POLITICAL ISLAM/OPHOBIA IN THE KINDNESS OF ENEMIES

Abstract

Although Islamophobia is an ancient phenomenon, it has come to the fore, especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and Islam has been put forward as the new enemy of the West. The fear of Islam, whose existence is generally scrutinized in Western society, is not created by Western societies alone. Political Islam doctrine placed the religion based on political ambitions and advanced in line with the understanding of radical Islam and fuelled the phenomenon of Islamophobia among Muslim communities. The basis where these effects can be examined most clearly is the Muslim immigrant communities living in the West. 
 Leila Aboulela observes these damages of political Islam, reflects it in her works, and compares the 19th and 21st-century understandings of Islamophobia through two parallel stories narrated in her novel The Kindness of Enemies. She explains how political and radical Islam differentiates Islamophobia and unfolds how the Muslim immigrants were affected with vivid examples. In this context, this article aims to embody the relationship between Islamophobia and political Islam, to discuss the effects of Islamophobia in Western Muslim immigrant communities with quotations exemplifying the discussion in the novel.