The realization that anti-Muslim attitudes are embedded in larger social and political processes than the fear of Islam begs the question of why has American society resorted to religion as an explanation for acts of terror committed by a very small portion of the world's vast Muslim population, thereby stigmatizing American Muslims to the point that large number of Americans are willing to tolerate discriminatory profiling of Muslims and to deny American Muslims their constitutional rights to protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and to build places of worship.

QUESTION: What are these larger social and political processes driving anti-Muslim sentiment beyond fear of the religion itself?

Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ Th…, loc. 261