User:Fredwall

Islamophobia is term used by Islamic advocates to discredit proponents of criticisms of Islam and Islamic culture.

Unlike theocratic or tyranical societies, free societies allow human beings to form their own opinions and freely and openly discuss those with other human beings.

Some cultures, such as the Islamic culture reject the concept of free thought and free speech and find objection to any criticism and independent thinking.

The Islamic culture by its very nature is antipathetic to free speech and free ideas. Its followers therefore seek to stifle and suppress free speech and the free press. They resort to epithets to label any critic as a sort of heretic. They try to single out individuals who are expressing their views as socially deviant and often follow this with violent attacks when they can.

By using rhetorical epithet like Islamophobia Islamic advocates have sought to silence their critics by characterizing any criticism towards Islam as a form of racism, this latter having been sometimes effective in intimidating timid public speakers into a more subdued communication posture.

The word is used to portray persons criticizing Islam as having an irrational fear and/or hatred of Islam, Muslims or Islamic culture and as being intolerant, ignorant and fixated on crude concepts such as all or most Muslims are religious fanatics, have violent tendencies towards non-Muslims, support Islamist terrorism and reject concepts such as equality, tolerance, democracy and human rights.

The word islamophobia is widely used in pro-islamic articles and websites by Islamic advocates to equate criticism of Islam with racism and prejudice and argue that a set of negative assumptions are made of the entire group to the detriment of members of that group.