2025 RationalWiki 'Oregon Plan' Fundraiser

There is no RationalWiki without you. We are a small non-profit with no staff—we are hundreds of volunteers who document pseudoscience and crankery around the world every day. We will never allow ads because we must remain independent. We cannot rely on big donors with corresponding big agendas. We are not the largest website around, but we believe we play an important role in defending truth and objectivity.

Fighting pseudoscience isn't free.
We are 100% user-supported! Help and donate $5, $10, $20 or whatever you can today with PayPal Logo.png!
Donations so far: $8765.50Goal: $10000

Islamophilia

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
We control what
you think with

Language
Icon language.svg
Said and done
Jargon, buzzwords, slogans
Warning icon orange.svg This page contains too many unsourced statements and needs to be improved.

Islamophilia could use some help. Please research the article's assertions. Whatever is credible should be sourced, and what is not should be removed.

Islamophilia is neologism attributed to right-wing crank Daniel Pipes[1] and is intended to denote the inverse to the concept of Islamophobia. Ironically, as Pipes is himself a notably raving Islamophobe,[2] the term is — at least in the context of Pipes using it — entirely reducible to a tu quoque snarl word.

Literally translating to "[the] love of Islam", the term is intended to describe attitudes which are completely uncritical of Islam, and which conclude that Islam either lacks any negative attributes, or has only positive qualities. The question if people like this actually exist or not (outside of suicide bomber echo chambers) remains open, however.

The outlook of Islamophilia would contend that the central theme of dogmatic Islam is actually irrelevant to explaining the actions of terrorist groups such as DAESH, concluding instead that even fundamentalist Islam just implies more of the religion of peace. Obviously, a near-Poe position that is impossibly held in earnest by an educated person.

However, there actual Islamophiles exist, who admire the culture because of the attractive aspects of the religion. In some cases, this admiration and respect leads such people to convert to the religion and become Muslims themselves.

See no evil, hear no evil[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Regressive left

Consummate cultural relativists would make for ideal Islamophiles, admiring the exoticness of an ancient belief in a loving and peaceful sky patriarch, who only sometimes encourages murder, torture and extreme cruelty towards innocents, all the while brushing the vile treatment of women, homosexuals, atheists and anyone else who will not submit to a utopian muslim society under a very large carpet, encouraging some rather selective playing of the "Who am I to judge?"-card.

The love of straw men?[edit]

It is unclear to which extent Islamophiles actually exist in the west, as being one to the extent that Piper defines would require willful ignorance of such obviously Islamic phenomena as DAESH, Islamism generally, and Sharia law — including the quite explicit penalties it proscribes, including decapitations, amputations, stoning (not the pleasant kind), whippings and so on, often for very modest "crimes", such as simply being gay or rejecting mandatory burka wearing.

See also[edit]

References[edit]