Bruckner seems to be focusing on the word instead of the ideas behind different uses of the word. There are of course some who wish to see Islam “inviolate”, an

Bruckner seems to be focusing on the word instead of the ideas behind different uses of the word. There are of course some who wish to see Islam “inviolate”, and it is natural for them to use the term “Islamophobia”. But there are also those who oppose different types of attacks on Islam, or different forms of fear of Islam. To resist a reflexive hatred of Islam per se is to say something that also usefully uses the word “Islamophobia”. It therefore makes little sense to attack the use of the term, as opposed to (a) overly broad usage where it is unnecessary, (b) automatic assumptions that an attack on Islam is invalid, and (c) attempts to render Islam “inviolate”. [Edit] A further thought: Islam isn’t homogeneous, as many point out. Just as it is generally unhelpful to attack Christianity on the basis of observations of the Roman Catholic church, so too it is probably more helpful to describe specific groups or collections of groups. This works both ways: it helps to invalidate attacks on Islam as a whole based on rare practices, but it also helps to invalidate lazy responses that rely on a small liberal group of Muslims being representative, which is about as unhelpful as denying Christian homophobia by citing the examples of a few Oxonocantabrigian liberal Anglo-Catholics.