Islamophobia Research Articles

Examining the effect of perceived group norms on the indirect relationship between intergroup contact and anti-Muslim prejudice among white Americans

Prior studies have found that normative group pressure plays a significant role in shaping prejudice-related attitudes. The present paper examined the role of perceived group norms on the indirect relationship between intergroup contact and anti-Muslim prejudice in a cross-sectional sample of 428 non-Hispanic White American adults, the racial group with the strongest anti-Muslim sentiment. To begin, we tested the indirect relationship between intergroup contact and anti-Muslim prejudice via perceived realistic and symbolic threats as well as intergroup anxiety. Next, we tested whether these mediation effects were conditional on whether group norms were perceived as tolerant or intolerant. We employed Process Macro to test these hypotheses. Our data confirmed (partial) mediation of the contact-prejudice relationship via threat perceptions and intergroup anxiety. Moreover, the moderated mediation analysis showed that while the mediation effects of threat perceptions were not conditional on perceived group norms, the mediation effect of intergroup anxiety was. Specifically, for respondents with perceived intolerant norms, negative intergroup contact demonstrated a stronger relationship with anti-Muslim prejudice through intergroup anxiety compared to respondents with perceived tolerant norms. Furthermore, given the possible bidirectionality of the contact-prejudice relationship, we tested an alternative model examining whether perceived intolerant norms mediate the effect of prejudice on contact. Our data supported this hypothesis, fitting a model that prejudice creates the intolerant group norms that in turn leads to negative contact with Muslims. The alternative model in fact showed a better fit to the data than the proposed model. This study advances theories of contact, integrated threats, and group norm theory to the context of intergroup relations with Muslims. Our findings provide support for the notion of changing the normative climate, and equally promoting positive intergroup contact, with the goal of enhancing relations between Muslim and non-Muslim individuals.

Islamophobia without Islam: Islamising the refugee issue in South Korea

ABSTRACT South Korea has never had a substantial population of ethnic Korean Muslims. Nevertheless, it has experienced significant growth in anti-Muslim racism in recent years. Considering that the literature on Islamophobia has largely focused on its evolution in Western countries, this study examines the rise of Islamophobia in South Korea, particularly after the arrival of Yemeni refugees in South Korea’s Jeju Island in 2018. With the media’s strong influence in framing public discourse, the recent government policy regarding the entry of Yemeni refugees has sparked considerable debate on human rights, public policies, and religion. Analysing the results and the influence of public petitions to the South Korean government and opinion polls conducted in 2018 on the Yemeni refugee situation, this study claims that the rise of Islamophobia in South Korea has transformed the refugee issue from one concerning human rights into one concerning religion. Islamophobia is likely to strengthen over time by influencing discussions of, or even Islamising, non-religious issues within the socio-political landscape of South Korea.

White-adjacent Muslim development: racializing British Muslim aid in Mali

AbstractMuslim aid organizations are relatively new actors in the Western aid industry. Based on multi-sited ethnographic research with the UK-based NGO Islamic Relief, I explore the organization’s engagement with a school in need of repair in southern rural Mali that is also the site of a sacred shrine of importance to locals. I examine the contextual global logics of racialization that undergird different interpretations and practices of what it means to ‘do good’. Situating an understanding of ‘development’ in an analysis of global racial capitalism, I argue that, as an Islamically inspired aid organization based in the UK, Islamic Relief is both subject to anti-Muslim racism and complicit in a white-adjacent racialized project of ‘development’ in Africa. I foreground the whiteness of development to show how modernist development practice makes it impossible to see other ways of conceptualizing ‘doing good’ that are also deeply grounded in Islam.

“İslam da Müslüman da Bir Irk Değildir”: İslamofobi, Irkçılık ve İfade Özgürlüğü

There are objections to the definition of Islamophobia as a form of racism. Objections center around two main themes of Islamophobia: “Islam” and “Muslims”. Some detractors argue that the former should not be given protection against various debates and criticisms that should be considered legitimate within the scope of freedom of expression. They assert that statements such as “Muhammad is a pedophile and married a nine-year-old girl”, “Islam was spread by the sword” or “Wearing the veil dehumanizes, humiliates and objectifies women” should be considered as theological debates that should be seen as legitimate within the scope of freedom of expression and that these rights of criticism should not be restricted by defining Islamophobia as a form of racism. For others, the latter cannot be considered a racial minority because being a Muslim is a religious identity that is seen as being voluntarily chosen. While this approach regards gender and racial identities as innate or involuntary identity categories, it assumes that being a Muslim is related to one's own will and therefore Muslims need or should have much less legal protection than these other identity categories. This paper argues that definitions other than racism would miss a vital issue, one that helps capture and understand how Muslims and those who are simply perceived as being Muslim are excluded, subordinated, and exploited with reference to phenotypical and cultural differences. This is the issue of racialization of Muslims. This study aims to explore the following questions: What should be the legal limit of freedom of expression? Is it possible to distinguish Islamophobia from reasonable criticism of Muslims and Islam? Does racism really depend on the actual existence of races? If the hostility to Islam and Muslims can be regarded as a form of racism, then, what kind of racism might it be? What are its specific qualities, how does it function? How have Muslims been racialized? To answer these questions, this paper draws on a study of Islamophobia experiences of thirty-nine first and second-generation young Turks aged between 18-35 in London in 2019. I aimed to recruit respondents that were diverse enough to represent the variation known to exist in the Turkish community of London. I selected the semi-structured in-depth interview method as the means by which the data would be collected. I employed thematic analysis to identify and analyse patterns of meaning in the dataset. This study has made clear that Muslims are racialized not based on biological or phenotypical features, but also ethnic and cultural features. I argue that making sweeping generalizations is more likely to be Islamophobic. One should have the right to critique ideologies and religions, but the manner and decorum in which individuals express themselves are vital. The speech should not intentionally demonize a religion, or humiliate, devalue, or stigmatize a diverse group of people. Moreover, being Muslim is not a racial identity reflects the idea that race is the pre-condition for racism and confines racism to a narrow understanding. Every racism, whether biological or cultural, is cultural in its essence and the main target is cultural, social, and religious differences attributed to bodies (individuals). Therefore, perceived religious affiliation rather than religion itself is at the center of anti-Muslim racism. Regardless of physical appearance, nationality, ethnicity, or economic situation, Muslims are homogenized, humiliated, and marginalized through Islamophobic discourse and practices in their daily lives. This article contributes to a better understanding of why Islamophobia should be evaluated as a form of racism. It is hoped that in assessing the discourse and behavior towards Islam and Muslims, the focus will be shifted from everyday political debate or hostility to religion, fear of religion, anti-Muslim hatred, and prejudice to the fact that Muslims are racialized.

European Approaches to Stopping Islamophobia are Inadequate: Lessons for Canadians Combating Anti-Muslim Racism and Hatred

The United Kingdom, France, and Spain have in common a large and growing Muslim population. The influx of immigrants and refugees has left many European states fearful of Muslim migrants because they perceive potential increases in terrorism and job insecurity, which would have significant social and economic policy implications. European governments have sought to strengthen security measures and immigration laws, often with consequences that disproportionately and negatively affect Muslims. At the same time, European governments have increased their efforts to address Islamophobia and improve Muslim integration, partly in response to the growth in the reporting of anti-Muslim hate crimes. Each of the aforementioned states has adopted different approaches to tackle issues affecting Muslim communities. Although some of the countries (e.g., Spain) have taken positive approaches in the fight against Islamophobia, others (e.g., France) pave the way for social disintegration and segregation by entrenching low socioeconomic status, passing discriminatory laws, and blaming violent attacks on Muslims as a whole. It appears that the European nations examined in this comparative analysis have failed, to varying degrees upholding values of equitable diversity and encouraging meaningful dialogue with Muslim organizations. Their approaches demonstrate a clear lack of adequate governmental response to growing levels of Islamophobia.

From the War on Terror to the Moral Crusade Against Female Genital Mutilation: Anti-Muslim Racism and Femonationalism in the United States.

This article investigates the recent flurry of state-level legislation regarding female genital mutilation (FGM), which occurred in the aftermath of the first federal criminal court case of FGM in 2017. Drawing on publicly available material, it shows how this court case, which involved a group of Muslims of Indian heritage, elicited a moral crusade against FGM, largely led by Republican lawmakers, and spurred a resurgence of anti-Muslim discourses, which first came to the fore after 9/11 to legitimate the "war on terror." Although FGM is not an Islamic practice and is also carried out by non-Muslim groups, the author concludes that femonationalism and anti-Muslim racism are important analytical lens for understanding the recent history of legislative efforts to combat FGM in the U.S.

Examining FGC Survivor and FGC Impacted Community Involvement Behind FGM/C Legislation in the United States: A Response to Bader's "From the War on Terror to the Moral Crusade Against Female Genital Mutilation: Anti-Muslim Racism and Femonationalism in the United States".

As an American-born woman who grew up as a South Asian Dawoodi Bohra Muslim, I have been aware of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) my entire life. So I immediately agreed to give commentary on "From the War on Terror to the Moral Crusade Against Female Genital Mutilation: Anti-Muslim Racism and Femonationalisim in the United States" by Dina Bader. While I do not necessarily disagree with Bader's observations, I provide additional context to better understand the history of our current FGM/C laws in this country and the influence survivors and advocates' have had in shaping them.

Response to Commentaries on "From the War on Terror to the Moral Crusade Against Female Genital Mutilation: Anti-Muslim Racism and Femonationalism in the United States".

The author responds to three commentaries on her essay "From the War on Terror to the Moral Crusade Against Female Genital Mutilation: Anti-Muslim Racism and Femonationalism in the United States," published in this symposium. The response addresses three main arguments, namely, the need for a specific ban on female genital mutilation (FGM), the multiplicity of actors involved in the anti-FGM movement, and the problematic way in which words and numbers are used in the public sphere to depict FGM. The author concludes with a call to decolonize the anti-FGM debate and to reflect critically on the political context in which anti-FGM legislation takes place.

Intersections, Assimilations, and Conflicts in Eighteenth-Century Palermo: The Church of the Forty Martyrs and Saint Ranieri of the Pisan Nation

Due to its strategic position in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily was a place of multiple cultural contaminations and commercial exchanges throughout the early modern era. Trade, piracy, and even slavery implemented continuous contacts between populations from opposing shores, regardless of their different religious beliefs. Yet, the island was also intended as a Christian bulwark against the Islamic world and its institutions fostered anti-Muslim prejudices. To date, this discrepancy has been little investigated, but the responsibilities of art in fueling discriminatory attitudes have been explored even less. Drawing on Francisco Bethencourt’s idea that racism is motivated by political projects, this paper illustrates the complicity of art in reinforcing prejudices for political interests. To do so, it explores the 1725 frescoes by the Flemish painter Guglielmo Borremans (1670–1744) in the church of the Forty Martyrs and Saint Ranieri of the Pisan Nation, in Palermo. In the face of persistent multiculturalism in the daily life of the population, these frescoes affirmed the supremacy of Pisa as a victorious guardian of Christianity in the Mediterranean. In this way, they celebrated the urban nobility of Pisan descent, while disguising the problematic identity of its enemy.

Muslim:innenfeindlichkeit als Vorurteil und Herausforderung für interreligiöses Lernen – Konsequenzen für den christlichen Religionsunterricht

Abstract This article addresses the question of how to deal with anti-Muslim prejudices and attitudes among pupils in Christian Religious Education, especially from the perspective of interreligious learning. Based on current empirical findings, in particular on corresponding prejudices and negative attitudes of young people and Christian pupils, the so far insufficient consideration of the problem of prejudice in concepts of interreligious learning is considered and the potentials of Religious Education for the reduction of hostility against Muslims and Islam are discussed. From there, and especially in orientation to the so-called contact hypothesis, tasks for the future of Religious Education practice and further research are outlined.

Navigating and Countering Everyday Antimuslim Racism: The Case of Muslim Women in Sweden

In a socio-political context where antimuslim racism has gained momentum, this article aims to understand Muslim women’s everyday life experiences of racialization in Sweden. More importantly, it aims to highlight what strategies are developed in order to navigate and counter these experiences. By using the concepts of double consciousness, orientations, and respectability together with an understanding of Muslims as a racialized category, the article shows how experiences of antimuslim racism are handled by the women in different ways, both on individual and collective level. Being a Muslim woman in Sweden requires developing strategies and sometimes engaging in respectability politics.

Poetiska homeplaces: Reflektioner och samtal om muslimsk subjektivitet inom spoken word och poesi

The last decade saw a renaissance of the artform called spoken word poetry through several spoken word projects in the suburbs of Swedish cities. A group of women who have been prominent in using these platforms as a way to highlight their voices and stories are young Muslim women from primarily from socioeconomically disadvantaged suburbs. This article focuses on a few of these voices. Based on a multimodal methodology including interviews with poets and readings of their work, this article sets out to understand how the young women use their poetry to formulate their subjectivity and issues that that matter to them. The poets and spoken word artists can be seen as knotworkers who use various platforms and tools in order to share their stories and reflections. The study shows how spoken word platforms have played an important role in creating a space where young poets find creative homeplaces and craft their own positions as poets and the kind of poetry they want to engage in. Through personal experiences and stories, the poets bind together several societal issues such as antiblack racism, antimuslim racism, classism, and patriarchy. Muslim subjectivity is articulated through the use of language and certain religious definitions such as references to prayers. Poetry is also used as a way to create feminist archives of missing stories. This study also highlights how double consciousness is at work where the poets reflect on certain difficult topics and how they chose to engage with them through their writing.

A stranger at home? A multilevel analysis of anti-Muslim sentiment in Western European societies

The capability of accommodation policies to create inclusive and cohesive societies for social integration has recently been called into question. Some people worry that accommodation may upset those who disagree about the policy and create a backlash effect. This study examines these issues using the theory of cognitive dissonance and empirically tests whether individuals’ policy preference influences the impact of accommodation of Islam policies on anti-Muslim sentiments. Using survey data from 15 Western European countries, we find that accommodation of Islam policies produce socialising effects on those whose opinions resonate with the policies. However, we do not find statistical evidence of backlash on those whose opinions dissonate with the policies. The findings suggest that accommodation of Islam policies do not radicalise dissonant opinions and are likely to reduce anti-Muslim sentiments among those whose opinions resonate with the policies.

Racial-Religious Decoupling in the University: Investigating Religious Students’ Perceptions of Institutional Commitment to Diversity

Muslims face racism based on their racialized religious identities, yet few address their experiences through critical race theory or campus racial climate. This paper addresses how religious students rate institutional commitments to campus diversity when considering racial and religious respect. This study examines undergraduate experience surveys across nine campuses and a Muslim student photovoice project through a mixed-methods design. I argue that racial and religious respect derived from interpersonal, discursive, and material sources influence Muslim students’ perceptions of institutional commitment to diversity. I introduce racial-religious decoupling to refer to how the separation of race and religion as distinct social experiences hinders campus commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion for addressing anti-Muslim racism and intersections of race and religion. This study uses critical race theory to demonstrate how hegemonic Whiteness embedded in higher education includes Christian normativity, which racializes non-Christians as outsiders who have to justify their needs and resources for their communities.

Islamophobia in Social Prejudice Perspective

This article aims to discuss the phenomenon of Islamophobia occurring worldwide, including in Indonesia, from the perspective of social prejudice theory. The results of the latest survey by the Pew Research Centre in March 2021 found Islam to be the fastest-growing religion in the world. Still, at the same time, it was stated that Muslims face more discrimination than other religious groups. This article explores the concept of Islamophobia, empirical documentation of anti-Muslim prejudice globally and in Indonesia, the theoretical foundations of social prejudice, as well as the perspectives of threat theory and social categorization theory about Islamophobia. The analysis concludes that the precursors of Islamophobia in the West likely emerge as a result of socio-cultural symbolic threats to the homogenous culture of Western societies. Historical dimensions are linked to the lingering embers of the Crusades in contemporary times. Additionally, the social identification of “us” versus “them,” openly campaigned by the United States post 9/11 attacks, implies that outgroups are not only associated with terrorist groups but also extend to the broader Arab race. In Indonesia, Islamophobia emerges from internal stereotypes present within the Muslim community, alongside discriminatory behaviors and disparaging comments originating from external entities or public figures.

Construction of Religious Minority Groups in Bollywood Cinema: A Historic & Critical Thematic Analysis

This article deals with the dominant themes that emerged in the Bollywood Cinema about religious minority groups Like Muslims, Christian, and Sikhs. The research utilized the structure provided by the Clerk and Brown 2006 in terms of thematic Analysis. Thirty movies were selected through purposive and random sampling. Ten movies were represented by each minority Group. The dominant themes found with regard to the Muslim community in Bollywood movies were Islamic terrorism, Islamophobia, economic, education backwardness, and Muslim identity, Sikh dominant themes were found as Comedian, Sikh Identity, Brave, and truthful. Similarly, Christian themes were Westernized, Christian Identity, erotic, and Prostitute. Based on Historic and the critical thematic analysis as well as theoretical grounds of Hall’s representation, Said's Concept of Orientalism, and Noam Chomsky’s propaganda model concept, the research clearly indicated that the Bollywood Cinema blurred the identity of religious minority groups and decorated them as others, for example, it distorts the religious concepts, promotes Islam phobia and connecting Islam with the terrorism, in terms to Muslims treated as brutal, extremist, shelter provider, the danger for the state, etc and Sikh as a painted comedian, drinkers and their culture in merged with the Hindus rituals as well as Christian minority female painted erotic object, westernized and Hypersexual. The research clarifies that the Bollywood cinema articulates the content of the movies under the umbrella of the elite political mindset. 

Modes of Regression

AbstractRessentiment seems to be one of the key concepts of our time. But what is the use of the concept of ressentiment for understanding and analyzing the rise of antigender, antimigrant, antiegalitarian, antidemocratic, homo- and transphobic, and masculinist as well as anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim sentiments, as they are articulated in populist movements all over the globe in varying constellations and to different degrees? This essay argues that, although it is a productive category for the diagnosis of our times, ressentiment alone is too weak a tool for critical theory. In order not to lose its force and not to become a psychologizing and individualizing interpretative term, ressentiment needs to be understood as a mode of regression and therefore should be embedded in a theoretical framework for understanding crisis that allows us to address the social structures that enable, necessitate, and nourish ressentiments.

INDIA’S CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT ACT (CAA) OF 2019: A CASE STUDY OF ANTI-MUSLIM SENTIMENT IN INDIA

Ethnic violence has long been prominent in India, especially among Hindus and Muslims. Debates have taken place over the value of India’s secularist principle, as Muslims in India are continuously faced with discrimination. They are subjected to hate crimes with the rise of Hindu Nationalism. The government’s legislature and policies must embody national unity rather than fuelling the already existing divisions among Hindus and Muslims as a secular state. This study examines India’s Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 and how it has led to anti-Muslim sentiments in the country. Drawing from the concept of Nationalism, the research will focus on the relation between Hindu nationalistic ideals and the Citizenship Amendment Act. The analysis results revealed that the Citizenship Amendment Act was flawed and had overtones of anti-Muslim sentiments. Further analysis revealed that the Citizenship Amendment Act had violated Articles 13,14, and 25 of the Indian constitution directly and indirectly. In addition to this, the study also showed the link between ultra Hindu Nationalism and the Citizenship Amendment Act. It also found that the intention of the Act to protect minorities facing religious persecution has failed as India lacks proper refugee laws. The overall research of this study concludes that the Citizenship Amendment Act has led to anti-Muslim sentiments in the country and furthered the identity crisis Muslims face in India.

Lived Islam: Embodied Identities and Everyday Practices among American Muslim Youth

This article explores lived Islam in the context of two young American Muslim women’s everyday lives. Although much of the scholarship on Muslim geographies is grounded in people’s everyday lives, the focus has been to situate and examine the specific meanings and expressions of “Muslim” identities. Whereas scholars intentionally have been writing against anti-Muslim racism and with the commendable aim of gaining extensive knowledge, our focus on “Muslim” has at times been at the expense of other salient identities, activities, and interests of interlocutors. Drawing on the broader scholarship on lived religion, this article offers geographers an approach to lived Islam influenced by feminist geographical and phenomenological frameworks. Through ethnographic methods, lived Islam offers a detailed picture of subjective everyday life, with a focus on embodied and emotionally charged memories, intersecting identities, and practices. Such a feminist approach to the lived enactment of religious faith rejects inherent identity categories as well as binaries such as religious–secular. Lived Islam contributes importantly to Muslim geographies and feminist geographies of religion by elaborating on the complexities of Muslim lives and identities, how being Muslim is integral to different kinds of nonreligious identities and practices in different secular and nonreligious spaces within specific social and political contexts.

‘It’s Not a Race, It’s a Religion’: Denial of Anti-Muslim Racism in Online Discourses

This article investigates the denial of anti-Muslim racism in online discourses. It does so by examining Facebook posts responding to a bystander anti-racism video about a Muslim woman. Particularly salient on social media is the lack of rules, etiquette or social taboos around racism controlling what people post and how they express themselves. This allows comments that are blatantly racist and antagonistic rather than concealed and subtle as is more socially acceptable in offline spaces. Using critical discourse analysis, the article will delve into the rhetorical and linguistic strategies the posters use to deny that racism toward Muslims can exist. It will expose how the denial of anti-Muslim racism is used in attempts to silence Muslims and anti-racists as well as to convince the general public that Muslims deserve the ill treatment they receive. However, exposing the strategies of racism deniers gives us a better understanding of how to resist such discourses.