The era in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on America saw the emergence of a plethora of literature and articles addressing Muslim anger against a grieving and deeply-wounded America. The refrain which gained prominence in the American media following the attacks of 2001 was: “Why do they hate us?” “Us” being used here as an essentialist category which includes the “West” with “they” being the counterpart category designating an alien Muslim “other” who supposedly lives under the umbrella of a monolithic Islamic cultural entity. The answer was, at times, simplistic and reflected old biases which dismissed the Muslim terrorists as barbaric, insane and violent who are following an “extremist” version of Islam which is bent on destroying the West for no other reason than sheer “envy”, although all of the nineteen hijackers, mostly from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, came from privileged backgrounds and were highlyeducated young men. Bernard Lewis was particularly criticised by Edward Said for “attempting to supply a medieval religious ancestry for modern hijackings.”

President Bush was quick to declare that the attacks on America were an “attack on freedom itself “ by a “faceless coward”, promising that freedom will be defended, and went on to divide the world into a camp standing for freedom and one supporting terrorists famously warning: “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists”. Bush called initially for the imposition of democratic ideals in the Islamic world. However, this particular enterprise was overtaken by an all-out-war on Islamic “terror” using America's substantial military arsenal. This heavy-handed American approach had serious repercussions. Militant Muslims residing in Europe launched a series of terrorist attacks targeting innocent civilians in Madrid in May 2004 and London in July 2005. According to one study, these attacks came as a “direct response” to America's “War on Terror”, which continued unabated under Obama's administration (2009-2017) with one American homeland-security expert reportedly calling it “repackaged Bush”.

On the other side of the divide, there was an equal failure to issue an unequivocal condemnation of the violent attacks: a position which almost bordered on a tacit endorsement of the terror attacks on America and the world-view of the hijackers which was partly revealed in a chilling four-page document found in the baggage of the suspected Egyptian-born ringleader Muḥammad ‘Aṭṭa.