Initially, Islamophobia is a prejudice, aversion, hostility, or hatred towards Muslims and encompasses any distinction, exclusion, restriction, discrimination, or preference against 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.
On April 29, 2013, Mohammed Saleem, an elderly man of 82 from England, was stabbed to death on his way home after prayers by a Pavlo Lapshyn who later planted bombs outside mosques.
In September 2017, Zainab Hussain, a Muslim mother from Leicester, was taking her daughter to school when Paul Moore ran over her with his car. Moore then proceeded to hit an eight-year-old girl in a hijab, before returning to the scene where Zainab lay injured on the floor and running over her again.
Stories such as these are obvious indicators of Islamophobia in our society. However, there are also cases that are much harder to detect. Let’s say, the CV that is passed over because it boasts a Muslim sounding name, or the British-Pakistani man who is repeatedly assumed a threat at the airport on the basis of his beard, or a young lady in American society facing harassment only because of wearing hijab, or the child who feels unable to ask questions in class because she is worried she may be swept up into the apparatus of prevent.
Till date, Islamophobia remains a contested term amongst political and academic debates. However, some deny Islamophobia exists at all, and others resist attempts to define it for fear that it would be elevated to such a position that it cannot be ignored.
Islamophobia is not just hate crime and abuse, but must also it excludes Muslims from all realms of civic life, whether that be through workplace discrimination, or through institutional Islamophobias that silence Muslim voices within democratic debates.
Today 1.3 billion Muslims live in this world, out of which millions of Muslims are living in different countries of the world, in European countries and in America as minorities. Islamophobia since 9/11 has grown at an alarming pace. From centuries human communities are living together but Islamophobia is creating a division.
Hijab is not a strange practice, historically it was practiced in different dynasties by ladies of honour. But today, Muslim women wearing Hijab has become an issue in some countries. A woman can take off her clothes in some countries but cannot put on some more clothes. A man with name starting from Muhammad or having beard is considered as threat, why? Because of Islamophobia after 9/11, since the west had blamed a Muslim group in the suicide attack. But why they had forgotten that before 9/11, there were a lot of suicide attacks being practiced by a Hindu gang, then why only Muslims’ name got attached with terrorism.
Because certain western leaders equated terrorism with Islam, Islamic terrorism and radical Islam. And on top, it is the failure of Muslim leadership in addressing this issue, instead they adopted a different aspect of modern Muslim, by wearing western clothes and speaking western language.
In London, New York or any other place, how a Muslim is being distinguished: a modern Muslim and a radical Muslim. What is with two types of Muslims and two types of Islam, when there’s only one Islam, Islam of Prophet Muhammad PBUH, who laid the foundation of first welfare state Medina, where equality was made the principle rule, where woman and widows had given proper rights, where slavery was ended, where justice was ensured, where taxes were imposed on rich and care was guaranteed to poor, where caste, colour and creed had no dictionary, whose own wife was a prosperous business woman, who stood up when her daughter stepped in.
Muslims had been marginalized in west and we all know marginalization leads to radicalization. Some people who end up as militants in Syria, Kashmir or Palestine are marginalized Muslims. All human community is liberal, or radical; it’s not Islam, Hinduism or Judaism, since every religion teaches compassion, love and peace that differentiates us from animal kingdom.
However, let me tell you from where this all misunderstanding came up. In 1989, a book was published insulting our Prophet Muhammad PBUH, and there was a reaction in the Muslim world, which west could not understand, since there perception and outlook towards religion is different from Muslims. For Muslims, Prophet PBUH is more beloved then their own lives. After every two or three years, someone offends the Prophet PBUH on the pretext of freedom of speech, and this came with reaction from Muslims, and from there Islam took the label of intolerable religion.
I should point out it’s the fault of Muslim leadership of not letting the world know our sentiments for religion and Prophet PBUH. It was only former prime minister Imran Khan who took this responsibility and courage to speak in United Nations for the issue of Islamophobia.
Today, the UN has finally recognized the grave challenge confronting the world: Islamophobia..
–Munaza Kazmi holds MPhil in Management Sciences.