ABSTRACT
The study of Islamophobia in Western liberal democracies has attracted considerable academic and public attention in the last couple of decades, where it has stirred public moral panic towards those who are perceived as Muslims. However, the same can be observed in the non-Western world, including Muslim societies, though in different manifestations. Secular elites in post-colonial Muslim societies share prejudiced attitudes and stereotyped biases towards Islam and practising Muslims. Islamic symbols, beliefs, normativities and politics produce disdain and hate, which are framed negatively in an attempt to exclude Islam from spheres of dominance. In Pakistan, Islam has frequently and fervently been employed by the state establishment to develop ideological foundations of the post-colonial polity. However, this religionization of the society and Islamization of politics have multiplied the governance issues and societal fissures, whereby Islam, as cultural and faith system, has come to be seen as a menace. The violent disdain and utter disregard of religion and religiosity by secular elites is framed around Western critique of religion, which deems it as backward, irrational, intolerant, oppressive, fanatic and violent: the entire spectrum of negativities which are characteristic of discursive Islamophobia. Employing a post-colonial lens, this chapter seeks to argue how secular elites, influenced by Western episteme of secular modernity, carry Islamophobic prejudices towards Islam in a Pakistani context, apart from its civic critique.
