Islamophobia

Anti-Islamic sentiment or Islamophobia is a term for prejudice against, hatred towards, or fear of the religion of Islam, Muslims, or of ethnic groups perceived to be Muslim. The term entered into common English usage in 1997 with the publication of a report by the Runnymede Trust condemning negative emotions such as fear, hatred, and dread directed at Islam or Muslims. While the term is now widely recognized and used, both the term and the underlying concept have been criticized.

The causes and characteristics of Islamophobia are still debated. Some scholars have defined it as a type of racism. Some commentators have posited an increase in Islamophobia resulting from the September 11 attacks, while others have associated it with the increased presence of Muslims in secular nations.

Etymology and definitions

The word Islamophobia is a neologism formed from Islam and -phobia, a suffix used in English to form "nouns with the sense ‘fear of ——’, ‘aversion to ——’." The compound form Islamo- contains the thematic vowel -o-, and is found in earlier coinages such as Islamo-Christian from the 19th century.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word means "Intense dislike or fear of Islam, esp. as a political force; hostility or prejudice towards Muslims" and is attested to in English as early as 1923. Mattias Gardell defines Islamophobia as "socially reproduced prejudices and aversion to Islam and Muslims, as well as actions and practices that attack, exclude or discriminate against persons on the basis that they are or perceived to be Muslim and be associated with Islam".

Runnymede Trust

In 1996, the Runnymede Trust established the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, chaired by Gordon Conway, the vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex. The Commission's report, Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All, was published in November 1997 by the Home Secretary, Jack Straw. In the Runnymede report, Islamophobia was defined as "an outlook or world-view involving an unfounded dread and dislike of Muslims, which results in practices of exclusion and discrimination."

The report went on to state that Islamophobia is the "dread or hatred of Islam and therefore, [the] fear and dislike of all Muslims," which also includes discrimination against Muslims through their exclusion from the economic, social, and public life of the nation. The opinions that Islam has no values in common with other cultures, that it is inferior to Western cultures, and is a violent political ideology rather than a religion are also, according to the report, part of the concept of Islamophobia.

Debate on the term and its limitations

At a 2009 symposium on "Islamophobia and Religious Discrimination", Robin Richardson, a former director of the Runnymede Trust and the editor of Islamophobia: a challenge for us all, said that "the disadvantages of the term Islamophobia are significant" on seven different grounds, including that it implies it is merely a "severe mental illness" affecting "only a tiny minority of people"; that use of the term makes those to whom it is applied "defensive and defiant" and absolves the user of "the responsibility of trying to understand them" or trying to change their views; that it implies that hostility to Muslims is divorced from factors such as skin color, immigrant status, fear of fundamentalism, or political or economic conflicts; that it conflates prejudice against Muslims in one's own country with dislike of Muslims in countries with which the West is in conflict; that it fails to distinguish between people who are against all religion from people who dislike Islam specifically; and that the actual issue being described is hostility to Muslims, "an ethno-religious identity within European countries", rather than hostility to Islam. Nonetheless, he argued that the term is here to stay, and that it is important to define it precisely.

The exact definition of Islamophobia continues to be discussed with academics such as Chris Allen saying it lacks a clear definition. Johannes Kandel, in a 2006 comment wrote that Islamophobia "is a vague term which encompasses every conceivable actual and imagined act of hostility against Muslims", and proceeds to argue that five of the criteria put forward by The Runnymede trust are invalid. In an article published in the June 2013 edition of Standpoint, Douglas Murray argued that "the term 'Islamophobia' is so inexact that - in so far as there is a definition - it includes insult of and even inquiry into any aspect of Islam, including Muslim scripture." When discrimination towards Muslims placed an emphasis on their religious affiliation and adherence, it has been termed as Muslimphobia, its alternative form of Muslimophobia, Islamophobism, antimuslimness and antimuslimism. Individuals who discriminate against Muslims in general have been termed Islamophobes, Islamophobists, anti-Muslimists, antimuslimists, anti-Muhammadan, Muslimphobes or its alternative spelling of Muslimophobes, while individuals motivated by a specific anti-Muslim agenda or bigotry have been described as being anti-mosque, anti-Shiites. (or Shiaphobes) and anti-Sunni (or Sunniphobes).

Fear

As opposed to being a psychological or individualistic phobia, according to professor of religion Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, "Islamophobia" connotes a social anxiety about Islam and Muslims. Some social scientists have adopted this definition and developed instruments to measure Islamophobia in form of fearful attitudes towards, and avoidance of, Muslims and Islam, arguing that Islamophobia should "essentially be understood as an affective part of social stigma towards Islam and Muslims, namely fear" (p. 2).

Racism

Several scholars consider Islamophobia as a form of racism. A 2007 article in Journal of Sociology defines Islamophobia as anti-Muslim racism and a continuation of anti-Asian and anti-Arab racism. Similarly, John Denham has drawn parallels between modern Islamophobia and the antisemitism of the 1930s, so have Maud Olofsson, and Jan Hjärpe, among others.

Others have questioned the supposed relationship between Islamophobia and racism. Jocelyne Cesari writes that "academics are still debating the legitimacy of the term and questioning how it differs from other terms such as racism, anti-Islamism, anti-Muslimness, and anti-Semitism." Erdenir finds that "there is no consensus on the scope and content of the term and its relationship with concepts such as racism ...” and Shryock, reviewing the use of the term across national boundaries, comes to the same conclusion. On occasion race does come into play. Diane Frost defines Islamophobia as anti-Muslim feeling and violence based on “race” and/or religion. Islamophobia may also target people who have Muslim names, or have a look that is associated with Muslims. According to Alan Johnson, Islamophobia sometimes can be nothing more than xenophobia or racism "wrapped in religious terms."

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) defines Islamophobia as the fear of or prejudiced viewpoint towards Islam, Muslims and matters pertaining to them (ECRI 2006). Whether it takes the shape of daily forms of racism and discrimination or more violent forms, Islamophobia is a violation of human rights and a threat to social cohesion". It has also been defined as "fear of Muslims and Islam; rejection of the Muslim religion; or a form of differentialist racism" (Helbling 2011).

Proposed alternatives

The concept of Islamophobia as formulated by Runnymede was also criticized by professor Fred Halliday on several levels. He writes that the target of hostility in the modern era is not Islam and its tenets as much as it is Muslims, suggesting that a more accurate term would be "Anti-Muslimism." He also states that strains and types of prejudice against Islam and Muslims vary across different nations and cultures, which is not recognized in the Runnymede analysis, which was specifically about Muslims in Britain. Poole responds that many Islamophobic discourses attack what they perceive to be Islam's tenets, while Miles and Brown write that Islamophobia is usually based upon negative stereotypes about Islam which are then translated into attacks on Muslims. They also argue that "the existence of different ‘Islamophobias’ does not invalidate the concept of Islamophobia any more than the existence of different racisms invalidates the concept of racism."

In a 2011 paper in American Behavioral Scientist, Erik Bleich stated "there is no widely accepted definition of Islamophobia that permits systematic comparative and causal analysis", and advances "indiscriminate negative attitudes or emotions directed at Islam or Muslims" as a possible solution to this issue.

In order to differentiate between prejudiced views of Islam and secularly motivated criticism of Islam, Roland Imhoff and Julia Recker formulated the concept "Islamoprejudice", which they subsequently operationalised in an experiment. The experiment showed that their definition provided a tool for accurate differentiation.

Origins and causes

History of the term

One early use cited as the term's first use is by the painter Alphonse Étienne Dinet and Algerian intellectual Sliman ben Ibrahim in their 1918 biography of Islam's prophet Muhammad. Writing in French, they used the term islamophobie. Robin Richardson writes that in the English version of the book the word was not translated as "Islamophobia" but rather as "feelings inimical to Islam". Dahou Ezzerhouni has cited several other uses in French as early as 1910, and from 1912 to 1918. These early uses of the term did not, according to Christopher Allen, have the same meaning as in contemporary usage, as they described a fear of Islam by liberal Muslims and Muslim feminists, rather than a fear or dislike/hatred of Muslims by non-Muslims. On the other hand, Fernando Bravo Lopez argues that Dinet and ibn Sliman's use of the term was as a criticism of overly hostile attitudes to Islam by a Belgian orientalist, Henri Lammens, whose project they saw as a "'pseudo-scientific crusade in the hope of bringing Islam down once and for all.'" He also notes that an early definition of Islamophobia appears in the Ph.D. thesis of Alain Quellien, a French colonial bureaucrat:

For some, the Muslim is the natural and irreconcilable enemy of the Christian and the European; Islam is the negation of civilization, and barbarism, bad faith and cruelty are the best one can expect from the Mohammedans.

Furthermore, he notes that Quellien's work draws heavily on the work of the French colonial department's 1902-06 administrator, who published a work in 1906, which to a great extent mirrors John Esposito's The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?.

The first recorded use of the term in English, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in 1923 in an article in The Journal of Theological Studies. The term entered into common usage with the publication of the Runnymede Trust's report in 1997. Kofi Annan asserted at a 2004 conference entitled "Confronting Islamophobia" that the word Islamophobia had to be coined in order to "take account of increasingly widespread bigotry".

Contrasting views on Islam

The Runnymede report contrasted "open" and "closed" views of Islam, and stated that the following eight "closed" views are equated with Islamophobia:

1. Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.
2. It is seen as separate and "other." It does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them.
3. It is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive, and sexist.
4. It is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism, and engaged in a clash of civilizations.
5. It is seen as a political ideology, used for political or military advantage.
6. Criticisms made of "the West" by Muslims are rejected out of hand.
7. Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society.
8. Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural and normal.

These "closed" views are contrasted, in the report, with "open" views on Islam which, while founded on respect for Islam, permit legitimate disagreement, dialogue and critique. According to Benn and Jawad, The Runnymede Trust notes that anti-Muslim discourse is increasingly seen as respectable, providing examples on how hostility towards Islam and Muslims is accepted as normal, even among those who may actively challenge other prevalent forms of discrimination.

Identity politics

It has been suggested that Islamophobia is closely related to identity politics, and gives its adherents the perceived benefit of constructing their identity in opposition to a negative, essentialized image of Muslims. This occurs in the form of self-righteousness, assignment of blame and key identity markers. Davina Bhandar writes that:

[...] the term ‘cultural’ has become synonymous with the category of the ethnic or minority (...). It views culture as an entity that is highly abstracted from the practices of daily life and therefore represents the illusion that there exists a spirit of the people. This formulation leads to the homogenisation of cultural identity and the ascription of particular values and proclivities onto minority cultural groups.

She views this as an ontological trap that hinders the perception of culture as something "materially situated in the living practices of the everyday, situated in time-space and not based in abstract projections of what constitutes either a particular tradition or culture."

In some societies, Islamophobia has materialized due to the portrayal of Islam and Muslims as the national "Other", where exclusion and discrimination occurs on the basis of their religion and civilization which differs with national tradition and identity. Examples include Pakistani and Algerian migrants in Britain and France respectively. This sentiment, according to Malcolm Brown and Robert Miles, significantly interacts with racism, although Islamophobia itself is not racism. Author Doug Saunders has drawn parallels between Islamophobia in the United States and its older discrimination and hate against Roman Catholics, saying that Catholicism was seen as backwards and imperial, while Catholic immigrants had poorer education and some were responsible for crime and terrorism.

Brown and Miles write that another feature of Islamophobic discourse is to amalgamate nationality (e.g. Arab), religion (Islam), and politics (terrorism, fundamentalism) — while most other religions are not associated with terrorism, or even "ethnic or national distinctiveness." They feel that "many of the stereotypes and misinformation that contribute to the articulation of Islamophobia are rooted in a particular perception of Islam", such as the notion that Islam promotes terrorism — especially prevalent after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The two-way stereotyping resulting from Islamophobia has in some instances resulted in mainstreaming of earlier controversial discourses, such as liberal attitudes towards gender equality and homosexuals. Christina Ho has warned against framing of such mainstreaming of gender equality in a colonial, paternal discourse, arguing that this may undermine minority women's ability to speak out about their concerns.

Links to ideologies

Senior scientist at the Norwegian Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities, Cora Alexa Døving, argues that there are significant similarities between Islamophobic discourse and European pre-Nazi antisemitism. Among the concerns are imagined threats of minority growth and domination, threats to traditional institutions and customs, skepticism of integration, threats to secularism, fears of sexual crimes, fears of misogyny, fears based on historical cultural inferiority, hostility to modern Western Enlightenment values, etc.

Matti Bunzl has argued that there are important differences between Islamophobia and antisemitism. While antisemitism was a phenomenon closely connected to European nation-building processes, he sees Islamophobia as having the concern of European civilization as its focal point. Døving, on the other hand, maintains that, at least in Norway, the Islamophobic discourse has a clear national element. In a reply to Bunzl, French scholar of Jewish history, Esther Benbassa, agrees with him in that he draws a clear connection between modern hostile and essentializing sentiments towards Muslims and historical antisemitism. However, she argues against the use of the term Islamophobia, since, in her opinion, it attracts unwarranted attention to an underlying racist current.

The head of the Media Responsibility Institute in Erlangen, Sabine Schiffer, and researcher Constantin Wagner, who also define Islamophobia as anti-Muslim racism, outline additional similarities and differences between Islamophobia and antisemitism. They point out the existence of equivalent notions such as "Judaisation/Islamisation", and metaphors such as "a state within a state" are used in relation to both Jews and Muslims. In addition, both discourses make use of, among other rhetorical instruments, "religious imperatives" supposedly "proven" by religious sources, and conspiracy theories.

The differences between Islamophobia and antisemitism consist of the nature of the perceived threats to the "Christian West". Muslims are perceived as "inferior" and as a visible "external threat", while on the other hand, Jews are perceived as "omnipotent" and as an invisible "internal threat". However, Schiffer and Wagner also note that there is a growing tendency to view Muslims as a privileged group that constitute an "internal threat", and that this convergence between the two discources makes "it more and more necessary to use findings from the study of anti-Semitism to analyse Islamophobia". Schiffer and Wagner conclude,

The achievement in the study of anti-Semitism of examining Jewry and anti-Semitism separately must also be transferred to other racisms, such as Islamophobia. We do not need more information about Islam, but more information about the making of racist stereotypes in general.

The publication Social Work and Minorities: European Perspectives describes Islamophobia as the new form of racism in Europe, arguing that "Islamophobia is as much a form of racism as anti-semitism, a term more commonly encountered in Europe as a sibling of racism, xenophobia and Intolerance." Edward Said considers Islamophobia as it is evinced in Orientalism to be a trend in a more general antisemitic Western tradition. Other note that there have been a transition from anti-Asian and anti-Arab racism to anti-Muslim racism, while some note a racialization of religion.

According to a 2012 report by a UK anti-racism group, counter-jihadist outfits in Europe and North America are becoming more cohesive by forging alliances, with 190 groups now identified as promoting an Islamophobic agenda. In Islamophobia and its consequences on young people (p. 6) Ingrid Ramberg writes "Whether it takes the shape of daily forms of racism and discrimination or more violent forms, Islamophobia is a violation of human rights and a threat to social cohesion.". Professor John Esposito of Georgetown University calls Islamophobia "the new anti-Semitism".

Mohamed Nimer compares Islamophobia with anti-Americanism. He argues that while both Islam and America can be subject to legitimate criticisms without detesting a people as a whole, bigotry against both are on the rise.

Multiculturalism

According to Gabrielle Maranci, the increasing Islamophobia in the West is related to a rising repudiation of multiculturalism. Islam is widely regarded as the most resistant culture against Western, democratic values and its Judaeo-Christian heritage. Maranci concludes that "Islamophobia is a ‘phobia’ of multiculturalism and the transruptive effect that Islam can have in Europe and the West through transcultural processes."

Allegations of Islamophobia

Media

File:Gathering of eagles.jpg

An American protester self-identifying as Islamophobic.

According to Elizabeth Poole in the Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Studies, the media has been criticized for perpetrating Islamophobia. She cites a case study examining a sample of articles in the British press from between 1994 and 2004, which concluded that Muslim viewpoints were underrepresented and that issues involving Muslims usually depicted them in a negative light. Such portrayals, according to Poole, include the depiction of Islam and Muslims as a threat to Western security and values. Benn and Jawad write that hostility towards Islam and Muslims are "closely linked to media portrayals of Islam as barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist." Egorova and Tudor cite European researchers in suggesting that expressions used in the media such as "Islamic terrorism", "Islamic bombs" and "violent Islam" have resulted in a negative perception of Islam. John E. Richardson's 2004 book (Mis)representing Islam: the racism and rhetoric of British broadsheet newspapers, criticized the British media for propagating negative stereotypes of Muslims and fueling anti-Muslim prejudice. In another study conducted by John E. Richardson, he found that 85% of mainstream newspaper articles treated Muslims as a homogeneous mass who were imagined as a threat to British society.

In 2009 Mehdi Hasan in the New Statesman criticized Western media for over-reporting a few Islamist terrorist incidents but under-reporting the much larger number of planned non-Islamist terrorist attacks carried out by "non-Irish white folks". A 2012 study indicates that Muslims across different European countries, such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, experience the highest degree of Islamophobia in the media.

Media personalities have been accused of Islamophobia. The obituary in The Guardian for the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci described her as "notorious for her Islamaphobia" [sic].

Some media outlets are working explicitly against Islamophobia. In 2008 Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting ("FAIR") published a study "Smearcasting, How Islamophobes Spread Bigotry, Fear and Misinformation." The report cites several instances where mainstream or close to mainstream journalists, authors and academics have made analyses that essentialize negative traits as an inherent part of Muslims' moral makeup. FAIR also established the "Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism", designed to monitor coverage in the media and establish dialogue with media organizations. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Islamic Society of Britain's "Islam Awareness Week" and the "Best of British Islam Festival" were introduced to improve community relations and raise awareness about Islam. In 2012 the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation stated that they will launch a TV channel to counter Islamophobia.

Organisations

An English Defence League demonstration. The placard reads Stop the mosque command and control centre.

Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and the Freedom Defense Initiative are designated as hate groups by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. In August 2012 SIOA generated media publicity by sponsoring billboards in New York subway stations claiming there had been 19,250 terrorist attacks by Muslims since 9/11 and stating "it's not Islamophobia, it's Islamorealism." It later ran advertisements reading "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad." Several groups condemned the advertisements as "hate speech" about all Muslims while others defended the ad as a narrow criticism of violent jihad. In early January 2013 the Freedom Defense Initiative put up advertisements next to 228 clocks in 39 New York subway stations showing the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center with a quote attributed to the Quran: “Soon shall we cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers.” The New York City Transit Authority, which said it would have to carry the advertisements on First Amendment grounds, insisted that 25% of the ad contain a Transit Authority disclaimer. These advertisements also were criticized.

The English Defence League (EDL), an organization in the United Kingdom, has been described as anti-Muslim. It was formed in 2009 to oppose what it considers to be a spread of Islamism, Sharia law and Islamic extremism in the UK. The EDL’s former leader, Tommy Robinson, left the group in 2013 after admitting that he could not control anti-Muslim extremism within its membership.

Trends

Islamophobia has become a topic of increasing sociological and political importance. According to Benn and Jawad, Islamophobia has increased since Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa inciting muslims to attempt to murder Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, the September 11 attacks and the rise of the Islamic State or Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Anthropologist Steven Vertovec writes that the purported growth in Islamophobia may be associated with increased Muslim presence in society and successes. He suggests a circular model, where increased hostility towards Islam and Muslims results in governmental countermeasures such as institutional guidelines and changes to legislation, which itself may fuel further Islamophobia due to increased accommodation for Muslims in public life. Vertovec concludes: "As the public sphere shifts to provide a more prominent place for Muslims, Islamophobic tendencies may amplify."

A mannequin symbolizing a Muslim in a keffiyeh, strapped to a "Made in the USA" bomb display at a protest of Park51 in New York City.

Patel, Humphries, and Naik claim that "Islamophobia has always been present in Western countries and cultures. In the last two decades, it has become accentuated, explicit and extreme." However, Vertovec states that some have observed that Islamophobia has not necessarily escalated in the past decades, but that there has been increased public scrutiny of it. According to Abduljalil Sajid, one of the members of the Runnymede Trust's Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, "Islamophobias" have existed in varying strains throughout history, with each version possessing its own distinct features as well as similarities or adaptations from others.

In December 2005 Ziauddin Sardar, an Islamic scholar, wrote in the New Statesman that Islamophobia is a widespread European phenomenon. He noted that each country has anti-Muslim political figures, citing Jean-Marie Le Pen in France; Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands; and Philippe van der Sande of Vlaams Blok, a Flemish nationalist party in Belgium. Sardar argued that Europe is "post-colonial, but ambivalent." Minorities are regarded as acceptable as an underclass of menial workers, but if they want to be upwardly mobile anti-Muslim prejudice rises to the surface. Wolfram Richter, professor of economics at Dortmund University of Technology, told Sardar: "I am afraid we have not learned from our history. My main fear is that what we did to Jews we may now do to Muslims. The next holocaust would be against Muslims." Similar fears, as noted by Kenan Malik in his book From Fatwa to Jihad, had been previously expressed in the UK by Muslim philosopher Shabbir Akhtar in 1989, and Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission in 2000. In 2006 Salma Yaqoob, a Respect Party Councillor, claimed that Muslims in Britain were "subject to attacks reminiscent of the gathering storm of anti-Semitism in the first decades of the last century.". Malik, a senior visiting fellow in the Department of Political, International and Policy Studies at the University of Surrey, has described these claims of a brewing holocaust as "hysterical to the point of delusion"; whereas Jews in Hitler's Germany were given the official designation of Untermenschen, and were subject to escalating legislation which diminished and ultimately removed their rights as citizens, Malik noted that in cases where "Muslims are singled out in Britain, it is often for privileged treatment" such as the 2005 legislation banning "incitement to religious hatred", the special funding Muslim organizations and bodies receive from local and national government, the special provisions made by workplaces, school and leisure centres for Muslims, and even suggestions by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, that sharia law should be introduced into Britain. The fact is, wrote Malik, that such well-respected public figures as Akhtar, Shadjareh and Yaqoob need "a history lesson about the real Holocaust reveals how warped the Muslim grievance culture has become."

Although Malik may believe that Muslims are not under attack, it is no coincidence that anti-Muslim hate crimes have increased after 9/11. While annual anti-Muslim hate crimes often numbered below 50 before 2001, they now average around 150. Muslims are now the most targeted group for hate crimes in America, after Jews.

In 2006 ABC News reported that "[p]ublic views of Islam are one casualty of the post-Sept. 11, 2001 conflict: Nearly six in 10 Americans think the religion is prone to violent extremism, nearly half regard it unfavorably, and a remarkable one in four admits to prejudicial feelings against Muslims and Arabs alike." They also report that 27 percent of Americans admit feelings of prejudice against Muslims. Gallup polls in 2006 found that 40 percent of Americans admit to prejudice against Muslims, and 39 percent believe Muslims should carry special identification. Associate Professor Deepa Kumar writes that "Islamophobia is about politics rather than religion per se" and that modern-day demonization of Arabs and Muslims by US politicians and others is racist and Islamophobic, and employed in support of what she describes as an unjust war. About the public impact of this rhetoric, she says that "One of the consequences of the relentless attacks on Islam and Muslims by politicians and the media is that Islamophobic sentiment is on the rise." She also chides some "people on the left" for using the same "Islamophobic logic as the Bush regime". In this regards, Kumar confirms the assertions of Stephen Sheehi, who "conceptualises Islamophobia as an ideological formation within the context of the American empire. Doing so “allows us to remove it from the hands of ‘culture’ or from the myth of a single creator or progenitor, whether it be a person, organisation or community.” An ideological formation, in this telling, is a constellation of networks that produce, proliferate, benefit from, and traffic in Islamophobic discourses."

The writer and scholar on religion Reza Aslan has said that "Islamophobia has become so mainstream in this country that Americans have been trained to expect violence against Muslims — not excuse it, but expect it"

A January 2010 British Social Attitudes Survey found that the British public "is far more likely to hold negative views of Muslims than of any other religious group," with "just one in four" feeling "positively about Islam," and a "majority of the country would be concerned if a mosque was built in their area, while only 15 per cent expressed similar qualms about the opening of a church."

Reports by governmental organizations

The largest project monitoring Islamophobia was undertaken following 9/11 by the EU watchdog, European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). Their May 2002 report "Summary report on Islamophobia in the EU after 11 September 2001", written by Chris Allen and Jorgen S. Nielsen of the University of Birmingham, was based on 75 reports — 15 from each EU member nation. The report highlighted the regularity with which ordinary Muslims became targets for abusive and sometimes violent retaliatory attacks after 9/11. Despite localized differences within each member nation, the recurrence of attacks on recognizable and visible traits of Islam and Muslims was the report's most significant finding. Incidents consisted of verbal abuse, blaming all Muslims for terrorism, forcibly removing women's hijabs, spitting on Muslims, calling children "Osama", and random assaults. Muslims have been hospitalized and on one occasion paralyzed. The report also discussed the portrayal of Muslims in the media. Inherent negativity, stereotypical images, fantastical representations, and exaggerated caricatures were all identified. The report concluded that "a greater receptivity towards anti-Muslim and other xenophobic ideas and sentiments has, and may well continue, to become more tolerated."

The EUMC has since released a number of publications related to Islamophobia, including The Fight against Antisemitism and Islamophobia: Bringing Communities together (European Round Tables Meetings) (2003) and Muslims in the European Union: Discrimination and Islamophobia (2006).

Professor in History of Religion, Anne Sophie Roald, states that Islamophobia was recognized as a form of intolerance alongside xenophobia and antisemitism at the "Stockholm International Forum on Combating Intolerance". The conference, attended by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Secretary General Ján Kubis and representatives of the European Union and Council of Europe, adopted a declaration to combat "genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and xenophobia, and to combat all forms of racial discrimination and intolerance related to it."

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, in its 5th report to Islamophobia Observatory, finds an "institutionalization and legitimization of the phenomenon of Islamophobia" in the West over the last five years.

Integrationsverket (the Swedish National Integration Board) defined Islamophobia as "racism and discrimination expressed towards Muslims."

Research on Islamophobia and its correlates

Various studies have been conducted to investigate Islamophobia and its correlates among majority populations and among Muslim minorities themselves. To start with, an experimental study showed that anti-Muslim attitudes may be stronger than more general xenophobic attitudes. Moreover, studies indicate that anti-Muslim prejudice among majority populations is primarily explained by the perception of Muslims as a cultural threat, rather than as a threat towards the respective nation's economy.

Studies focusing on the experience of Islamophobia among Muslims have shown that the experience of religious discrimination is associated with lower national identification and higher religious identification. In other words, religious discrimination seems to lead Muslims to increase their identification with their religion and to decrease their identification with their nation of residence. Some studies further indicate that societal Islamophobia negatively influences Muslim minorities' health. One of the studies showed that the perception of an Islamophobic society is associated with more psychological problems, such as depression and nervousness, regardless whether the respective individual had personally experienced religious discrimination. As the authors of the study suggest, anti-discrimination laws may therefore be insufficient to fully protect Muslim minorities from an environment which is hostile towards their religious group.

Geographic trends

An increase of Islamophobia in Russia follows the growing influence of the strongly conservative sect of Wahhabism, according to Nikolai Sintsov of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee. Various translations of the Qur'an have been banned by the Russian government for promoting extremism and Muslim supremacy. Anti-Muslim rhetoric is on the rise in Georgia. In Greece, Islamophobia accompanies anti-immigrant sentiment, as immigrants are now 15% of the country's population and 90% of the EU’s illegal entries are through Greece. In France Islamophobia is tied, in part, to the nation's long-standing tradition of secularism. In Burma the 969 Movement has been accused of events such as the 2012 Rakhine State riots.

Jocelyne Cesari, in her study of discrimination against Muslims in Europe, finds that anti-Islamic sentiment is almost impossible to separate from other drivers of discrimination. Because Muslims are mainly from immigrant backgrounds and the largest group of immigrants (in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands) xenophobia overlaps with Islamophobia. This differs from the American situation where Hispanic immigrants dominate. Classism is another overlapping factor in some nations. Muslims have lower income and poorer education in France, Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands while Muslims in the US have higher income and education than the general population. In the UK, Islam is seen as a threat to secularism in response to the calls by some Muslims for blasphemy laws. In the Netherlands, Islam is seen as a socially conservative force that threatens gender equality and the acceptance of homosexuality.

Criticism of term and use

British novelist Salman Rushdie, a former Muslim, ridiculed the term 'Islamophobia'.

Although the term is widely recognized and used, the use of the term, its construction and the concept itself have been widely criticized. Roland Imhoff and Julia Recker, in an article that puts forward the term "Islamoprejudice" as a better alternative, write that "... few concepts have been debated as heatedly over the last ten years as the term Islamophobia." Jocelyne Cesari reported widespread challenges in the use and meaning of the term in 2006.

Writing in 2008 Ed Husain, a former member of Hizb ut-Tahrir and co-founder of Quilliam, said that under pressure from Islamist extremists, "'Islamophobia' has become accepted as a phenomenon on a par with racism", claiming that "Outside a few flashpoints where the BNP is at work, most Muslims would be hard-pressed to identify Islamophobia in their lives".

Salman Rushdie criticized the coinage of the word 'Islamophobia' saying that it "was an addition to the vocabulary of Humpty Dumpty Newspeak. It took the language of analysis, reason and dispute, and stood it on its head".

Academic and political debate

Paul Jackson, in a critical study of the anti-Islamic English Defence League, argues that the term Islamophobia creates a stereotype where “any criticism of Muslim societies [can be] dismissed ...” The term feeds “a language of polarised polemics ... to close down discussion on genuine areas of criticism ...” Consequently, the term is “losing much [of its] analytical value".

Professor Eli Göndör wrote that the term Islamophobia should be replaced with "Muslimophobia". As Islamophobia is "a rejection of a population on the grounds of Muslimness", other researches suggest "Muslimism".

Professor Mohammad H. Tamdgidi of the University of Massachusetts, Boston, has generally endorsed the definition of Islamophobia as defined by the Runnymede Trust's Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All. However, he notes that the report's list of "open" views of Islam itself presents "an inadvertent definitional framework for Islamophilia": that is, it "falls in the trap of regarding Islam monolithically, in turn as being characterized by one or another trait, and does not adequately express the complex heterogeneity of a historical phenomenon whose contradictory interpretations, traditions, and sociopolitical trends have been shaped and has in turn been shaped, as in the case of any world tradition, by other world-historical forces."

Other critics argue that the term conflates criticism of "Islamic totalitarianism" with hatred of Muslims. In the wake of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, a group of 12 writers, including novelist Salman Rushdie, signed a manifesto entitled Together facing the new totalitarianism in the French weekly satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, warning against the use of the term Islamophobia to prevent criticism of "Islamic totalitarianism". Writing in the New Humanist, philosopher Piers Benn suggests that people who fear the rise of Islamophobia foster an environment "not intellectually or morally healthy", to the point that what he calls "Islamophobia-phobia" can undermine "critical scrutiny of Islam as somehow impolite, or ignorant of the religion's true nature."

Alan Posener and Alan Johnson have written that, while the idea of Islamophobia is sometimes misused, those who claim that hatred of Muslims is justified as opposition to Islamism actually undermine the struggle against Islamism. Roger Kimball argues that the word “Islamophobia” is inherently a prohibition or fear of criticizing of radical Islam. According to Pascal Bruckner, the term was invented by Iranian fundamentalists in the late 1970s analogous to "xenophobia" in order to denounce as racism what he feels is legitimate criticism of Islam. The author Sam Harris, while denouncing bigotry, racism, and prejudice against Muslims or Arabs, rejects the term, Islamophobia, as an invented psychological disorder, and states criticizing those Islamic beliefs and practices he believes pose a threat to civil society is not a form of bigotry or racism. Harris himself says that Islam is in urgent need of reformation by Muslims as its doctrines as they stand are antiquated and, if armed with modern technology, uniquely dangerous to civilization. Philosopher Michael Walzer says that fear of religious militancy is not phobia, and compares fear of radical Islam with the fear Muslims and Jews could feel towards Christians during the crusades.

In Australia, a Professor of Psychology from the University of Melbourne and a Professor of Sociology from the University of New South Wales have said that the term Islamophobia is used to dismiss opinions people dislike, by invalidating the people who hold those opinions. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in January 2015 following the Charlie Hebdo shooting “It is very important to make clear to people that Islam has nothing to do with ISIS. There is a prejudice in society about this, but on the other hand, I refuse to use this term 'Islamophobia,' because those who use this word are trying to invalidate any criticism at all of Islamist ideology. The charge of 'Islamophobia' is used to silence people”.

The Associated Press Stylebook

In December 2012, media sources reported that the terms "homophobia" and "Islamophobia" would no longer be included in the AP Stylebook, and Deputy Standards Editor Dave Minthorn expressed concern about the usage of the terms, describing them as "just off the mark" and saying that they seem "inaccurate". Minthorn stated that AP decided that the terms should not be used in articles with political or social contexts because they imply an understanding of the mental state of another individual. The terms no longer appears on the online stylebook, and Minthorn believes journalists should employ more precise phrases to avoid "ascribing a mental disability to someone".

See also

• Persecution of Muslims
• Religious intolerance
• Religious persecution
• Anti-Christianism
• Antisemitism
• Persecution of Bahá'ís

References

Sources

• Poole, E. (2003). "Islamophobia". In Cashmore, Ellis (ed.). Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Studies. Routledge. pp. 215–219. ISBN 978-0-415-44714-0.
• Benn, T.; Jawad, H. (2004). Muslim Women in the United Kingdom and Beyond: Experiences and Images. Brill Publishers. ISBN 90-04-12581-7.
• Egorova, Y.; Parfitt, T. (2003). Jews, Muslims, and Mass Media: Mediating the 'Other'. London: Routledge Curzon. ISBN 0-415-31839-4.
• Haddad, Y. (2002). Muslims in the West: From Sojourners to Citizens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-514805-3.
• Johnson, M. R. D.; Soydan, H; Williams, C. (1998). Social Work and Minorities: European Perspectives. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16962-3.
• R Miles and M Brown (2003). Racism. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-29676-5.

Further reading

• Allen, Chris (2011). Islamophobia. Ashgate Publishing Company.
• Abbas, Tahir (2005). Muslim Britain: Communities Under Pressure. Zed. ISBN 978-1-84277-449-6.
• van Driel, B. (2004). Confronting Islamophobia In Educational Practice. Trentham Books. ISBN 1-85856-340-2.
• “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz Shakir, accessed February 24, 2015.
• “Fear, Inc. 2.0: The Islamophobia Network’s Efforts to Manufacture Hate in America,” Matthew Duss, Yasmine Taeb, Ken Gude, and Ken Sofer, accessed February 24, 2015.
• Gottschalk, P.; Greenberg, G. (2007). Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield publishers. ISBN 978-0-7425-5286-9.
• Greaves, R. (2004). Islam and the West Post 9/11. Ashgate publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7546-5005-7.
• Kaplan, Jeffrey (2006). "Islamophobia in America?: September 11 and Islamophobic Hate Crime", Terrorism and Political Violence (Routledge), 18:1, 1–33.
• Kincheloe, Joe L. and Shirley R. Steinberg (2004). The Miseducation of the West: How the Schools and Media Distort Our Understanding of Islam. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Press. (Arabic Edition, 2005).
• Konrad, Felix (2011). From the "Turkish Menace" to Exoticism and Orientalism: Islam as Antithesis of Europe (1453–1914)?, European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History. Retrieved: June 22, 2011.
• Kundnani, Arun. (2014) The Muslims Are Coming! Islamaphobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror (Verso; 2014) 327 pages
• Pynting, Scott; Mason, Victoria (2007). "The Resistible Rise of Islamophobia: Anti-Muslim Racism in the UK and Australia before 11 September 2001". Journal of Sociology. The Australian Sociological Association. 43(1): 61–86.
• Quraishi, M. (2005). Muslims and Crime: A Comparative Study. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0-7546-4233-X.
• Ramadan, T. (2004). Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517111-X.
• Richardson, John E. (2004). (Mis)representing Islam: the racism and rhetoric of British broadsheet newspapers. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 90-272-2699-7.
• Sheehi, Stephen (2011). Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims. Clarity Press.
• Shryock, Andrew, ed. (2010). Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend. Indiana University Press. pp. 250. Essays on Islamophobia past and present; topics include the "neo-Orientalism" of three Muslim commentators today: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Reza Aslan, and Irshad Manji.
• Tausch, Arno with Christian Bischof, Tomaz Kastrun and Karl Mueller (2007). Against Islamophobia: Muslim Communities, Social-Exclusion and the Lisbon Process in Europe. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Nova Science Publishers. ISBN 978-1-60021-535-3.
• Tausch, Arno with Christian Bischof, and Karl Mueller (2008). Muslim Calvinism: Internal Security and the Lisbon Process in Europe. Purdue University Press. ISBN 978-905170995-7.
• Tausch, Arno (2007). Against Islamophobia: Quantitative Analyses of Global Terrorism, World Political Cycles and Center Periphery Structures. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Nova Science Publishers. ISBN 978-1-60021-536-0.

External links

• Islamophobia Studies Journal, Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project, UC Berkeley.