What are the key factors behind islamophobia?

Rifat ________________________       April 17th,2018

“I am an American, I grew up here. I say the Pledge of Allegiance every day,”

“And yet, I am a Muslim.”

Which one,she asked,is she allowed to be? Aleena khan a 17 year old muslim girl wrote a letter to President Obama on February 13,2016. She wrote the letter to president Obama because she realised that living in United States as an American Muslim is to live with The anti-Muslim rallies, the vicious hate crimes, the racial profiling, the threats and taunts and questions about divided loyalties. Islamophobia is one of the major issues in United States now. Americans are afraid of being attacked by Muslims while Muslims live in fear that they are going to be attacked. Aleena said, ’’Being a Muslim in America is not easy even before the recent rash of Islamophobia.’’

The population of American Muslims are heterogeneous. According to a statistic 30% of 3.3 million Muslims living in the U.S. describe themselves as White,27% as Black,21% as Asian,6% as Hispanic and 19% as mixed race. Lecturer in sociology from Rice University Craige Considine said, “Despite the racial, ethnic and cultural diversity of the U.S. Muslim population, they continue to be cast as potentially threatening persons based on perceived racial and cultural characteristics’’. Considine also established the argument using this statistics.

• In 2015, more than half of the hate crimes reported in the U.S. (59.2 percent) were linked to race or ethnicity or ancestry bias.
• And only 19.7 percent of the hate crimes were associated with religious bias.

A surge has also been observed in anti-Muslim hate crimes in the U.S. In 2016 alone, incidents of Islamophobia, including acts of violence and nonviolent harassment rose by 57 percent. The statistics show that most of the hate crimes are linked to race or ethnicity or ancestry, so why only this certain religion is being targeted? Is this happening only for 9/11 attack or a huge propaganda going on?

Who Is Being Targeted? And Why?

On March 16,2017 an American Muslim Speaker,business owner, author, and entrepreneur Zohra Sarwari said in an event in Radford University that, ’’Many acts of individual violence are terrorism, but the label terrorist is only used when talking about violence by Muslims rather than white people’’. U.S. Muslims are as loyal to the United States as U.S. Christians and U.S. Jews are. But Muslims are always facing different kinds of discriminations. Muslim women and children are facing discriminations, taunts and even they are physically attacked in trains, schools and work places only for being Muslims. Why only Muslims are being targeted? Craige Considine, a lecturer from Rice University, said that,’’ Islamophobia represents a form of racism mixed with cultural intolerance as a whole and it has been misrepresented as a form of religious bias. ’’The main reason behind this negative attitudes towards Muslim is ‘’Misrepresentation’’ of Islam. Now the question is, how this misrepresentation is happening?

Islam vs Media

Does the media inform us about policies, or does it influence the policies we accept?  Recent research suggests we are far more influenced by media than we think. Media can change our point of view on a matter by a single news or information or through their presentation. This media has represented Muslims to American people as  terrorists and violent. This negative representations of Muslims have been observed in American news outlets,news papers,televisions and movies. In a study on news coverage from LexisNexis Academic and CNN for all terrorist attacks in the United States between 2011 and 2015, researchers found that news outlets gave drastically more coverage to attacks by Muslims, particularly foreign-born Muslims – even though these attacks are far less common than other kinds of terrorist attacks. Researchers observed how the alleged attacks by Muslim perpetrators received 49 percent more news coverage than those allegedly perpetrated by non-Muslim attackers. Most of the time media don’t give any false report but they are focuse more on crimes by Muslims, which is impacting the aspects of people about Muslims. This media outlets are questioning about their patriotism due to an assumed incompatibility between American and Muslim identities which is making people think that American Muslims are less American than they are. One of the senior members of ‘’Jamaica Muslim Center Youth’’ said, ’’What media is doing to our community is unacceptable. You can’t judge a whole community on the basis of the act of some people who self proclaim themselves as members of our religion. My question is, which religion accepts killing people?So how that murderer or ‘terrorist’ can say himself a muslim?Positive media representation can clear out this matters. ’’To American Muslims this media has become a subject of fear. Republican strategist and CBS News contributor Frank Luntz held a program for, focus group of Muslim Americans at CBS News’ Studio 57 to get their perspectives on the political rhetoric and their faith. They said that if they hear about any kind of crime in United States through media they are praying that the criminal is not a Muslim, because they know what is going to happen next. Couple of days ago more than 150 Hafiz Quran Children were killed in Qanduz Afghanistan, during annual passing out ceremony, by an airstrick on Masjid.International Media is silent,

No debate, No candle March,No voice Against Terrorism. Why media has fueled double standards for Muslim world?

Islamophobia is also exacerbated by the Islamophobia industry

In 2011, the Center for American Progress (CAP), a public policy research and advocacy organization based on Washington, D.C., found that seven charitable foundations spent $42.6 million between 2001 and 2009 to support the spread of anti-Muslim and anti-Islam rhetoric in the United States. During the 2016 presidential campaign, candidates of the Republican Party made several controversial comments including, “Islam hates us,” “[Muslims are] uncorked animals,” and “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation”. There are some people,groups,organizations who are just trying to spread hatred against Muslims. They have different reasons to do that.Some are just trying to make people afraid of Muslims,some are having access to a lot of money through it or some just hate Muslims. Citing the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Considine highlighted that,’’Anti-Muslim groups and organizations have enjoyed access to at least $205 million to spread fear and hatred of Muslims’’.

Executive Order,Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, often referred to as the Muslim ban or the travel ban, was an executive order issued by United States President Donald Trump. 7 Muslim majority countries were banned from entering United States. It was in effect from 27 January 2017, until 16 March 2017. On March 9, 2016, Trump said on CNN, ‘’I think Islam hates us. There’s something there that — there’s a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There’s an unbelievable hatred of us’’. As a candidate, Trump promised a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. Was it his first attempt to ban Muslim totally from United States? If anything comes from a person who is the president of the most powerful country in the world it does affect people. Seven surveys released since President Trump signed an executive order on Muslim ban. This was published in HUFFPOST. This shows how many Americans supported the ban and how many Americans were against the order.

The survey shows that almost half of the people support the ban. The survey also shows how people are getting anti-islamic sentiment pushed to them by this Islamophobic industry. Scholars say Islamophobia seems to surge after attacks by Muslim extremists and during presidential campaigns, when candidates pledge to get tough on terrorists, often by singling out Muslims. Politicians have claimed that 85% mosques are controlled by Islamic extremists and that Islam is a political system,not a religion. This is how Islam is getting mistreated by different kinds of people and groups which are the reasons behind the falsification of Islam nowadays.

There is a connection between this islamophobic industry and media. They are using media as one of their main medium to spread hatred and fear against Muslims. This combination has made the society divided into two parts,US vs THEM. Why people are creating divisions? That’s not the way of making America great again. Let’s make America great again ‘’TOGETHER’’.

Religious Literacy vs Islamophobia

According to the Pew Research Center, nearly half of the Americans have reported not knowing anyone Muslim. More than 6 in 10 have seldom or never had a conversation with a Muslim, according to a study conducted by the Public Religion Research Constitute. Most Americans also say they know little (57%) or nothing at all (26%) about Islam. Many Americans are used to thinking of Muslims as foreigners–people who live in far-off lands and dress in strange clothing. People have a very wrong concept about Islam and Islamic society. Zohra Sarwari said one of the important thingS when analyzing Islam, is that,’’one has to separate religion from culture’’. The example of Saudi Arabia came up as she spoke about how women were not able to drive a car in that society. Sarwari pointed out that nothing within Islam defends that women do not have the right to drive, that naturally has developed within the culture of Saudi Arabia.

Islam in one of this country’s most fastest growing religions. There are more than 1100 mosques in United States. But most of the people in this country don’t have a good idea about this religion. Because of on going discriminations and propagandas against muslims most of the American Muslims try to avoid interactions with non-Muslim Americans. They try to keep distance with them.Muniba Saleem an assistant professor and scholar wrote in her article that, ’’Under certain social contexts, where their religious identity is threatened, American Muslims are likely to distance themselves from American culture.’’ For this reason American Muslims are getting less acceptance to non-Muslim Americans. Because of this distance between American Muslims and Non American Muslims those anti-Muslim groups,people and media are getting a chance to create a hassle between them. This religious illiteracy is making other Americans afraid of Muslim Americans. “Muslims live in fear that they will be attacked,Americans live in fear that Muslims will attack them.”

Aleena Khan wrote in her honors project.

Muslims are identified by their outlook. If any woman is wearing hijab (head scarf) and a man has beard people identify them as terrorists. Riad Z.Abdelkarim wrote in his article in Washington Report on Middle East Affairs that, ’’Earlier in the day, after dropping our children off at a Muslim weekend school, my wife had been on the receiving end of an obscene gesture from a man who thought she was somehow less American than he.’’ Because she was wearing hijab.Zohra Sarwari pointed out head scarves are used within many religions, especially Christianity. She showed a picture of a Catholic Nun and a Muslim woman to show how similar their clothing is. But only Muslims are getting discriminated because people have less understanding of Islam, which is leading them to different kinds of hate crimes.

There are so many reasons behind increasing Islamophobia. One is linked to another. The only way to handle this situation is to educate people about Islam. There are some groups and organizations who are working to spread Islamic awareness. Jamaica Muslim Center is one of them.Jamaica Muslim Centers’ Youth department is working for the youths who has interest in Islam. One of the member of Jamaica Muslim Center said,’’We are working with the young generations to educate them about Islam. If the young generations get a proper knowledge about Islam then this increasing rate of islamophobia will come to an end’’. People should not accept everything what they are listening and seeing from others. They need to judge the news or situations knowingly. Everyone needs to understand that terrorists are the antithesis of Islam. They’re not Muslim.Violence has no place in religion, and the terrorists are responsible for their own crimes, not the religion.

Works Cited

Abdelkarim, Riad Z. “American Muslims to Osama bin Laden and Co.: Don’t Do Us Any Favors. (Islam in America).” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Dec. 2001, p. 72. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A80803992/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=cac7209e. Accessed 9 April,2018.

Bennett, Jennifer. “No I am not a terrorist.” UWIRE Text, 16 Jan. 2018, p. 1. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A524891716/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=65473acc. Accessed 9 April, 2018.

Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor,“The Secret Costs of Islamophobia.” 2 Mar. 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/23/us/islamerica-secret-costs-islamophobia/index.html. Accessed 9 April.2018.

’’Focus group of American Muslims Talks Politics, Fear and Faith. ’’YouTube, uploaded by CBS This Morning,18 December, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L3goFD8nwQ&feature=youtu.be.

“Islam in the United States.” Current Events, a Weekly Reader publication, 25 Jan. 2002, p. S4. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A82510672/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=77d570ef. Accessed 9 April, 2018.

“Islamophobia Misrepresented As A Form Of Religious Bias: Report.” International Business Times [U.S. ed.], 15 Sept. 2017. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A517677828/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=777c5089. Accessed 9 April, 2018.

Levy, Ariel E. and Grace Sparks “HUFFPOLLSTER: How Many Americans Support The Travel Ban? Depends on The Poll.” 2 Mar. 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/polls-trump-executive-order-travel-ban_us_589479a4e4b0c1284f255570. Accessed 8 April,2018.

Muniba Saleem, Contributor.“Spreading Islamophobia: Consequences of Negative Media Representations.” 4 Dec. 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/spreading-islamophobia-consequences-of-negative-media-representations_us_58fe682de4b06b9cb91963fb. Accessed 8 April,2018.

Muslim Girls.More than 150 religious student have been killed.Facebook,4th   April,2018,8:49a.m.,https://www.facebook.com/Muslim.Girlss/posts/196569586776245 ). Accessed 4 April,2018.