Scholars have documented the consequences of such fears, images, and appropriations in US politics and society before, but they have not yet paid ample attention to the role of the state and particularly the FBI in producing such irruptions and iterations of Islamophobia. This chapter explores the reasons for and forms of government surveillance, media manipulation, and finally counterintelligence behind the making of Islamophobia in the twentieth century. It argues that though Islamophobia may be a social anxiety, its salience in US society is not exclusively the reflection of certain cultural and political interests, including those of some evangelical Christians, pro-Israeli activists, academic orientalists, and mass media; Islamophobia is also the product of the state's legal and extralegal attempts to control, discipline, and punish Muslim American individuals and organizations.

Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ Th…, loc. 347