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September 11, 2001 ushered in an era marked by the unending War on Terror, dragnet government surveillance programs, and escalating attacks on people perceived to be Muslim. Just last month, Khalid Jabara, a 37-year old Lebanese American man was shot and killed on his front porch in Tulsa Oklahoma by a neighbor who had harassed his family for years, calling them \\u2018dirty Arabs\\u2019 and \\u2018Mooslems\\u2019.
This is just one of the many reported attacks on people perceived as Muslims in the United States.\\xa0 Last year, there were 174 incidents of anti-Muslim violence, and that\\u2019s only if you count the attacks that made headlines.
This backlash is just tip of the iceberg.\\xa0 Below the surface is a growing Islamophobia with deep roots in history and empire.\\xa0 Where does the idea of the \\u2018Muslim enemy\\u2019 come from?\\xa0 And how has it evolved into what we see today?
Fifteen years after 9/11, Deepa Kumar, author of Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, takes us back nearly 15 centuries to find out.
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