Islamophobia

Islamophobia is a neologism used generally to refer to prejudice against, hatred towards, or irrational fear of Muslims. Some scholars, such as Tariq Modood, class it as racism. The term Islamophobia is widely contested, and lacks a clear definition, according to academics such as Chris Allen.

In 1997, the British Runnymede Trust defined Islamophobia as the "dread or hatred of Islam and therefore, [the] fear and dislike of all Muslims," stating that it also refers to the practice of discriminating against Muslims by excluding them from the economic, social, and public life of the nation. The concept also encompasses the opinions that Islam has no values in common with other cultures, is inferior to the West and is a violent political ideology rather than a religion.

A perceived trend of increasing Islamophobia and Islamophobic incidents during the 2000s has been attributed by commentators to the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, while others associate it with the increased presence of Muslims in the Western world. In May 2002, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), a European Union watchdog, released a report entitled "Summary report on Islamophobia in the EU after 11 September 2001", which described an increase in Islamophobia-related incidents in European member states post-9/11.

Although the term is widely recognized and used, both the term and the underlying concept have been criticized.

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."

Definitions

Etymology

The word Islamophobia is a neologism formed from Islam and -phobia. The compound form Islamo- contains the thematic vowel -o-, and is found in earlier coinages such as Islamo-Christian from the 19th century.

Runnymede Trust

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

Debate on the term and its limitations

Robin Richardson, an original member of the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, at a 2009 symposium on "Islamophobia and Religious Discrimination", 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.

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 5 of the criteria put forward by The Runnymede trust are invalid. Still, he recognises the term and phenomenon.

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."

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

Some 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. Author Doug Saunders have drawn parallels between current islamophobia and the older discrimination and hate against Roman Catholics.

Other find no general 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 concludes 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."

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.

Community operationalisation

London School of Economics & Political Sciences Students’ Union defines islamophobia as "a form of racism expressed through the hatred or fear of Islam, Muslims, or Islamic culture, and the stereotyping, demonisation or harassment of Muslims, including but not limited to portraying Muslims as barbarians or terrorists, or attacking the Qur’an as a manual of hatred".

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?.

Richardson states that the first English print usage was Edward Said's 1985 article "Orientalism Reconsidered". Another early documented use of the word was by the American news magazine Insight on the News in 1991, used to describe Russian activities in Afghanistan, and this is the usage listed by the Oxford English Dictionary. 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.

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".

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."

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 propogating negative stereotypes of Muslims and fueling anti-Muslim prejudice.

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 non-Islamist terrorist attacks carried out by non-Muslim white extremists. A Europol report showed that, contrary to media representation, more than 99% of terrorist attacks in Europe from 2006 to 2009 were, in fact, carried out by non-Muslims. 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. The media also has been criticized for under-reporting hate crimes against Muslims.

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. 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."

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]. The Council on American-Islamic Relations has accused Ann Coulter of Islamophobia.

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 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.

Robert Spencer of the David Horowitz Freedom Center has written a number of books criticizing Islam. His work has been criticized as showing "entrenched hostility" towards Islam, and as being Islamophobic. Some of his writings have been condemned as hate speech by a number of Muslim-American and civil rights groups. According to his blog Jihad Watch he has appeared on many major media outlets on the topic, including the major cable news networks, especially a number of FoxNews programs; PBS, BBC, and a number of well-known talk radio shows.

Organisations

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 Stop Islamization of America generated media publicity by sponsoring billboards in New York subway stations claiming there were 19250 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." 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 Koran: “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 organisation spawned copycat organisations such as Stop Islamisation of Europe.

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. EDL’s former leader, Tommy Robinson, confirms and now rejects the anti-Muslim extremism within the ranks of the EDL.

In Burma the 969 Movement has been accused of events such as the 2012 Rakhine State riots.

Trends

Islamophobia has become a topic of increasing sociological and political importance. According to Benn and Jawad, Islamophobia has increased since Ayatollah Khomeini's denouncement of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and the September 11 attacks. 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. An observatory report on Islamophobia by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference similarly states that Islamophobia has existed for as long as Islam itself.

Assistant Professor Deepa Kumar writes that the modern-day demonization of Arabs and Muslims by US politicians and others is racist and Islamophobic, and employed in support of 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". She concludes with the statement "At times like this, people of conscience need to organize and speak out against Islamophobia." 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"

Ziauddin Sardar, an Islamic scholar, writes in The New Statesman that Islamophobia is a widespread European phenomenon, so widespread that he asks whether Muslims will be victims of the next pogroms. He writes that each country has its anti-Muslim extremists, 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. Filip Dewinter, the leader of the nationalist Flemish "Vlaams Belang" has said that his party is "Islamophobic." He said: "Yes, we are afraid of Islam. The Islamisation of Europe is a frightening thing."

Sardar argues 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, as Sardar says young Muslims do, the 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."

EUMC reports

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 "Usama", 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).

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 word, 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.

Criticism of concept and use

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 write that "... few concepts have been debated as heatedly over the last ten years as the term Islamophobia." Other studies report similar widespread challenges in the use and meaning of the term.

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 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".

Political polemics

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 what he feels is legitimate criticism of Islam as racism. The author Sam Harris has called Islamophobia an invented psychological disorder.

The Associated Press

In December 2012, media sources reported that the term Islamophobia would no longer be included in the AP Stylebook, and Deputy Standards Editor Dave Minthorn expressed concern about the usage of the phrase in news articles. Minthorn stated that AP decided that the term should not be used in articles with political or social contexts because it implies an understanding of the mental state of another individual. The term no longer appears on the online stylebook, and Minthorn believes journalists should employ more precise phrases to avoid "acribing a mental disability to someone".

See also

• Persecution of Muslims
• Religious intolerance
• Religious persecution

Bibliography

• Cashmore, E, ed. (2003). Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Studies. Routledge. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• Benn, T. (2004). Muslim Women in the United Kingdom and Beyond: Experiences and Images. Brill Publishers. ISBN 90-04-12581-7. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Egorova, Y. (2003). Jews, Muslims, and Mass Media: Mediating the 'Other'. London: Routledge Curzon. ISBN 0-415-31839-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Haddad, Y. (2002). Muslims in the West: From Sojourners to Citizens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-514805-3.
• Johnson, M. R. D. (1998). Social Work and Minorities: European Perspectives. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16962-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Miles, R. (2003). Racism. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-29676-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Further reading

• Allen, Chris. Islamophobia (Ashgate Publishing Company; 2011)
• 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.
• Gottschalk, P. (2007). Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield publishers. ISBN 978-0-7425-5286-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• 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: From the "Turkish Menace" to Exoticism and Orientalism: Islam as Antithesis of Europe (1453–1914)?, European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: June 22, 2011.
• 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.
• Richardson, John E. (2004). (Mis)representing Islam: the racism and rhetoric of British broadsheet newspapers. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 90-272-2699-7.
• Shryock, Andrew, ed. Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend (Indiana University Press; 2010) 250 pages; 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
• Tausch, Arno with Christian Bischof, and Karl Mueller (2007), "Muslim Calvinism”, internal security and the Lisbon process in Europe Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers
• Tausch, Arno (2007), Against Islamophobia. Quantitative analyses of global terrorism, world political cycles and center periphery structures Hauppauge, N.Y.: Nova Science Publishers
• Quraishi, M. (2005). Muslims and Crime: A Comparative Study. Ashgate publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7546-4233-X.
• Ramadan, T. (2004). Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517111-X.

External links

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