Organization or Publication
Bridge (Georgetown U)
Islamophobia is an extreme fear of and hostility toward Islam and Muslims which often leads to hate speech, hate crimes, as well as social and political discrimination. It can be used to rationalize policies such as mass surveillance, incarceration (imprisonment), and disenfranchisement, and can influence domestic and foreign policy. Scroll through the expandable boxes below for more information about Islamophobia.
Source Title: “What Is Islamophobia?”
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://bridge.georgetown.edu/about-us/what-is-islamophobia/
Source Type: Web article
Country: USA
Tags: Scholarly | Educational | Nonprofit
Center for American Progress (CAP)
[A]n exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from America’s social, political, and civic life.
Individual Author(s): Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz Shakir
Source Title: “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America”
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/fear-inc/
Source Type: Report
Country: USA
Year: 2011
Tags: Advocacy | Nonprofit
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
Islamophobia is a fear, hatred, or prejudice toward Islam and Muslims that results in a pattern of discrimination and oppression. Islamophobia creates a distorted understanding of Islam and Muslims by transforming the global and historical faith tradition of Islam, along with the rich history of cultural and ethnic diversity of its adherents, into a set of stereotyped characteristics most often reducible to themes of violence, civilizational subversion, and fundamental otherness. Islamophobia must also be understood as a system of both religious and racial animosity that is perpetuated by private citizens as well as cultural and political structures.
Source Title: “2022 Islamophobia Report: Islamophobia in the Mainstream”
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://islamophobia.org/islamophobia-reports/islamophobia-in-the-mainstream/
Source Type: Report
Country: USA
Year: 2022
Tags: Advocacy | Nonprofit
European Network Against Racism (ENAR)
Islamophobia is a specific form of racism that refers to acts of violence and discrimination, as well as racist speech, fuelled by historical abuses and negative stereotyping and leading to exclusion and dehumanisation of Muslims, and all those perceived as such. Islamophobia is a form of racism in the sense that it is the result of the social construction of a group as a race and to which specificities and stereotypes are attributed, in this case real or perceived religious belonging being used as a proxy for race. Consequently, even those who choose not to practice Islam but who are perceived as Muslim – because of their ethnicity, migration background or the wearing of other religious symbols – are subjected to discrimination. Islamophobia has nothing to do with criticism of Islam. Islam, as a religion, as an ideology, is subject to criticism as any other religion or ideology.
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://www.enar-eu.org/about/islamophobia/
Source Type: Web article
Country: European Union
Tags: Governmental | Advocacy | Nonprofit
Facing History & Ourselves
Islamophobia can be defined as fear or hostility directed at the religion of Islam and/or Muslim people….
Hostility toward a group of people because of their culture, ethnicity, or background is considered a form of racism. Many people are the targets of Islamophobic hostility because of their physical appearance, their country of origin, the language they speak, their clothing, or their names—whether they actively practice Islam or not. In addition, negative stereotypes about who Muslim people are and what they believe can impact everyone who practices the religion, even those who are not immediately identifiable as Muslim. Thus, Islamophobia includes both prejudice against the religion and racism against those perceived to be Muslim, with the two often intertwined.
Source Title: “What Is Islamophobia? Explainer”
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/what-islamophobia
Source Type: Web article
Country: USA
Year: 2024
Tags: Educational | Advocacy | Nonprofit
Muslim Council of Britain (MCB)
Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.
Source Title: “Defining Islamophobia: Comprehensive report amplifies what it is, what it isn’t and why it matters”
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://mcb.org.uk/defining-islamophobia-comprehensive-report-amplifies-what-it-is-what-it-isnt-and-why-it-matters/
Source Type: Press Release
Country: UK
Year: 2021
Tags: Advocacy | Nonprofit
Nazhruna: Jurnal Pendidikan Islam
The word Islamophobia can be divided into two parts. The first one, “Islam”, refers to one of the monotheistic religions in the world. The second part, “phobia”, is a Greek affix used in English words to mean “fear”. The word Islamophobia was first used in1925 by two French writers, Etienne Dinet and Slima Ben Ibrahim, in their book ‘‘Accès de Délire Islamophobe’. The word started to be used more frequently after a report named ‘Islamophobia: A challenge for us all’ was released by the Runnymede Trust in 1997 in the UK. The report gave details about the history of Muslims in the UK, the factors leading to the increase in prejudice against Muslims in the media, and the social exclusion of Muslims resulting in the perception of Muslims as the “Other”.
Different resources offer different definitions for Islamophobia. On the one hand, at some point during the Iranian revolution in 1978-1979, the word was used to describe Muslims’ fear of Islam. The reason was that during the Iranian revolution, Iranian women refused to wear the headscarf which made some groups react aggressively against these women, resulting in a general fear of the religion….
Islamophobia is a kind of racism that divides between the superior group and an inferior “Other”. It is the same division Foucault suggests when he traces the rise of racism through the emergence of ‘super race and a subrace’. According to Foucault, for the ‘super race’, it is important to keep its race ‘pure’ even if it requires ‘killing’ the ‘subrace’. By ‘killing’, Foucault, however, did not literally mean murder. He rather used it to refer to any kind of indirect killing, such as expulsion or prejudice Drawing on Foucault, we can perhaps see how the same logic of prejudice plays out in the context of Muslims experiencing Islamophobia, resulting in not only ‘othering’ them but also in creating certain distinctions between “us” (non-Muslims) and “them”(Muslims), good (non-Muslims) and evil (Muslims).” However, there is a tendency in the West to refer to Islam to the version of Islam the West created, as Said explains….
Islamophobia… is built on a Western version of Islam which is not related to Islam but is related to the way the West justify their fear of Islam. This fear is based on a lack of knowledge and communication from the West which produces prejudice. Prejudice is not innate; rather it grows in hearts due to some acquired beliefs or learnt knowledge… (pp. 327-328)
Individual Author(s): Jaber, Nihaya
Source Title: “Islamophobia: Definition, History, and Aspects”
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://doi.org/10.31538/nzh.v5i2.1991
Source Type: Journal article
Country: UK
Year: 2022
Tags: Scholarly
Find it at UCLA: https://search.library.ucla.edu/permalink/01UCS_LAL/192ecse/cdi_crossref_primary_10_31538_nzh_v5i2_1991
Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
Islamophobia is a combination of hate, fear, and prejudice against Islam, against Muslims, as well as against anything associated with the religion, such as Mosques, Islamic Centers, Holy Qur’an, Hijab, etc. It also constitutes hatred, stigmatization, racism and discriminations in daily life, on Media, at workplace, in political sphere, etc. It rests in the mind and it reflects in attitudes, and could be manifested through violent actions, such as burning mosques, vandalizing properties, abusing women wearing scarf, or insulting Prophet or sacred symbols of Islam. That is more or less, how Islamophobia identifiable, how it manifests, which can be seen not only from incidents, but also through perspectives, statements, behavior, and gestures. Since the last two decades, Islamophobia keeps growing in some parts of the world, through intensive campaigns and public discourses disseminating fear of Islam, and through significant number of incidents targeting Muslims, mosques, Islamic attires, and Islamic most-revered figures.
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://www.oic-oci.org/page/?p_id=182&p_ref=61&lan=en
Source Type: Web article
Country: International/Saudi Arabia
Year: 2010
Tags: Advocacy | Nonprofit
UC-Berkeley Center for Race and Gender
The term “Islamophobia” was first introduced as a concept in a 1991 Runnymede Trust Report and defined as “unfounded hostility towards Muslims, and therefore fear or dislike of all or most Muslims.” The term was coined in the context of Muslims in the UK in particular and Europe in general and formulated based on the more common “xenophobia” framework.
The report pointed to prevailing attitudes that incorporate the following beliefs:
- Islam is monolithic and cannot adapt to new realities
- Islam does not share common values with other major faiths
- Islam as a religion is inferior to the West.
It is archaic, barbaric, and irrational. - Islam is a religion of violence and supports terrorism.
- Islam is a violent political ideology.
For the purposes of anchoring the current research and documentation project, we provide the following working definition:
Islamophobia is a contrived fear or prejudice fomented by the existing Eurocentric and Orientalist global power structure. It is directed at a perceived or real Muslim threat through the maintenance and extension of existing disparities in economic, political, social and cultural relations, while rationalizing the necessity to deploy violence as a tool to achieve “civilizational rehab” of the target communities (Muslim or otherwise). Islamophobia reintroduces and reaffirms a global racial structure through which resource distribution disparities are maintained and extended.
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://crg.berkeley.edu/research/research-initiatives/islamophobia-research-and-documentation-project
Source Type: Web article
Country: USA
Tags: Scholarly | Educational
United Nations
Islamophobia is a fear, prejudice and hatred of Muslims that leads to provocation, hostility and intolerance by means of threatening, harassment, abuse, incitement and intimidation of Muslims and non-Muslims, both in the online and offline world. Motivated by institutional, ideological, political and religious hostility that transcends into structural and cultural racism, it targets the symbols and markers of being a Muslim.
This definition emphasises the link between institutional levels of Islamophobia and manifestations of such attitudes, triggered by the visibility of the victim’s perceived Muslim identity. This approach also interprets Islamophobia as a form of racism, whereby Islamic religion, tradition and culture are seen as a ‘threat’ to the Western values.
Some experts prefer the label ‘anti-Muslim hatred,’ fearing that the term ‘Islamophobia’ risks condemning all critiques of Islam and, therefore, could stifle freedom of expression. But international human rights law protects individuals, not religions. And Islamophobia may also affect non-Muslims, based on perceptions of nationality, racial or ethnic background.
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://www.un.org/en/observances/anti-islamophobia-day
Source Type: Web article
Country: International
Tags: Educational | Advocacy | Nonprofit