"Muslims could change their world and overcome the tyranny of
Islamophobia and anti-Muslim discrimination, just as slavery was
abolished"1
Islamophobia consists of violence against Muslims in the form of
physical assaults, verbal abuse, and the vandalizing of property,
especially of Islamic institutions including mosques, Islamic
schools and Muslim cemeteries. Islamophobia also includes
discrimination in employment - where Muslims are faced with unequal
opportunities -discrimination in the provision of health services,
exclusion from managerial positions and jobs of high
responsibility; and exclusion from political and governmental
posts. Ultimately, Islamophobia also comprises prejudice in the
media, literature, and everyday conversation.2
Let us consider the following examples:
* A mosque in the French city of Carpentras in the
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region came under Molotov cocktail
attack on Friday, November 11, [2005] during the weekly Friday
prayer.3
* Twelve drawings depicting Prophet Muhammad in different settings
appeared in Denmark's largest circulation daily Jyllands-Posten on
September 30, [2005]. In one of the drawings, Prophet Muhammad
appeared with a turban shaped like a bomb strapped to his
head.
* Police arrested two people, apparently a Jewish pimp and a
prostitute, on the Friday night of August 26 [2005] on suspicion
that they were responsible for a pig's head dressed in a keffiyeh
and inscribed with the nickname "the Prophet Muhammad" being thrown
into the yard of Tel Aviv's Hassan Beik Mosque.4
* The U.S. military detailed on Friday, June 3, 2005, five cases in
which jailers at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had
desecrated copies of the Holy Qur'an, including one incident that
had occurred as recently as March. Brigadier General Jay Hood,
commander of the Guantanamo prison who headed the inquiry, said the
inquiry had confirmed five cases of desecration.
* "Did you hear about the Muslim virgin desperate to lose it? It
wasn't really the sex she was interested in; she just didn't want
to [f**k] a suicide bomber when she died." The British journalist
Julie Burchill's "favorite joke of the moment," in "What Allah
Wants, Allah Gets" as reprinted in the Israeli daily, Haaretz
(September 24, 2005)
Who Are the Islamophobes?
The countries where these offensive and troubling Islamophobic
examples took place are France, Denmark, Israel, and the U.S. Other
examples in the article include Germany, Sri Lanka and the UK. The
list fails to reflect the fact that Islamophobic incidents exist in
every country where there is a Muslim minority.
Islamophobia-Watch.com has documented Islamophobic entries under
the name of these additional countries: Australia, Austria,
Belgium, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.
In addition, the perpetrators could be categorized as either
individual civilians or officials, including military. There is a
problem about determining the Islamophobe in the last example given
above; is it only the author, Julie Burchill? How far could Haaretz
itself be held responsible for the Islamophobic content? (The
original responsibility, in this case, does not pertain to Haaretz
but to Burchill herself and The Times. In both dailies, however,
the piece was printed verbatim, without asterisks to replace the
"f" word. The comments on the article were no less Islamophobic.
The question here arises regarding Haaretz's editorial
choice.)
Seventy-Two Vrigins?
Julie Burchill was reminded of the "joke" after she noted that
"Palestinian cretins felt it entirely necessary to murder innocent
Israelis in order to have an orgy in heaven with 72 virgins." While
I can take issue with several points in this venomous statement, I
would like to highlight the problem of the "72 virgins" construct
and its place in the Islamic worldview. It is a matter of fact that
the "72 virgins" construct does not exist either in the Qur'an or
in the most authentic of the Hadith compendia.
As a person who attends the mosque on a regular basis and has
listened to hundreds of Friday sermons, mostly at Al-Aqsa Mosque in
Jerusalem, but also in the U.S., Europe, Africa and South-East
Asia, I cannot recall even one instance when this construct was
mentioned in the mosque. The same applies to the Islamic academic
institutions where I taught over the years. As it is in non-Islamic
literature rather than in Islamic books that this construct
appears, it prompted me to carry out some research regarding the
topic. I tracked it to a book by a 9th century Muslim scholar,
Al-Tabarani, in his Mu'jam. The conclusion is that this construct
does not form part of the Islamic faith, but tends to be often
misused by Islamophobes for their twisted reasons.
Incidents on the Rise
The examples mentioned above depicting Islamophobia fail to show
that Islamophobic incidents are on the rise. Statistics, however,
indicate a 200-percent rise in certain places in Europe. The Times
notes that in France
[t]he number of hate crimes, most notably against Jews and against
Arabs of North African origin, nearly doubled last year, to 1,565
from 833 a year earlier, according to a report to the government by
the National Consultative Commission for Human Rights… Acts
against people of North African origin totaled 595 in 2004, up from
232 in 2003.5
This rise could be attributed to the growing number of Islamophobes
and Islamophobic institutions, and the normalization of hostility
towards Islam. The ease with which information travels in the age
of globalization takes the Islamophobic act from its local context
to the international arena, thus creating an impression that there
is a universal Islamophobic ethos that haunts Muslims.
By drawing attention to the above-mentioned examples, I simply hope
that the reader will get a sense of the tragic state of
Islamophobia. The content is offensive, not only to Muslims, but to
any ethical person. The intensity with which Islamophobia is
spreading poses a real danger not only to Muslim minorities, but
also threatens the social fabric wherever they live.
Individual versus Institutionalized
The perpetrators range from Islamophobic individuals acting "on
their own" to institutionalized Islamophobic policies. But, are
individual Islamophobes really "on their own"? The answer is, in
one sense, Yes. As long as they are not fulfilling governmental
orders or institutional plans, then they are "on their own." On the
other hand, those individuals are bombarded by the biased media,
which are yoked to the centers of power, with stereotypical images
of Muslims; they listen to right-wing, xenophobic politicians who
reinforce those stereotypes and call for the expulsion of Muslims,
and they read post-Cold War scenarios that portray Islam as the new
enemy that replaced Communism - the green menace in place of the
red. The list of possible influences could include school
curricula, exclusivist theological worldviews that neither
accommodate nor engage the "other." Sometimes the line between
individual and institutional Islamophobia gets blurred. The
following example migh clarify the point:
Forty-eight-year-old Kamal Raza Butt, a Pakistani man who is
visiting friends and family in Nottingham [UK], is set upon by a
gang of white youths. He is allegedly called "Taliban" and then
punched to the ground and later dies in hospital. Two 16-year-old
youths are charged with manslaughter, seven others are freed on
bail pending further inquiries.6
Did the mob act on the spur of the moment? The incident is
presented in the media without questioning the motives. The wider
context within which the role of the UK in Afghanistan and Iraq,
the July 7th attacks in London, and the attacks in Nottingham could
be seen as interconnected was not addressed. What motivated the
Nottingham attack remains unclear. One thing is certain: if the
roots of Islamophobia are not addressed, the problem will
persist.
Institutionalized Islamophobia, on the other hand, reflects
governmental laws or policies. As an example let us consider the
case of extreme secularism in France. It was used to pave the road
for an Islamophobic law7 which prohibits the display of religious
symbols, effectively targeting and banning the wearing of
headscarves by Muslim schoolgirls. If one accepts the right to
display crosses and yarmulkes while denying a Muslim girl the right
to wear her hijab (headscarf), then this position is Islamophobic.
It reflects the inability of France to celebrate multiculturalism
and to see Islam as a positive force that could contribute to the
welfare of the society. Rather than accommodating its own Muslim
citizens and integrating them into the society according to a
multicultural paradigm for coexistence, France opted for an extreme
and fundamentalist notion of secularism -proof of a loss of the
French ethos that once was based on liberté,
égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality,
fraternity).
The Case of the Hijab
Islamophobic policies target the hijab as a symbol of Islam. The
specific government that adopts the banning of the hijab reflects
deep-seated antagonism toward Islam. The sad fact is that many
countries are following suit. In Germany, the ban on hijab is
slated to take effect in August 2006. "Female and male teachers are
not allowed to express any worldviews or any religious beliefs
which could disturb or endanger the peace at school … That's
why we want to forbid [female] Muslim teachers at state schools
from wearing headscarves," said North Rhine-Westphalia schools
minister Barbara Sommer.8
The ban on hijab has also spread to South Asia were two Muslim
teachers were suspended from their work at a government school in
Badulla in north-east Sri Lanka earlier this year because they wear
the hijab. In addition, S. Satchchitanandan, the provincial
minister for Tamil education, ordered that the government-run
school be renamed the Hindu Girls School - The Tamils are
predominantly Hindus, while the Sinhalese are Budhhists. The school
has more than 200 Muslim girl students.9
It is virtually impossible to narrate all the distressing incidents
involving the hijab, but if I had the chance to add a picture of a
woman with her head covered to help the reader understand the
Islamophobic nature of the ban of hijab, I would have used that of
the late Mother Theresa, the Roman Catholic nun and founder of the
Sisters of Charity. She was modestly dressed with her head covered
with a headdress, a hijab if you will!
Pseudo-Political Correctness, Pseudo-Scholars
Another type of institutional negative role is the constitutional
and legal structures behind which Islamophobes can hide. Attacking
Islam and Muslims takes place in the name of the freedom of
expression, which is protected by the First Amendment in the United
States. This legal structure allows Islamophobic institutions and
neo-con pundits who are driven by an irrational fear of Islam and
Muslims to malign Muslim leaders and to smear mainstream Muslim
organizations. At times, it is calculated Islamophobic statements
that are systematically stated in some U.S. media to keep the
society polarized and to prevent Muslims from being at home in
their own countries. When some right-wing Christian preachers like
Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham and Pat Robertson made defamatory
statements about Islam,10 none of them was held accountable; it is
not possible to try them and win according to U.S. law.
One can contrast this with what happened to their Evangelical
colleagues in another part of the world. A state tribunal in
Australia [Dec. 17th, 2004] found two Evangelical Christian pastors
who conducted a church seminar on Islam guilty of inciting hatred
against Muslims. Daniel Nalliah and Daniel Scott of Catch the Fire
Ministries were tried under Victoria's new race and religion hate
laws after the Islamic Council of Victoria filed legal action,
charging Scott called Muslims demons, liars and terrorists.11
This trial is good news; people of conscience should help create
race and religion hate laws in all countries. An alliance between
the various communities is needed to combat all forms of hate
crimes, including Islamophobia which should be criminalized.
In addition, the vilification of Muslims takes place at the hand of
pseudo-scholars of Islam who abuse the freedom that the First
Amendment grants them. A good example is the case of Daniel Pipes.
He began a recent article, "Islamophobia?" in the New York Sun
(October 25, 2005), with the following statement:
An Islamist group named Hizb-ut-Tahrir seeks to bring the world
under Islamic law and advocates suicide attacks against Israelis.
Facing proscription in Great Britain, it opened a clandestine front
operation at British universities called "Stop
Islamophobia."12
Any true scholar of Islamic movements knows that Hizb-ut-Tahrir
never advocated suicide attacks against anyone; they are strictly
speaking a political movement. They are criticized for their
aggressiveness in promoting their political views and - yes - they
are criticized for not participating in resisting the Israeli
occupation. They do call for the reinstitution of the Caliphate
(i.e. a pan-Islamic polity) system that existed until 1924, a
matter which should be left entirely to Muslims to sort out amongst
themselves. To outlaw Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Britain would be a clear
Islamophobic act and a true violation of the freedom of
expression.
Such type of Islamophobic pseudo-scholars hide behind politically
correct statements to the effect that they do not have a problem
with moderate Islam, or with moderate Muslim intellectuals. This
was an argument Pipes used on al-Jazeerah TV channel's Open Forum
on May 28, 2005. When asked to mention one moderate Muslim, Pipes
named two intellectuals, one from the Sudan and one from Egypt,
both of them long dead. Is the message here that there are no
moderate Muslims alive, or that moderate Islam is dead?
It is unfortunate that President Bush went on to nominate Pipes to
the board of the renowned United States Institute of Peace, against
the will of the Congress.
Islamophobia and the Palestinian Question
While the Palestinian people comprises Jews [Samaritans],
Christians and mostly Muslims, a consistently Islamophobic
propaganda is being used against the Palestinian people to prevent
them from ending the Israeli occupation.
One of the organizations that systematically use crude and vile
Islamophobic statements is the Israel Hasbara Committee [an
unofficial non-governmental organization]. Their website features
hundreds of Islamophobic articles that aim ultimately at
discrediting the Palestinians and their just cause. One of the
Israel Hasbara Committee's featured writers, Michael Anbar, paints
an Islamophobic picture of the Palestinian leadership, in
which
[t]he PLO follows an Islamist policy similar to al-Qaeda. Very much
like bin Laden and the Iranian Ayatollahs, Yasser Arafat openly
calls for Jihad against Israel and the West, a holy war that
nominally obligates all Muslims worldwide to kill infidels, Jews in
particular.13
In a different article, and in what seems to be a slip of the
tongue, the Israel Hasbara Committee revealed its true character
through the following statement:
War is dirty, whether it is on the battlefield or in the propaganda
world. It is time to use the weapon of relentless
repetition.14
Only enemies of peace would continue to be against an end to the
Israeli occupation. To be against the establishment of a
Palestinian state could be described as an essentially Islamophobic
position.
Concluding Remarks
Though the Islamophobic examples used in this article are
contemporary, Islamophobia itself is not new. The Crusades and,
later on, the Inquisition in Spain reflect a very problematic
historical relationship with Jews and Muslims. The Catholic Church
in its Nostra Aetate15 has called for tolerance and fellowship
among peoples of all faiths. How much of the old hatred has it been
able to eradicate as it celebrates its 40th year?
As with the advent of any new terminology that describes a specific
phenomenon, it takes time to connect both. The phenomenon that
Islamophobia describes is not uncommon, and is as old as Islam
itself. The case of Islamophobia is just like that of
anti-Semitism,16 where discrimination against and the persecution
of the Jews took place for many centuries before the term
"anti-Semitism" was coined.
I would argue that Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are rooted in
xenophobic Eurocentrism which was and still is a barrier in
fostering a multicultural world not dominated by nationalism and
national interests. Other paradigms should replace the existing
world order which has already caused so much destruction at the
turn of the 21st century in Islamic lands.
I would like to conclude this article by quoting excerpts from UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan's address to the Department of Public
Information (DPI) seminar, "Confronting Islamophobia: Education for
Tolerance and Understanding," in New York, December 7th,
2004:
An honest look at Islamophobia must also acknowledge the policy
context. The historical experience of Muslims includes colonialism
and domination by the West, either direct or indirect. Resentment
is fed by the unresolved conflicts in the Middle East, by the
situation in Chechnya, and by atrocities committed against Muslims
in the former Yugoslavia. The reaction to such events can be
visceral, bringing an almost personal sense of affront. But we
should remember that these are political reactions - disagreements
with specific policies. All too often, they are mistaken for an
Islamic reaction against Western values, sparking an anti-Islamic
backlash…
…[I]slamophobia is at once a deeply personal issue for
Muslims, a matter of great importance to anyone concerned about
upholding universal values, and a question with implications for
international harmony and peace. We should not underestimate the
resentment and sense of injustice felt by members of one of the
world's great religions, cultures and civilizations. And we must
make the re-establishment of trust among people of different faiths
and cultures our highest priority. Otherwise, discrimination will
continue to taint many innocent lives, and distrust might make it
impossible to move ahead with our ambitious international agenda of
peace, security and development.17