Islamophobia
The term “Islamophobia” was first articulated as a concept in a 1991 Runnymede Trust Report and defined generally as “unfounded hostility towards Muslims, and therefore fear or dislike of all or most Muslims.” The concept was born and coined in the context of the condition of Muslims in the United Kingdom and formulated based on the more common “xenophobia.” Admittedly, the term has its initial framework in the European context; however, the post-9/11 circumstances have provided the atmosphere for its emergence, as a globalized and more inclusive phenomena affecting Muslim communities all over the world.
Islamophobia, as a structural organizing principle, presently sits at the crossroads of the rationale employed to extend the dominant global power configuration and the project of silencing the collective global other. Islamophobia can indeed be simply defined as“fear,” “anxiety, ” or “phobia” of Muslims, but at it also has a far more encompassing connotation that affects global law, economy, and society. At one level its “ideologues” attempt to classify who belongs to the “civilized world” through their criterion for membership and who is the demonized and ostracized global other, but, at a more profound level, it serves as rationalization for the existing domestic and global male power hierarchies and militarism. Islamophobia constructs a singular and homogenous undifferentiated image of Muslim men and women, one that presents them as religious fanatics, violent, and antithetical to civilization itself.
Islamophobia emerges from a long history, possibly as early as the emergence of Islam itself, that winds its way through the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the“discovery of the New World,” the construction of race, the direct colonialism of the past, and the present colonial era, and is centered in all its facets and epochs on constructing a racialized, feared “other” that must be confronted to prevent the collapse of “civilization.” In today’s world, Islam and Muslims are the feared “other,” and the threat they pose is already connected to every local, regional, and global process.“Othering” Islam and Muslims is already underway with devastating consequences and has resulted in a virtual state of siege, not only in the affected communities, but also in academic circles where the subject has yet to receive comprehensive treatment. Islamophobia, as the present structural organizing principle of the Eurocentric world, is employed by the power elite in a manner to extend and maintain the patterns of racial, gender, colonial, ethnic, and religious discrimination.
Islamophobia, as a structural organizing principle, presently sits at the crossroads of the rationale employed to extend the dominant global power configuration and the project of silencing the collective global other. Islamophobia can indeed be simply defined as“fear,” “anxiety, ” or “phobia” of Muslims, but at it also has a far more encompassing connotation that affects global law, economy, and society. At one level its “ideologues” attempt to classify who belongs to the “civilized world” through their criterion for membership and who is the demonized and ostracized global other, but, at a more profound level, it serves as rationalization for the existing domestic and global male power hierarchies and militarism. Islamophobia constructs a singular and homogenous undifferentiated image of Muslim men and women, one that presents them as religious fanatics, violent, and antithetical to civilization itself.
Islamophobia emerges from a long history, possibly as early as the emergence of Islam itself, that winds its way through the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the“discovery of the New World,” the construction of race, the direct colonialism of the past, and the present colonial era, and is centered in all its facets and epochs on constructing a racialized, feared “other” that must be confronted to prevent the collapse of “civilization.” In today’s world, Islam and Muslims are the feared “other,” and the threat they pose is already connected to every local, regional, and global process.“Othering” Islam and Muslims is already underway with devastating consequences and has resulted in a virtual state of siege, not only in the affected communities, but also in academic circles where the subject has yet to receive comprehensive treatment. Islamophobia, as the present structural organizing principle of the Eurocentric world, is employed by the power elite in a manner to extend and maintain the patterns of racial, gender, colonial, ethnic, and religious discrimination.