Too bad Saunders accepts Cemil Aydin‘s misplaced notion of “race” to sensationalize what is otherwise an interesting discussion of the history of Islamic identity. From a biological perspective, race cannot be applied to physical variation among Homo sapiens because there is a single human race. Race, as applied to humans, is a deeply flawed social invention reducing biological variation to the twin variables of skin colour and geographical ancestry. 

To apply it to religious variation in order to portray Muslims as despised underdogs only adds confusion to the debate over what it means to be an adherent of the faith while unfairly labelling non-Muslims as knuckle-walking racists.