Note: This article was first published on the blog site islamicate.co.uk in 2018 and then subsequently republished in the book Being British Muslims in 2019.
Over the last two decades or so “Islamophobia” has become quite a common word in conversations about the experience of Muslims in the UK and elsewhere in the West. In conditions of runaway globalisation we’ve also become conditioned to importing news of “Islamophobia” from abroad, from places as far as Australia. News of an arson attack on a mosque or a Muslim man stabbed to death from a little-known place often arrives on our shores in near real time, naturally heightening the feeling of vulnerability nearer to home. Casting aside this subtle psychological amplification of our own local context, there is a fair amount of evidence to suggest that the volume of explicit hatred against Muslims and related incidents categorised as “Islamophobia” in the UK have increased in the last 20 years.[1] According to the Runnymede Trust’s 20th anniversary report[2] published in November 2017, this has also led to a growing negative impact affecting Muslims and the direction of society at large.
It’s worth bearing in mind that a number of macro variables come into play when comparing the size of “Islamophobia” over time. Firstly, awareness and reporting of “Islamophobia” has dramatically improved over this period. In 2015, the UK Government introduced a new category for Police forces to report anti-Muslim hate crimes.[3] We also have well-oiled organisations like Tell MAMA and MEND which do a huge amount of work to improve reporting and raising awareness.[4] However, in between these organisations there are questions about duplication of reporting, and alignment of standards, definitions and criteria used to validate reports.
Secondly, perception of what “Islamophobia” is has shifted over time. In the 1980s and early 1990s attacks against men or women on their way to a mosque or hurls of abuse like “Paki out” or “go back to where you came from” would have been counted under racism, not “Islamophobia.” And so, arguably, it’s not that the incidents in public or unfair discrimination in workplaces didn’t take place, some of it was counted but under different categories.
Thirdly, with the advent of social media, it’s become very easy to launch abuse and offend people sitting behind a screen. Much of it is just raw, nasty and impulsive emotions hurled at others, similar to what often happens in a football stadium. And equally, it’s become very easy to share news of abuse and unfair treatment on social media.
Fourthly, as focus on Muslims has increased in the wake of 9/11, 7/7 and other attacks, many “Islamophobia” subject matter experts in public bodies and universities have tended to focus on the macro picture of: (1) political mobilizations against Islam and Muslims by far-right groups; (2) the government’s focus on counter-terrorism; and (3) media-led discussions of them, which have played into people’s already-held perceptions.
Perceptions and reporting issues aside, we call it “Islamophobia” despite the fact that the idea of “fearing Islam” neither conveys any sense of criminality, malevolent intent or immoral sentiment. Nor does it describe the actual phenomenon on several fronts. Firstly, from an Islamic theological point of view, there is of course no Islamic legal (fiqhi) argument that makes it unlawful (haram) or even disliked (makruh) for non-Muslims to hold irrational fears about Islam. The general principle is that non-Muslims are afforded such liberties, as they are in any civilised society, about personal beliefs, anxieties, fears and values. Whether the context is Makkan where Muslims reside as a minority within a majority non-Muslim population with non-Muslim political authority, or in a Madinan context where Muslims have political authority and may or may not have been a majority, in either of them, there isn’t anything documented in the annals of Islamic legal textbooks suggesting a moral value least of all criminalising the supposedly irrational fears or offensive opinions of non-Muslims.
In fact, in such a situation the believer is commanded by God to, “Repel evil by what is better” so that enmity between people turns to friendship (41:43). Thus, Muslims are commanded to be a source of ease, emotional intelligence and security to others, including those who fear Islam unknowingly. This is all the more relevant today given that: there is so much misinformation about Islam in the media; ethnic commitment to religion dominates among Muslims; 90% of the UK population has never visited a mosque;[5] and organised religion is generally perceived as unreasonable or an oddity in British society.
Secondly, for the sake of argument, if we set aside the above point and take the view that it’s lawful for non-believers to say whatever they want about Islam but caveat it with the condition that “only if it doesn’t lead to hatred,” such as in the form of abuse, bullying, unfair discrimination in the workplace, or violence etc., we then have to question who it’s directed at? If it’s against Muslims on the basis of visible identity markers (such as a “Muslim sounding” name, clothing, refusal to drink alcohol etc.) it does lend support to the term “anti-Muslim hatred” given that it has a sense of clarity in specifically locating the object of hatred or “otherising,” which is the person, and not necessarily the underlying religious doctrine or cultural symbol.
Thirdly, “Islamophobia” in the meaning of “irrational fear of Islam” seems to be somewhat unwittingly wedded to the cognitive dissonance (simultaneously holding two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas or values) that pervades the contemporary experiences of many Muslims. Holding the wider challenges in modernity as something done to them by others having a “phobia of Islam,” arguably, it becomes easier to deflect criticism of questionable ethno-cultural activities or the uncontextualised conventions of Muslims that usually get passed off as “Islamic.” Few would be motivated to see the need for self-reflective contextualisation, outreach and bridging activities, or re-evaluating the extent to which we can do more to engage and convey for the cultural imperative to root into British society out of what God says. Instead, there is a real risk that the institutionalisation of the term “Islamophobia” would lead to a specific kind of “privileging of victimhood” and inter-community otherisation by, say, Hindus against Muslims, or Asian Muslims against black Muslims.[6] Certainly Asian Muslims are well-known for their racism towards black Muslims.
Arguing “Islamophobia” as a valid term in the pattern of “homophobia” isn’t helpful either. “Homophobia” is antipathy directed towards homosexual people and homosexuality, which is why the term is true to the actual phenomenon. “Islamophobia,” on the other hand, seems to imply negative attitudes or antipathy directed against Islam, but what people actually mean here are Muslims. However, we can’t assume that Muslim and Islam are one and the same. Human behaviours are always on a spectrum; Muslims don’t necessarily act properly according to Islam and are at best considered to be “striving” to be accepted as “Muslim to God” (muslimaini laka).
In comparison to the Judaic tradition, which is perhaps most similar to the British Muslim situation, it’s not surprising that the accepted and widely used term isn’t “Jewdaism-phobia” or “Jew-phobia” but “anti-Semitic hatred” or “anti-Jewish hatred.” These latter terms are much truer to the phenomenon: the object is Semitic people of the Jewish faith. In this sense, the Runnymede Trust’s recommendation to call it “anti-Muslim racism” and giving it a rather nebulous definition,[7] whilst it adds something new to “Islamophobia” recognising the intersectionality of race and religion, and brings into focus structural and unconscious “otherising” and causes of socio-economic inequality, it goes down yet another pigeonhole of muddling race, religion and class by associating at face value people’s liberty to dislike or hate Islam with the more popular vocabulary of “racism.”
In doing so, it risks unwittingly undermining the significance of already widely-supported work to tackle core racism and race-related inequalities. After all, it’s also possible to hurl hatred at Muslims of white ethnicities, particularly white women converts. Race isn’t always necessarily implied. “Being Muslim” as a verb isn’t a race but an act of servitude to God. However, there is a growing trend among sociologists to define “Islamophobia” as a form of racism on the basis that they see race not merely as the colour of one’s skin but “a social construct incorporating a range of characteristics including skin colour, ethnic background and cultural identity.” In doing so, they impose an external reading of what “Muslimness” is, constrained to ethno-cultural markers and not necessarily in terms of what God defines as Muslim. In this sense, taking up a secular public language of anti-racism represents a “racialisation of Muslims and the countering of it through anti-racism is also party to their secularisation.”[8]
I would also argue that the cultural anthropological understanding of “being Muslim” dismally fails to recognise God as the central concern, and therefore doesn’t seek to understand “Muslimness” on its own terms. In turn, it means that the cultural markers of “brownness” of British Muslims such as the languages they speak (e.g. Bengali, Urdu, Swahili etc.), or the clothes they wear (e.g. the shalwar kameez, jilbab, turban, or trousers cut above the ankles etc.) or the foods they eat (e.g. chapatti, curry etc.) are readily conflated with a theocentric view of “being Muslim.” In the Qur’anic paradigm such ethno-cultural expressions have no intrinsic relation to “being Muslim” or “Muslimness.” Such markers can of course be found among non-Muslims like Sikhs, Indian Christians and Hindus too, and are more relevant to people’s ethnic identities rather than endogenous expressions of living Islam in Britain. This relation extends equally to nefarious results of ethnic commitment to religion, such as female genital mutilation (FGM), male patriarchy, forced marriages and abusive exorcist rituals to name a few.
The idea of defining “Islamophobia” as anything that takes up the language of racism to target “perceived Muslimness” has also been touted by the APPG on British Muslims. Such linking, I would argue, conceptually pushes the meaning of “racism” towards the idea of disliking or hating Islam as a religion or its ideas, and which isn’t intuitive to racism as generally used in society.[9] Nor does it, at face value, imply that people’s liberty to argue against Islamic ideas is protected. You could also argue that it’s possible to construe almost anything as “perceived Muslimness.”
The big elephant in the room which seems to be completely overlooked is the ethnic identities of people (the idea of being culturally Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Somali, Nigerian etc.) and their ethno-cultural polities on their own terms and contexts. British Muslims overall are far more rooted in their ethno-national identities and cultural conventions than a shared religious outlook. Under these proposals for a definition of “Islamophobia,” racism for Muslims reduces to their being Muslim and not their ethnic identity and polities which are ironically much more dominant.
There is also the potentially confounding porosity in the discourse between extreme expressions of “Islamophobia” widely condemned in the media, and more normalised and insidious ones which politicians and the media may be tolerant to in comparison.[10] 133 And, socio-economic disparities in the UK are not simply a function of race or about “being Muslim,” but transfuse multitude of factors, as socio-economic problems naturally do, across religions, class, literacy levels, structural imbalances in the economy, immigration histories etc.
Whilst it’s fair to say that we’ve all tended to use “Islamophobia” as the primary term, it is of course socially constructed and used in context. However, if we’re proposing to change or redefine the label, then, as I have argued here, the compelling rationale would be to adopt the term “anti-Muslim hatred,” not the broad definition of “anti-Muslim racism” or “Islamophobia” as “a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness” that the Runnymede Trust and the APPG on British Muslims, and others, have advocated.
Those against using the term “anti-Muslim hatred” argue that it doesn’t incorporate the array of broader structural racial inequalities that Muslims face, such as discrimination at work on having the name “Muhammad.” However, “anti-Muslim” is a prejudice that, like prejudices generally, manifests in different walks of life, where the underlying causes aren’t necessarily specific to Muslims. In the same way, to believe that “Islamophobia” is a type of structural racial inequality that deserves special treatment under a single overarching term, you would have to assume that animosity against Muslims or “perceived Muslimness” is the all-encompassing psychological driver. For example, the discrimination that Muhammad faces may well be faced by Srinivas too. Similarly, the lack of diversity in boardrooms is not an issue of animosity towards “perceived Muslimness” per se but wider variables and values in society. Much of these issues are at a basic level already covered in the Equality Act 2010[11] which protects people, including Muslims, from discrimination on grounds of age, race, colour, nationality, ethnic and national origin etc. in the fields of employment, the provision of goods and services, education and public functions. The idea that a broad definition of “Islamophobia” would somehow give new “meaning and substance to efforts to address conscious and unconscious forms of bias discrimination” overlooks the reality that remedy’s such as name-blind applications, diverse interview panels and unconscious bias training for recruitment professionals can only be enforced through direct legislation (assuming that people are properly consulted in the first place), not the indirect route of legally enforcing a troubled definition of “Islamophobia” upon businesses. Doing so would only make Muslims feel even more uneasy and apologetic about their faith.
How the term “Islam,” (bringing into view a moral, metaphysical and legal system and theocentric ideas) when juxtaposed alongside “phobia” could be expected to specifically refer to anti-Muslim hatred or racism towards ethnic minorities isn’t straightforward. Thus, it’s not surprising that the term “Islamophobia” almost always requires accompanying words such as “hatred,” “bigotry,” “prejudice,” “discrimination,” “racism” or some other descriptor depending on the realm in which the hatred or discrimination occurs. As the politics of defining Islamophobia rumbles on, failure to propose a minimal workable definition will only add to the problems Muslims face.
[1] According to Tell MAMA, there were 1,380 reports of anti-Muslim attacks and incidents in 2017, of which 1,201 reports were verified by them, of which slightly more than two thirds of verified incidents occurred “offline,” or at street level, which represents a 30% rise in offline reports when compared with the previous reporting period. About 56% were on females. The perpetrators were 80% male and conviction rate is about 80% based on police statistics. See: Beyond the Incident: Outcomes for Victims of Anti-Muslim Prejudice, 2017, Tell MAMA, 23 July 2018.
[2] See: Islamophobia Still a challenge for us all, https://www.runnymedetrust.org/, November 2017, retrieved 13 November 2017.
[3] 6 See: Action Against Hate: The UK Government’s plan for tackling hate crime, 2016, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, retrieved 8 August 2018.
[4] Other organisations include the APPG (All Party Parliamentary Group) for Hate Crimes, the “Hope Not Hate” campaign movements, interfaith alliances, and various initiatives within local communities etc.
[5] See: 90% of people haven’t been inside a mosque – change that this weekend!, http:// www.mcb.org.uk/90-of-people-havent-been-inside-a-mosque-change-that-thisweekend/, retrieved 18 February 201
[6] See concerns submitted by Southall Black Sisters group to the APPG on British Muslims: Islamophobia Defined: The inquiry into a working definition of Islamophobia, https://appgbritishmuslims.org/s/Islamophobia-Defined.pdf, November 2018, p. 43, retrieved 28 November 2018.
[7] The Runneymede Trust in November 2017 published this wide definition of Islamophobia: “Islamophobia is any distinction, exclusion, or restriction towards, or preference against, Muslims (or those perceived to be Muslims) that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life” See: Islamophobia Still a challenge for us all, https://www.runnymedetrust.org/, retrieved 13 November 2017.
[8] Yahya Birt, Why this new definition of Islamophobia is bittersweet, https://medium. com, 5 December 2018.
[9] Following a year-long consultation across the UK, the APPG on British Muslims released the following definition of “Islamophobia” on 27 November 2018: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” See: Islamophobia Defined: The inquiry into a working definition of Islamophobia, https://appgbritishmuslims.org/s/IslamophobiaDefined.pdf, retrieved 28 November 2018
[10] See: Aurelien Mondon & Aaron Winter(2017), Articulations of Islamophobia: from the extreme to the mainstream?, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40:13, 2151-2179, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1312008, retrieved 8 August 2018.
[11] See: Equality Act 2010, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents, retrieved 28 November 2018.
