The decision to cast Muslims in this role is a political act; moreover, it is one that can be contested. Not everyone agrees that Muslims are existentially alien, and Muslims who live as citizens in the United States or France or Canada are not, by strict legal reckoning, Others or strangers, even when their fellow nationals see them as outsiders. This overlap of inside and outside, an artifact of global immigration and modern regimes of citizenship, is what drives Islamophobia and imbues it with missionary zeal.

XREF: Connects to Edward Said's orientalism and work on manufactured/national enemy figures.

Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ Th…, loc. 698