A ‘phobia’ is an irrational fear, as in claustrophobia, agoraphobia or arachnophobia, all conditions deserving of sympathy. But fear can be rational, too. An infantryman in a First World War trench would have every reason to fear going over the top. To accuse him of a ‘phobia’ would be uncharitable, to say the least. An Australian suspected of arachnophobia might point out that spiders with a dangerous bite are not rare. In Britain, there’s much less to fear from spiders, so my fear of them could fairly be called arachnophobia. Is there a group of people who, like Australians in the case of spiders, have good reason to fear certain aspects of Islam? If such a group exists, I suggest it would be found among Muslims themselves.
