Is criticizing Islam the same as being Islamophobic? Well, before I can answer that question, let's define Islamophobic.
So the term Islamophobe, Islamophobic, Islamophobia— all of those terms were coined by Islamists. Islamists mean political Muslims. Groups like the Islamic regime of Iran, the Islamic regime of Afghanistan, ISIS, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis. This will give you an idea of the kind of people that coined this term.
They coined that term because they wanted to stop criticism of Islam, not because they were trying to protect Muslim people from bigotry, which is already against the law in Western nations, which already gets people punished in Western secular nations because it's against our values. What they did was create this term, Islamophobia, in order to silence people from legitimate criticism of the religion of Islam.
They created the term, they passed it on out there, and they thought, you know what, let's have some bottom-up blasphemy laws. We can't control the people in the West the way we control them in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and everywhere else with top-down laws, so let's have bottom-up blasphemy laws instead. Let's have the people control each other's speech. Let's have the people police each other. And like a bunch of useful idiots, people responded, and they're all running around saying, Islamophobia, Islamophobia, anytime anybody wants to share their traumas of growing up under Islam or their criticisms of Islamic laws and the way it treats women, minorities, gay people. All of these are legitimate criticisms, but they are silenced with this term, Islamophobe and Islamophobia.
So think about that. Before you use that term, think about who created that term, why it was created, and think about how you are contributing, how you are facilitating, and how you are supporting their work when you use that word to silence people too.
