Said pushed forward, explaining how a cabal of formative Orientalists hijacked the very definition of Islam, ascribing to it a meaning that clashed with its essential being: “By using this single word they seem to regard Islam as a simple object about which grand generalizations spanning a millennium and a half of Muslim history can be made, and about which judgments concerning the compatibility between Islam and democracy, Islam and human rights, Islam and progress are quite unabashedly advanced.” Or in cogent War-on-Terror speak, Islam against civilization and everything that the civilized world valued, prized, and stood for. George W. Bush aptly summarized Samuel Huntington for the layman, proclaiming, “They hate our freedoms.” In both old and new crusades, “they” were Muslims.

XREF: Connects to Edward Said's Orientalism and the critical theory tradition about how Western discourse constructs the 'Orient' as a homogeneous object.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 270