Islamophobia
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 October 2021
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0285
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 October 2021
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0285
Introduction
Islamophobia refers to the fear of and hostility toward Muslims and Islam that is driven by racism and that leads to exclusionary, discriminatory, and violent actions targeting Muslims and those perceived as Muslim. Although the word “Islamophobia” entered widespread public and political discourse only in the late 1990s, hostility toward Islam and Muslims in the West dates back to the Middle Ages. With the 9/11 attacks, “Islamophobia” became the primary designation for the prejudice experienced by Muslim minority populations in Western nations. The post-9/11 era witnessed the significant rise and expansion of the academic study of Islamophobia. Islamophobia studies is often conflated with Islamic studies, even though the former is focused not so much on the analysis of Islamic texts, traditions, histories, or rituals as it is on the religious, social, cultural, historical, and political factors that give rise to anti-Muslim racism and discrimination. This entry focuses primarily on academic studies of Islamophobia in North American and European contexts, though the last section bears witness to the growing attention scholars are paying to the global dimensions of Islamophobia.
General Overviews
Elahi and Khan 2017 explores the origins and main contours of modern Islamophobia in Britain, expanding on the original Runnymede Report from 1997 that introduced the term “Islamophobia” into widespread public and political discourse. Allen 2010, Bazian 2019, and Said 1978 address theories, concepts, and/or methodologies undergirding the academic study of Islamophobia. Cesari 2011, The Bridge Initiative, Green 2019, and Zempi and Awan 2019 offer broad introductions to and comparisons of Islamophobia in Europe and the United States. Beydoun 2018 introduces the legal and political dimensions of Islamophobia in America, while Bayrakli and Hafez 2015– and Taras 2012 focus on Islamophobia in diverse European contexts.
Allen, Chris. Islamophobia. London: Routledge, 2010.
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A theoretical introduction to the concept of Islamophobia, accompanied by a critique of the essentialized definition employed by the Runnymede Trust’s original 1997 report on Islamophobia.
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Bayrakli, Enes, and Farid Hafez, eds. European Islamophobia Report. 2015–.
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An annual report published by the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) that tracks the state of anti-Muslim sentiment and discrimination in over thirty European countries.
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Bazian, Hatem. “Islamophobia: An Introduction to the Academic Field, Methods, and Approaches.” In Islamophobia and Psychiatry. Edited by H. Steven Moffic, John Peteet, Ahmed Zakaria, and Rania Awaad, 19–31. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2019.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-00512-2_2Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Introduces the broader themes and methodologies found in the emerging academic field of Islamophobia studies.
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Beydoun, Khaled A. American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear. Oakland: University of California Press, 2018.
DOI: 10.1525/9780520970007Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
While the book struggles to acknowledge and engage with many of the seminal studies on the structural and systemic manifestations of Islamophobia, it nonetheless offers important perspectives on and analyses of the legal and political forces driving Islamophobia in the United States.
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An online research project based at Georgetown University that offers educational resources, original research, and scholarly commentary on anti-Muslim bias and discrimination. Includes concise and accessible fact sheets on prominent anti-Muslim individuals and organizations in Europe and North America.
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Cesari, Jocelyn. “Islamophobia in the West: A Comparison between Europe and the United States.” In Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century. Edited by John L. Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin, 21–43. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
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A concise essay that broadly compares the ways that Islamophobia manifests itself in Europe versus the United States, with a particular emphasis on the political, cultural, and religious challenges facing European Muslims.
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Elahi, Farah, and Omar Khan, eds. Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All. London: Runnymede, 2017.
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Updated study of Islamophobia in Britain by the Runnymede Trust, covering a wide range of topics including the impact of Islamophobia on British Muslims in relation to employment, hate crimes, counterterrorism, and health. The original 1997 study signaled the introduction of the term “Islamophobia” into the larger public and political discourse in Britain and eventually in other Western nations.
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Green, Todd H. The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West. 2d ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2019.
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Comprehensive survey of the historical roots and contemporary manifestations of Islamophobia in Europe and the United States. Offers introductions to many of the most common themes addressed in the study of Islamophobia. Helpful starting point for scholars and students new to the subject.
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Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.
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Groundbreaking study that deconstructs Western assumptions and stereotypes about the “Orient” (the Middle East and North Africa). Maintains that Western discourse about Muslims and Arabs in the 19th and 20th centuries reflects colonial interests and power. Said’s book provides the theoretical and analytical framework for a large number of academic studies of Islamophobia.
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Taras, Raymond. Xenophobia and Islamophobia in Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012.
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A broad survey of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant attitudes in Western Europe, with in-depth case studies of France and Germany.
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Zempi, Irene, and Imran Awan, eds. The Routledge International Handbook of Islamophobia. London: Routledge, 2019.
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A multidisciplinary collection of essays introducing various facets of Islamophobia. Focuses mostly on Europe and North America.
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Historical Foundations
Diouf 2013, GhaneaBassiri 2013, and Kidd 2009 situate anti-Muslim animus in the United States as part of a longer historical trajectory of hostility and/or racism toward Muslims. Heng 2018 and Tolan 2002 analyze the medieval origins of European animosities toward Muslims. Daniel 2009 and Tolan, et al. 2013 begin with medieval Europe as well but cover tensions between Europe and Muslims into the period of colonialism and beyond. Although Said 1978 is not a classical historical study in terms of methodology, its focus is also on the colonial contexts and projects that informed European discourse about Islam and Muslims. Arjana 2015 explores monstrous depictions of Muslim men from the Middle Ages to the present, with attention to both Europe and the United States.
Arjana, Sophia Rose. Muslims in the Western Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
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Traces the historical origins of Western constructions of Muslim men as monsters and violent. Focuses mostly on literature, art, and film.
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Daniel, Norman. Islam and the West: The Making of an Image. Oxford: Oneworld, 2009.
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Classic study first published in the 1960s that analyzes the theological and political forces shaping Christian and Western views of Islam from the Middle Ages into the 20th century.
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Diouf, Sylviane A. Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas. 15th anniversary ed. New York: New York University Press, 2013.
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Seminal study that sheds light on the ways African Muslims in the Americas relied on their faith to resist slavery, racism, and white supremacy.
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GhaneaBassiri, Kambiz. “Islamophobia and American History: Religious Stereotyping and Out-grouping of Muslims in the United States.” In Islamophobia in America: The Anatomy of Intolerance. Edited by Carl W. Ernst, 53–74. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
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Situates anti-Muslim prejudice within a longer history in America in which prejudice and bigotry have played a dominant role in managing and controlling racial and religious diversity in an effort to shore up national unity.
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Heng, Geraldine. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
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Groundbreaking study of the historical development of racialized thinking in medieval Europe. Addresses the racialization of “Saracens” or Muslims in the third chapter.
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Kidd, Thomas S. American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
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Traces the history of American evangelical attitudes toward Muslims and Islam from the 18th century to the present.
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Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.
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Asserts that Western colonial power and projects in the 19th and 20th centuries shaped Western discourse about Islam and Muslims.
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Tolan, John V. Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
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A survey of European attitudes toward Islam from the 7th century to the 13th, with attention to how medieval Christians defined themselves over against the Muslim “Other.”
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Tolan, John, Giles Veinstein, and Henry Laurens, eds. Europe and the Islamic World: A History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.
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Explores both cultural and intellectual exchanges as well as tensions and hostilities between Europe and Muslim-majority regions from the Middle Ages to the end of the 20th century.
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Islamophobia and Racism
An increasing number of scholars recognize at least implicitly that racism is an animating force behind Islamophobia. These studies highlight the intersections of racism and Islamophobia in the 20th and 21st centuries. Chan-Malik 2018, Curtis 2013, Johnson 2015, and Khabeer 2016 focus on the intersections of anti-Black and anti-Muslim racism in modern American history. Maghbouleh 2017 and Rana 2011 address the racialization of Muslims with immigrant backgrounds in the United States. Love 2017 critiques the failures of advocacy organizations in the United States to understand and respond to Islamophobia as racism. The Islamophobia Is Racism project lists a variety of teaching and educational resources addressing anti-Muslim racism in the United States. Heng 2018 and Meer and Modood 2019 study the racialization of Muslims in the medieval and contemporary European contexts respectively.
Chan-Malik, Sylvia. Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam. New York: New York University Press, 2018.
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A compelling history of Black Muslim women and women of color in 20th- and 21st-century America, with attention to how these women forged their identities against notions of gendered, racial, and religious belonging.
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Curtis, Edward E. “The Black Muslim Scare of the Twentieth Century: The History of State Islamophobia and Its Post 9/11 Variations.” In Islamophobia in America: The Anatomy of Intolerance. Edited by Carl W. Ernst, 75–106. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
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Focuses on how the FBI and other government agencies and institutions sought to repress Black Muslims out of concern for radical political dissent and critique. Links hostility toward Black Muslims and their politics prior to 9/11 with state-sponsored Islamophobia after 9/11.
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Heng, Geraldine. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
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Challenges the widespread assumption that race and racism constitute tangible realities only in the modern era. Demonstrates how racial thinking emerged in medieval Europe before the appearance of an acknowledged vocabulary of race. The third chapter focuses on the racialization of “Saracens” or Muslims.
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Islamophobia Is Racism Syllabus.
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Online list of teaching and learning resources for anti-Muslim racism in the United States.
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Johnson, Sylvester. African American Religions, 1500–2000: Colonialism, Democracy, and Freedom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
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The last chapter titled “Black Religion, the Security State, and the Racialization of Islam” places the racializing and targeting of Black Muslims in late-20th-century America in the context of expanding US imperialism.
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Khabeer, Su’ad Abdul. Muslim Cool: Race, Religion, and Hip Hop in the United States. New York: New York University Press, 2016.
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Highlights the centrality of Blackness to American Islam and the construction of American Muslim identities and analyzes the intersection of anti-Black and anti-Muslim racism in the United States.
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Love, Erik. Islamophobia and Racism in America. New York: New York University Press, 2017.
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Examines and critiques the race-neutral strategy employed by prominent advocacy organizations in the United States to counter Islamophobia. Argues that this strategy misunderstands what drives Islamophobia and overestimates civil liberties protections for Muslims and other marginalized and racialized communities.
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Maghbouleh, Neda. The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian Americans and the Everyday Politics of Race. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017.
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Addresses how Iranian Americans and other South Asian and North African populations in the United States are classified as “white” but are not afforded the social benefits of this classification.
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Meer, Nasar, and Tariq Modood. “Islamophobia as the Racialisation of Muslims.” In The Routledge International Handbook of Islamophobia. Edited by Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, 18–31. London: Routledge, 2019.
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Maintains that hostility toward Muslims in Europe as a contemporary political and social development is best understood through the prisms of race and racialization.
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Rana, Junaid. Terrifying Muslims: Race and Labor in the South Asian Diaspora. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011.
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Ethnographic study illuminating the racialization of Pakistani labor migrants in the context of the War on Terror and US imperialism.
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Gendered Islamophobia
Earlier studies of Islamophobia often neglected gender as a category of analysis, an oversight that scholars are increasingly addressing on a number of fronts. Chan-Malik 2018 and Taylor 2017 explore how Black Muslim women and women of color have responded to racism and patriarchy in modern American history. The intersections of gendered Islamophobia and Western imperialism, along with attention to political discourses on saving oppressed Muslim women, feature prominently in the scholarship of Abu-Lughod 2013, Hammer 2013, and Scott 2007. The politics of regulating and policing what Muslim women wear, including how Muslim women’s attire factors into questions of national identity, are addressed in Aziz 2017, Ferrari and Pastorelli 2016, and Scott 2007. Allen 2020 and Arjana 2015 focus more specifically on the demonizing and dehumanizing of Muslim men in Western history.
Abu-Lughod, Lila. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
DOI: 10.4159/9780674726338Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Questions the ways that the trope of oppressed Muslim women ends up justifying military intervention and other forms of Western involvement in Muslim-majority regions. Complexifies the challenges of gender inequality that Muslim women encounter and argues that this cannot be reduced to Islam.
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Allen, Chris. Reconfiguring Islamophobia: A Radical Rethinking of a Contested Concept. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
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The sixth chapter includes an overview of the academic studies and debates pertaining to Islamophobia and Muslim men, with particular attention to the various ways Muslim men are understood as prone to violence and terrorism.
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Arjana, Sophia Rose. Muslims in the Western Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
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Historical survey of the ways Muslim men have been portrayed as monstrous, diabolical, and violent throughout the history of Western literature, art, and film.
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Aziz, Sahar F. “Terror(izing) the ‘Veil’: American Muslim Women Caught in the Crosshairs of Intersectionality.” In The Rule of Law and the Rule of God. Edited by Simeon O. Ilesanmi, Win-Chiat Lee, and J. Wilson Parker, 207–232. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
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Addresses how 9/11 transformed the meaning of the Muslim headscarf. Long viewed as a symbol of women’s oppression, the headscarf increasingly marked those who wore it as tied to a religion bent on violence and terrorism.
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Chan-Malik, Sylvia. Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam. New York: New York University Press, 2018.
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Narrates the history of Black Muslim women and women of color in 20th- and 21st-century America. Captures the agency and lived experiences of these women at the intersections of religion, race, and gender.
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Ferrari, Alessandro, and Sabrina Pastorelli, eds. The Burqa Affair across Europe: Between Public and Private Space. New York: Routledge, 2016.
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Presents the larger legal and human rights challenges facing Muslim women across Europe who seek to wear full face veils.
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Hammer, Juliane. “Center Stage: Gendered Islamophobia and Muslim Women.” In Islamophobia in America: The Anatomy of Intolerance. Edited by Carl W. Ernst, 107–144. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
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Explores how Muslim women in the United States feature prominently in Islamophobic discourses and practices. Also analyzes prominent women who produce Islamophobic discourse, often under the guise of promoting gender equality.
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Scott, Joan Wallach. The Politics of the Veil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
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Analyzes French anxieties about Muslim headscarves through the prisms of racism, sexism, individualism, and sexuality. The book links France’s colonial history with contemporary French attitudes and laws pertaining to headscarves.
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Taylor, Ula Yvette. The Promise of Patriarchy: Women and the Nation of Islam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017.
DOI: 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469633930.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Explores how Black women in the 20th century navigated the challenges of patriarchy within the Nation of Islam (NOI) against the backdrop of anti-Black and anti-Muslim racism.
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Zine, Jasmin. “Unveiled Sentiments: Gendered Islamophobia and Experiences of Veiling among Muslim Girls in a Canadian Islamic School.” Equity and Excellence in Education 39.3 (2006): 239–252.
DOI: 10.1080/10665680600788503Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Ethnographic study of veiling among Muslim girls at a high school in Canada, drawing attention to how the practice of veiling subjects Muslim women to particular forms of Islamophobia and Racism from the majority population while also to sexism from within Muslim communities. Zine coined the language of “Gendered Islamophobia” in this pioneering article.
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Islamophobia and the War on Terror
Many studies of Islamophobia involve at least implicit recognition of the relationship between Islamophobia and the War on Terror. These studies more deliberately center the ways that Islamophobia fueled and was fueled by the War on Terror. Bail 2015 and Lean 2017 address the manufacturing and mainstreaming of Islamophobia due to fearmongering from extreme anti-Muslim organizations looking to profit politically and financially from the 9/11 attacks and the War on Terror. Abbas and Awan 2015 and Kundnani 2014 focus on counterterrorism policies and the ways national security provides cover for racism and Islamophobia in Britain and the United States. Kazi 2019, Kumar 2012, and Sheehi 2011 highlight the intersection of anti-Muslim racism and US imperialism in the War on Terror. The impact of discriminatory governmental policies on Muslim communities in the United States is explored by Bayoumi 2015 and Cainkar 2009.
Abbas, Tahir, and Imran Awan. “Limits of UK Counterterrorism Policy and Its Implications for Islamophobia and Far Right Extremism.” International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 4.3 (2015).
DOI: 10.5204/ijcjsd.v4i3.241Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
A critical response to British counterterrorism policies and the ways British Muslim youth are marginalized and alienated in the name of national security.
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Bail, Christopher. Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015.
DOI: 10.1515/9781400852628Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Argues that mainstream journalists gravitated toward covering the sensationalist images and stories generated by fringe anti-Muslim organizations, which in turn gave these organizations a mainstream platform from which to wield greater influence over public narratives of Islam and to profit off of fear and anxiety stemming from the 9/11 attacks.
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Bayoumi, Moustafa. This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. New York: New York University Press, 2015.
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A collection of essays that critically examines the political, cultural, and legal impact of the War on Terror on Muslim Americans.
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Cainkar, Louise. Homeland Insecurity: Arab American and Muslim American Experience after 9/11. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2009.
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Ethnographic study of Muslim and Arab American experiences with and responses to government discrimination and general hostility from the majority population in the years immediately following 9/11.
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Kazi, Nazia. Islamophobia, Race, and Global Politics. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
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Connects Islamophobia in America to US imperialist and militaristic projects that are undergirded by racism.
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Kumar, Deepa. Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012.
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Analyzes Islamophobia in US domestic politics and foreign policy as serving larger US imperial interests in the War on Terror. Tracks support for Islamophobic policies across the political and ideological spectrum.
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Kundnani, Arun. The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror. New York: Verso, 2014.
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Critiques counterterrorism policies stemming from the War on Terror in both Britain and the United States.
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Lean, Nathan. The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Hatred of Muslims. 2d ed. London: Pluto Press, 2017.
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Illuminates the ideologies, tactics, and funding of far-right individuals and organizations who have made a living off of fearmongering over Muslims in light of the 9/11 attacks and the War on Terror.
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Sheehi, Stephen. Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign against Muslims. Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2011.
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Demonstrates how the ideological construction of Islamophobia across the political and media spectrum justifies policies and military action that serve US imperial interests.
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Islamophobia and the Media
Scholars of Islamophobia recognize that negative attitudes toward Islam and Muslims in the United States and Europe are shaped significantly by the media. Print and broadcast news, television programs, and movies create frames of interpretation through which media consumers understand and interpret Islam and Muslims as prone to violence, fanaticism, and misogyny. Said 1981 explores the political and Orientalist assumptions behind US media representations of Islam. Ahmed and Matthes 2017, the Centre for Media Monitoring, Mertens and de Smaele 2016, and Powell 2011 provide a broad analysis of negative portrayals of Muslims and Islam in the news media in the post-9/11 era. Alsultany 2012 tackles news media as well but expands to television and other media platforms. Haider 2020 and Shaheen 2009 focus on the Hollywood film industry. Gottschalk and Greenberg 2008 and Klausen 2009 analyze political cartoons printed and reproduced in Western media as purveyors and reflections of anti-Muslim hostility.
Ahmed, Saifuddin, and Jörg Matthes. “Media Representation of Muslims and Islam from 2000 to 2015: A Meta-Analysis.” International Communication Gazette 79 (2017).
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A meta-analysis of over 300 academic studies involving media representations of Islam and Muslims between 2000 and 2015. This study confirms the Orientalist portrayals of Muslims in Western media outlets. It also points out the need for scholars to conduct more cross-national analyses and to pay more attention to new forms of media, including social media.
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Alsultany, Evelyn. Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11. New York: New York University Press, 2012.
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Argues that more diverse and “positive” representations of Arabs and Muslims on television and in other forms of media have not fundamentally challenged the racial stereotypes that lead to exclusion and discrimination.
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Centre for Media Monitoring (UK).
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A project of the Muslim Council of Britain that tracks negative coverage of Islam and Muslims in print and broadcast media.
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Gottschalk, Peter, and Gabriel Greenberg. Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
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Explores the reproduction of negative stereotypes and images of Muslims in political cartoons in modern American history.
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Haider, Maheen. “The Racialization of the Muslim Body and Space in Hollywood.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 6 (2020).
DOI: 10.1177/2332649219885982Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Analyzes how Hollywood films on terrorism and the Middle East racialize Muslim identities in the context of the War on Terror. A good companion piece to Shaheen 2009 (which primarily focuses on pre-9/11 representations of Muslims in Hollywood films).
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Klausen, Jytte. The Cartoons That Shook the World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
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Investigates the political forces that triggered a global controversy in the aftermath of a Danish newspaper publishing disparaging images of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.
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Mertens, Stefan, and Hedwig de Smaele, eds. Representations of Islam in the News: A Cross-Cultural Analysis. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016.
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Offers wide-ranging analysis of the portrayals of Muslims and Islam in the media, with a predominant focus on Western Europe.
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Powell, Kimberly A. “Framing Islam: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of Terrorism since 9/11.” Communication Studies 62 (2011): 90–112.
DOI: 10.1080/10510974.2011.533599Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Addresses the link made by prominent US news outlets between Muslims and terrorism. The study reveals that the news media is far more likely to depict Muslim terrorists two-dimensionally, with a predilection toward terrorism and anti-American hostility, whereas non-Muslim domestic terrorists are humanized and nuanced. Powell published an updated version of her article in Religions in 2018 that confirmed her initial findings.
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Said, Edward W. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. New York: Vintage, 1981.
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Classic study of the larger political assumptions and agendas that shape the ways the US media constructs and defines Islam.
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Shaheen, Jack. Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2009.
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The most comprehensive survey of Hollywood’s negative stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims, with reviews of over 1,000 films. The documentary by the same name is an excellent resource for classroom use.
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Global Islamophobia
The academic literature on Islamophobia has focused predominantly on Western contexts with settler colonial and/or imperialistic histories. Less attention has been given to the global dimensions of Islamophobia, including the particular historical, political, and cultural forces driving Islamophobia outside the West, along with the degree to which Islamophobia within Western nations conforms to or deviates from Islamophobia in other contexts. This gap in the literature has started to receive much more attention in recent years. Hafez 2020, Hedges 2021, Iftikhar 2021, and Sayyid and Vakil 2010 address the global dimensions of Islamophobia, including similarities and differences between the forms of Islamophobia that take shape within and beyond Western nations. Çaksu 2020 tackles the increasing targeting of Uyghur Muslims in China. Waikar 2018 explores the exclusion and otherizing of Muslims in contemporary Indian politics. Wade 2019 and Osman 2017 call attention to the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, with the latter also shedding light on the targeting of certain Muslim populations in the Muslim-majority country of Malaysia. Bayrakli and Hafez 2019 focuses mostly on the particular ways anti-Muslim racism emerges in Muslim-majority contexts and countries.
Bayrakli, Enes, and Farid Hafez, eds. Islamophobia in Muslim Majority Societies. New York: Routledge, 2019.
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A collection of essays analyzing anti-Muslim racism within Muslim communities and Muslim-majority countries, primarily from the perspective of nation-state building and postcolonial nationalism. Includes essays on Albania, Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey.
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Çaksu, Ali. “Islamophobia, Chinese Style: Total Internment of Uyghur Muslims by the People’s Republic of China.” Islamophobia Studies Journal 5 (2020): 175–198.
DOI: 10.13169/islastudj.5.2.0175Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Discusses the Chinese government’s efforts to construct an ethnically and religiously homogenous culture through the internment of Uyghur Muslims.
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Hafez, Farid. “Unwanted Identities: The ‘Religion Line’ and Global Islamophobia.” Development 63.1 (2020): 9–19.
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Focuses on why Islamophobia constitutes a significant racist discourse in the post–Cold War global order, with particular attention to China, Egypt, and the United States.
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Hedges, Paul. Religious Hatred: Prejudice, Islamophobia, and Antisemitism in Global Context. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.
DOI: 10.5040/9781350162907Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
A comparison of antisemitism and Islamophobia both within and beyond Western contexts. Pays ample attention to how traditions beyond the Abrahamic religions also manifest Islamophobia, including Buddhism and Hinduism.
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Iftikhar, Arsalan. Fear of a Muslim Planet: Global Islamophobia in the New World. New York: Skyhorse, 2021.
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Addresses some of the global implications of the “Great Replacement” theory among white supremacists along with anti-Muslim hatred outside Western contexts, including India, China, and Myanmar.
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Osman, Mohamed Nawab Bin Mohamed. “Understanding Islamophobia in Asia: The Cases of Myanmar and Malaysia.” Islamophobia Studies Journal 20 (2017): 17–36.
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Relies on a case study of Myanmar and Malaysia to argue that Islamophobia in Asian contexts is more rooted in regional political and socioeconomic issues, including domestic religious strife and historical ethnic tensions, than in broader international discourses about Muslims and Islam.
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Sayyid, S., and AbdoolKarim Vakil. Thinking through Islamophobia: Global Perspectives. London: Hurst, 2010.
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A collection of essays that draws on diverse disciplinary perspectives to engage critically with the concept of Islamophobia and its diverse manifestations. Includes essays on Islamophobia in Russia, China, Thailand, and India, along with attention to Western contexts.
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Wade, Francis. Myanmar’s Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim “Other.” 2d ed. London: Zed Books, 2019.
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Accessible introduction to the political anxieties that have fueled genocidal campaigns by the military against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority.
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Waikar, Prashant. “Reading Islamophobia in Hinduvata: An Analysis of Narenda Modi’s Political Discourse.” Islamophobia Studies Journal 4 (2018): 161–180.
DOI: 10.13169/islastudj.4.2.0161Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
Explores the various ways that Hinduvata narratives of Muslim inferiority feature in the political speeches of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Offers some historical context to Hinduvata otherization and racialization of Muslims in India.
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- Abbasid Caliphate
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