The politics of outrage is hardly unique to the Ummah. Whether Islamic outrage has a particular flavor is a fair question. My sense is that aniconism, for example, is an issue for most Muslims in a way that most non-Muslims simply don’t get. But in these public outrage events there are clearly alt of things going on that are not exclusive to Islam (like identity and cultural politics).
Take yer pick! But seriously, you should always look at the local context of the responses. I suspect you will I encounter no little variation, though that variation might well be amenable to categorization.I view the responses as being primarily incited by Muslim leaders due to the fact that some time passes between the offense and the reaction, as though waiting for the right time to exploit the Muslim community's sensitivities. This begs the question ... Exploiting them to what end?
Deaing with religion you will inevitably run into epistemology issues. May I suggest Clifford Geertz’s article “The pinch of destiny: religion as experience, meaning, identity, power” (available in the:http://press.princeton.edu/TOCs/c6780.htm
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