Farid Hafez

Farid Hafez at the Bruno-Kreisky-Anerkennungspreis 2010

Farid Hafez (born 23 December 1981) is an Austrian political scientist, currently teaching and doing research at the Political Science Department at the University of Salzburg.

Early life

Hafez was born in Ried im Innkreis, Austria on 23 December 1981. After moving to the capital city Vienna, taking his first degree in political science, he finished his studies and earned his PhD at University of Vienna in 2009.

Academic career

Shortly before submitting his dissertation, in which he analyzed parliamentary debates on the ban of mosques and minarets in two Austrian counties, he published his first book ‘Islamophobia in Austria’ together with Middle East scholar John Bunzl. The book was awarded the Bruno Kreisky award (Anerkennungspreis) of the Dr. Karl-Renner-Institut for the political book of the year 2009.

Since then, Hafez published widely on Islamophobia. In 2010, he founded the Islamophobia Studies Yearbook In 2015, he created the European Islamophobia Report, which he now edits along with political scientist Enes Bayrakli for the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, SETA, based in Ankara, Istanbul, Cairo and Washington DC.

He is a member of the Affiliated Faculty of the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project (IRDP) at University of California, Berkeley and member of the international advisory board at Georgetown University’s 'The Bridge Initiative', which deals with issues around Islamophobia and diversity and is led by John L. Esposito. He is also Affiliated Faculty and Scholars-member of the Center for Right-Wing Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and the editor of numerous works on Islamophobia.

From 2008 to 2010, Hafez did research at the Department of Law of Religion and Culture at the University of Vienna, before he started teaching at the Muslim Teachers Training College in Vienna (2009 to 2014). In 2014, he was Visiting Scholar at Columbia University.

Currently, he conducts research at the Department of Political Science at the University of Salzburg.

During the academic year 2016/17, he was Fulbright-Botstiber Visiting Professor of Austrian-American Studies at UC Berkeley. Hafez had taught at the Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Vienna as well as at the University of Klagenfurt. Hafez publishes regularly in Austrian and international news media like Der Standard and Die Presse. He is a frequent interview partner for international media, among them The Washington Post

His current research focuses on Muslim youth movements in Europe.

Hafez was a guest lecturer at University of Istanbul, Istanbul 29 Mayıs Üniversitesi, Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta, and Columbia University in New York. As a visiting lecturer, he taught at the University of Chicago, Center for Austrian Studies at the University of Minnesota, Queensborough Community College in New York, City University of New York, and the Amerika Haus in Vienna. He also teaches at a number of academic non-universitarian institutions such as the Global Citizenship Alliance [28]. In 2015, he was part of the faculty of The Ariane de Rothschild Fellowship. Dr. Hafez also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Austrian-American History.

Rewards

The Austrian Culture Magazine named Farid Hafez as one of 100 „Austrians with a special future“.

Main scientific positions

Ever since his book on Malcolm X (Mein Name ist Malcolm X: Das Leben eines Revolutionärs), Dr. Hafez repeatedly and clearly distances himself from mainstream Western government approaches: In this flagship essay, Dr. Hafez and associates say:

"In many Western European countries, the Ministries of the Interior have institutionalized 'dialogue platforms' to discuss issues of Islam, society, inclusion and extremism with Muslim actors. This reveals the implicit assumptions of these governments when talking to Muslims. The underlying message is that Muslims pose a security threat to the state and society, a perception that is manifested in many countries, and that Muslims are seen simultaneously as a threat and an ally".

He also sharply criticizes governments in majority Muslim countries, cooperating with the West, such as in Albania, Egypt, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Pakistan for being "islamophobic", and he also criticizes the secular Left in Turkey, following the legacy of Kemal Atatürk.

Dr. Hafez identifies with what he calls the "racism studies-informed postcolonial approach" in studying Islam.

"Many of the measures taken to regulate Islam-state relations reveal an approach that on one side attempts to give Islam a place in their society, while on the other side clearly refers to a stereotypical imagination of the Muslim, where the notion of Europe stands for enlightenment, modernity and progressiveness, while Islam and Muslims represent the opposite. Hence, we can observe a notion of ‘civilizing’ Islam that goes back to colonial times and introduces a division between the good and the bad Muslim; the former who submits to the state and its rules, versus the latter, who remains the uncivilized, barbaric, alien Muslim, prone to extremisms and fanaticism and incapable of fitting into modernity. The Islam dispositives revealed here show that the states legitimize their interference based on this implicitly reproduced imagination of the bad Muslims, and thus endeavor to ‘civilize’ Muslims subjects, reminding us again of the “white man’s burden.”"

In one of his major recent essays, Dr. Hafez also states that

“Islamophobia constitutes a major racist discourse today and illustrates how we can make sense of this global relevance of Islamophobia. The author explains the centrality of the ‘religion line’ in the current global world system by drawing on the post-Cold War era. Through a decolonial reading of Islamophobia, three empirical cases are chosen to discuss differences and commonalities between various forms of Islamophobia in the Xingjiang/China, Egypt, and the USA exploring the effects of this global phenomenon on the discursive construction of identities, citizenship rights, and governance.”

For Hafez, there is a central role of Islamophobia by referring to the works of scholars who advise the US political elite and regularly inform the US public in regard to US politics in the Middle East such as “Bernard Lewis and Fareed Zakaria.”

With the American scholar Stephen Sheehi , Dr. Hafez believes that an additional reason why

“Islamophobia has become engrained in American culture and its political unconscious is that Islamophobia operates in a society with its own troubled history of racism. The United States has a sustained history not only of the dehumanization, disenfranchisement and occupation of Blacks, Native Americans, and Asians but also of transforming this racist hate into political action, with hunts and pogroms to control dissent and discontent. Islamophobia has now been interwoven within this same history.”

For Hafez, the conclusion is:

“To conclude, we can argue that Islamophobia is a means of gaining, stabilizing, and widening power for the US empire. Through this lens, 9/11 was only a confirmation of the clash of civilizations-theory that had already preceded the terrorist attacks on the Manhattan Twin Towers. It allowed for an expansion of this colonial structure. “

European Islamophobia Report

The flagship publication, co-authored by Dr. Hafez, is the annual European Islamophobia Report. . Its 2019 edition was presented by the British member of the European Parliament for the British Green Party, the Rt. Honorable Magid Magid.

200 well-known signatories from the academia and civil society wrote a public letter of protest to EU-Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, calling on her not to co-finance anymore the report.

The signatories, among them Seyran Ateş, lawyer, author and Imam, Kamel Daoud, journalist and author, Kenan Güngör, social scientist and integration expert, Heiko Heinisch, historian and author, Necla Kelek, social scientist and author, Mouhanad Khorchide, theologian, Head of the Center for Islamic Theology, University of Münster, Ahmad Mansour, psychologist and author, Saïda Keller-Messahli, author, Zana Ramadani, author and political advisor, Nina Scholz, political scientist and author, Susanne Schröter, Ethnologist, head of the Global Islam Research Center, University of Frankfurt, Gerhard Weinberger, former Austrian ambassador and author, and Susanne Wiesinger, author, say:

"The goal of the Islamophobia Report is to prevent, to prevent or to discredit any critical public engagement with Islam and Islamist tendencies. This seriously questions the right to freedom of expression and thought in Europe. According to the editors of the EIR, even the public discussion of the political Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical currents should be prevented. They are not concerned with an open democratic debate, but with preventing it. We suspect that the EIR’s publishers have the long-term goal of influencing the legislation of the EU and its member states with the help of a Turkish, government-friendly foundation that acts as an NGO so that a critical examination of political Islam is impossible. The signatories reject this attempt at censorship."

Islamophobia in majority Muslim countries

The major international publisher Routledge recently published Dr. Hafez' edited flagship English-language volume (with Enes Bayrakli on Islamophobia in majority Muslim countries. The volume deals, among others, with what it describes "Islamophobia" in Albania (Chapter 3: Islamophobia in the Contemporary Albanian Public Discourse), Pakistan (Chapter 4: Post-Coloniality, Islamization and Secular Elites: Tracing Islamophobia in Pakistan), Turkey (Chapter 5: The Politics of Islamophobia in Turkey). Other chapters deal with Egypt, Malaysia, Ethiopia and Australia.

Critique

The Jewish Community in Vienna, on its official Webpage, wrote about the work of Dr. Farid Hafez that the European Islamophobia Report (EIR) is

"a pseudo-scientific report that follows a political agenda. The whole thing has nothing to do with a serious scientific inventory or even research."

The study does not provide

"a consistent, understandable and scientifically useful definition for "Islamophobia"."

The term does not differentiate between resentment-laden agitation and the criticism of religion. The Jewish Community Vienna comment says that

"the only thing that was clearly defined is the investigation period, namely 2016. The publishers have never bothered to explain the methods they used or to describe the criteria on the basis of which the "cases" they described were selected."

Some critics highlighted what they call the close cooperation of Dr. Hafez with the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, SETA, which was described by the BBC in the following terms:

"The BBC also rejects the allegations in this report. The 'blacklisting' of journalists is completely unacceptable. It is vital that journalists can work freely, without threats and intimidation and the Turkish authorities must ensure media freedom."

The Vienna-based left-wing weekly journal "Falter" remarked that the Turkish Erdoğan-related SETA Foundation (= Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research) is a sponsor of the report.

"SETA (= Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research) not only publishes the Islamophobia Report, but also other denunciative reports that list Erdoğan's critics. In view of the mobilization potential of Turkish nationalist and Islamist circles, this should not be underestimated."

The author of the article, political scientist Nina Scholz also says:

"Co-editor Farid Hafez, who is also the author of the Austria section, does not bother to explain in the text what he means by "Islamophobia" and why the listed publications, appearances and statements of the listed scientists, including the Author of these quotations is said to be "Islamophobic". All of the above, including Muslims who want to go other ways than the organized Islamic mainstream, such as the theologian Mouhanad Khorchide, the president of the forum for a progressive Islam Saida Keller-Messahli or the founder of a Berlin mosque, Seyran Ates, are part of the worldwide "Islamophobic" discourse."

On a scientific level, Hafez has been criticized by Armin Pfahl-Traughber, for the less clear-cut use of the concept of Islamophobia.

In the German Daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Thomas Thiel accused Hafez of a "hagiographic writing about the masterminds of the Muslim Brotherhood" in his main work on the history of political ideas, published in 2014, Islamisch-politische Denker.

Thiel also accuses Hafez of not writing a single "[...] critical word about anti-Semitism and Hitler worship of Sayyid Qutb. And none about Yusuf Al-Qaradawi ... who calls Adolf Hitler a just punishment for the Jews”

Citations and global library presence

As of mid-July 2020, Google Scholar citations lists 675 citations of the works of Dr. Hafez; the H-Index is 11. OCLC Worldcat Identities currently lists 48 works of the author; and three achieved a global library presence of more than 100 libraries, but as yet, none is present at more than 300 libraries. 17 of his essays are included in Scopus.

Books

Dr. Hafez authored, co-authored or edited > 50 publications.

As single author:

• Mein Name ist Malcolm X: Das Leben eines Revolutionärs.
• Islamophober Populismus: Moschee- und Minarettbauverbote österreichischer Parlamentsparteien
• Anas Schakfeh: Das österreichische Gesicht des Islams
• Islamisch-politische Denker: Eine Einführung in die islamisch-politische Ideengeschichte
• Jung, muslimisch, österreichisch.

As (co-)editor:

• Islamophobie in Österreich (together with John Bunzl)
• Jahrbuch für Islamophobieforschung
• From the Far Right to the Mainstream: Islamophobia in Party Politics and the Media (together with Humayun Ansari)
• since 2016 European Islamophobia Report (together with Enes Bayraklı)

Articles in peer-reviewed journals:

• 2015: Das Islamgesetz im Kontext islamophober Diskurse: Eine Policy Frame-Analyse zum Politikgestaltungsprozess des Islamgesetz 2015, in: Juridikum, (2), 160–165.
• 2014: Disciplining the „Muslim Subject“: The Role of Security Agencies in Establishing Islamic Theology within the State’s Academia, in: Islamophobia Studies Journal, Vol. 2(2), 43–57.
• 2015: MuslimInnen als BürgerInnen zweiter Klasse? Eine vergleichende Analyse des Entwurfes eines neuen Islamgesetzes 2014 zum restlichen Religionsrecht, in: Jahrbuch für Islamophobieforschung 2015, 26–54.
• 2014: Shifting borders: Islamophobia as the cornerstone for buildingpan-European right-wing unity, in: Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 48, No.5, December 2014,pp. 1–21.
• 2014: Gedenken im „islamischen Gedankenjahr“. Zur diskursiven Konstruktion des österreichischen Islams im Rahmen der Jubiläumsfeier zu 100 Jahren Islamgesetz, in: Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlands, nr.104 (2014), S. 63-84.
• 2013: Der Gottesstaat des Essad-Bey. Eine Muhammad-Biographie aus der Sicht eines jüdischen Konvertiten zum Islam unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Dimension des Politischen, in: Journal of Arabicand Islamic Studies, 13 (2013), S.1-21.
• 2013: 'Islamophobe Weltverschwörungstheorien ... und wie Obama vom Muslim zum Muslimbruder wurde, in: Journal für Psychologie, Jg. 21, Ausgabe 1, S. 1-22.

External links

• Works by and about Farid Hafez at the German National Library
• Homepage of Farid Hafez
• Islamophobia Studies Yearbook
• review of Islamophobie in Österreich
• panel discussion at New York Public Library
• presentation about Islam in Austria at Goethe Institute in Chicago