For the Love of Islam: US Foreign Policy, Islamophilia, and the Islam Centennial 14

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/reorient.7.2.0116
• Published date: 14 December 2022
• Date: 14 December 2022
• Pages: 116-134
• Author: Kathleen M. Foody
• Subject Matter: Islamophilia,Islamophobia,racism,foreign policy,cultural diplomacy

www.plutojournals.com/reorient

North Carolina State University

kmfoody@ncsu.edu

FOR THE LOVE OF ISLAM: US FOREIGN

POLICY, ISLAMOPHILIA, AND THE ISLAM

CENTENNIAL 14

Kathleen M. Foody

Abstract: This article explores the historical and lingering effects of US government

involvement in defining Islam as public and foreign policy. It focuses on the Islam Cen-

tennial 14, a US program to celebrate the fourteenth centennial of Islam – and manage

the US’s global image – which was active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Islam

Centennial 14 organized a nationally touring museum exhibit, distributed information on

Islam to partners and public schools, produced a newsletter, documentaries, and speaker

series on Islam. It also culminated in one of the first academic centers in the US devoted

to the study of Islam. The Islam Centennial 14’s activities provided a counter-narrative to

rising Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment, while the discourses that swirled around

them – including their own press reports, outside conspiracy theories, and academic

analyses – foreshadowed more contemporary xenophobic politics. This article presents

the Islam Centennial 14 specifically as a case study through which to consider the work-

ings and ramifications of American Islamophilia. It examines how such celebrations of

Islam as part and parcel of international and national governance reinscribe both racial-

ized representations of Islam and, however inadvertently, anti-Muslim sentiments. It

argues that Islamophilia is an undertheorized corollary to more explicit anti-Muslim posi-

tions, and one whose deployment and effects more than merit sustained attention.

Keywords: Islamophilia, Islamophobia, racism, foreign policy, cultural diplomacy

Introduction

In 1978, a leaked presidential memo caused an international media sensation, put

pressure on US diplomatic relationships in Muslim-majority areas, and caused

chaos for American government officials seeking to contain the fallout. A solution,

however unlikely, was the Committee to Honor the Fourteenth Centennial of Islam,

or the Islam Centennial Fourteen – a celebration of Islam’s fourteen centuries. The

Islam Centennial Fourteen was not a simple celebration of Islam’s historical pres-

ence; instead, it was an attempt to solidify the US’s international position in Muslim

DOI:10.13169/reorient.7.2.0116

FOR THE LOVE OF ISLAM 117

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communities and contain the damage done by the leaked memo. At the same time,

it reflects how such celebrations of Islam as part and parcel of international and

national governance – as Islamophilia – reinscribe both racialized representations

of Islam and, however inadvertently, anti-Muslim sentiments. Here, Islamophilia is

an under-theorized corollary to more obvious anti-Muslim positions, but its deploy-

ment and effects more than merit sustained attention.

During the Iranian Revolution, President Jimmy Carter sent a memo to his staff

“asking what Islam was all about and why hadn’t the US been able to cope with

Islamic issues. He asked whether there were other situations such as Iran’s and the

Shah’s; whether fundamentalism in the Islamic world was or would be a problem

for us” (Battle et al. 1991). The memo was leaked to US papers and then published

under headlines such as “C.I.A. to Survey World Moslems”. Articles announced

that the “White House has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to produce a world-

wide study of Moslem religious movements in the wake of the Islamic revolt that

[had] helped drive the shah of Iran from his country” (Hoagl 1979). The White

House and State Department were both concerned about diplomatic fallout with

Muslim-majority countries given the leaked memo (Battle et al. 1991). One

cable from the US Embassy in Cairo in January 1979 bluntly assessed the situa-

tion: “There has been marked increase in latent animosity of orthodox Egyptian

Muslims toward [the] U.S … [The] [i]mpression exists that United States is hostile

to Islam. Some positive actions on our part are needed to show sympathetic under-

standing for Islam and overcome innate Egyptian Muslim distrust of our motives.

Press reports of intelligence studies, however needed such a study may be, do

not help” (US Embassy 1979). Hoping to limit the fallout, the State Department

and White House contacted Lucius Battle, a recently retired diplomat and mem-

ber of the US Foreign Service who had spent his career in the Middle East and

Mediterranean. Battle’s task was simple: to “head a national committee to observe

the 14th Century of Islam” (Battle et al. 1991). The 1980 fourteenth centennial

was fast approaching, thus the timing was perfect.

The Islam Centennial Fourteen (hereafter, the ICF) provides a window into US

representations of Islam during a liminal period, the late 1970s and early 1980s.

But furthermore, it presents a vantage point from which to consider the workings

and ramifications of American Islamophilia. “Islamophilia”, as Andrew Shryock

defines it, is not simply an affinity for Islam – or the opposite of anti-Muslim

racism – but rather a particular kind of “image … impervious to nuance”, a kind of

“coercive” demand, which subordinates “‘friendship’ to the demands of sameness”

(2010: 9). According to Shryock, in the 1990s, governments in North American

and Europe moved to define and then defeat “Islamophobia”.1 This project had at

its “heart, a governmental agenda”. By this, Shryock means that the principal con-

cern for this defeat of Islamophobia was to “facilitate the participation of Muslim