as the basis of all of the other myths.

DEFINE: Contrasts the empirical diversity of Muslims against the Orientalist construct of 'homo islamicus' and a transhistoric 'Islamic civilization'.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 162