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n late April, Istanbul hosted the Muslim Impact Forum, bringing together political figures, civil society leaders, and organisations from across dozens of countries. Framed as a platform for collaboration, the forum aimed to confront a recurring challenge: how can a fragmented global Muslim landscape respond more effectively to shared political, social, and humanitarian pressures?

It is a question that has become increasingly urgent. From ongoing conflicts in parts of the Muslim world to rising anti-Muslim sentiment in Western societies, the pressures are both external and internal. Against this backdrop, the forum positioned itself not simply as a space for dialogue, but as an attempt to build coordination.

The presence of senior Turkish officials reflected an effort to bridge political leadership with civil society initiatives. Mehmet Şimşek, Türkiye’s Minister of Treasury and Finance, set a high-level tone for the assembly by framing the current geopolitical turbulence as a “new normal” defined by polarization and trade fragmentation.

The macro-vision: Regional integration and the trust deficit

For Şimşek, the solution to this global instability is structural and proactive. “Can we invest in regional integration as an antidote against fragmentation?” he asked, highlighting that the world is currently suffering from a significant “trust deficit”. By positioning Türkiye as a mediator and an advocate for new trade and energy corridors, Şimşek’s address provided the macroeconomic framework for the forum’s goals: transforming sectarian and ethnic diversity into a “source of richness” rather than a cause for “perpetual conflict”.

Yet the central question remains: can such gatherings move beyond conversation? In an interview on the sidelines of the forum, Humza Yousaf, former First Minister of Scotland, framed the moment in stark terms. “Forums like this are needed now more than ever before,” he said, pointing to the “extremely difficult situations” facing Muslim communities globally.

“How do we use all of the energy, talent, money and expertise that we have as a collective Ummah, not just to solve our problems, but to make the world better for all of humanity?” For Yousaf, the issue is not a lack of capacity, but a failure to act collectively. The distinction matters: representation alone does not guarantee impact. Without access to decision-making power, presence can remain symbolic.

That diagnosis was echoed by Aazim Kidwai, director of the forum, who described fragmentation as the defining challenge. “We see Muslims fragmented. We see organizations all doing their own thing,” he said. Rather than proposing new structures, the forum’s approach is to connect existing actors, on the assumption that cooperation is already possible, but not yet realized.

The Internal Architecture: Dismantling Ego and Fear

At the core of this approach is a simple but often elusive concept: trust. While Minister Şimşek identified the “trust deficit” as a global barrier, Kidwai noted its impact on an organizational level: “When people have trust, then they sign up to work together”. Partnerships announced during the forum were presented as early steps in that direction, though the durability of such initiatives remains shaped by competing interests and institutional rivalries.

If fragmentation is widely acknowledged, its causes are less often addressed openly. Kidwai pointed to two factors that repeatedly undermine cooperation: ego and fear. “Organisations often want to retain things in their own name… their own brand,” he said. “And there’s also fear, that if they step back, someone else will take over”.

These are not purely organisational issues. They reflect deeper structural dynamics—competition for visibility, funding, and influence—that shape how institutions operate. Yousaf added that to overcome these, “We have to encourage excellence in our young people… to take leadership positions with confidence”.

The significance of the forum will ultimately be measured not by the prestige of its attendees, but by its follow-through. Grand visions of “Middle Corridors” and high-tech integration are essential, yet they remain fragile blueprints. The real test is whether the partnerships announced in Istanbul can survive the transition from the conference hall to the boardroom. The Muslim Impact Forum reflects a growing, urgent awareness that isolated responses are no longer sufficient in a polarized world. However, as the insights from Yousaf and Kidwai suggest, the “skeleton” of infrastructure cannot move without a nervous system of trust.

If global Muslim leadership is to move from conversation to coordination, it must do more than build roads and railways; it must dismantle the internal architecture of ego and fear. Only then can the “trust deficit” be bridged, turning a moment of dialogue into a movement of impact.

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anada’s reputation as a welcoming multicultural society is facing renewed scrutiny as a surge in Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian sentiment sweeps the country, fueled in part by the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Muslim advocacy groups, community leaders, and victims say the rise in hate incidents has reached levels unseen since the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001 — and, in some cases, has now surpassed them.

The flashpoint for one recent controversy came in Toronto, where Mayor Olivia Chow posted an Instagram video greeting newly arrived Palestinian refugees with the words “Salam Aleikum! Welcome to Toronto!” Within days, the short clip had racked up 51,000 views and about 1,000 comments, more than half of which were Islamophobic, according to her office. Many mocked the refugees’ appearance, suggesting they were not truly in need.

Chow’s team said the mayor often shares stories to humanize policy decisions, but the video was removed after concerns were raised for the family’s safety. It was replaced with a statement explaining the decision, citing “abusive comments” and “safety concerns for the family.”

Predictable backlash

Fareed Khan, founder of Canadians United Against Hate, said the backlash was predictable. “Since October 2023, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism has exploded across Canada to levels higher than they were after 9/11,” he told Anadolu Agency. Khan blamed years of normalized anti-Muslim narratives, which he said have intensified during the Gaza conflict.

For some Canadian Muslims, the rise in hostility has moved from online platforms into their neighborhoods. In Toronto’s east end, Marycarmen Lara-Villaneuva, her husband Khurram Shahzad, and their two children have been repeatedly targeted since late March. On the last day of Ramadan, a man attempted to break into their home while shouting anti-Muslim slurs. The family believes their Ramadan decorations — including an inflatable mosque and a “Ramadan Kareem” sign — made them a target.

Just two weeks later, a woman confronted Lara-Villaneuva, calling her a “terrorist” over a pro-Palestinian display outside the house. The man from the March incident was arrested but allegedly violated his release conditions twice in the following months, including by making new death threats and hurling fresh insults at Shahzad.

“We’ve had to adapt to living in fear,” Lara-Villaneuva said in an interview with CP24. “But how long are we supposed to live like this? It’s exhausting and it’s debilitating. This is our home and our community.” Shahzad added that his work-related travel now leaves him deeply uneasy about his family’s safety.

Encourage Muslims to report hate crimes

The couple has chosen to speak publicly to encourage other Muslims to report hate crimes. “It’s not just us,” Lara-Villaneuva said. “This is about the community, other racialized families, other Muslim families.”

Khan described their ordeal as “just the tip of the iceberg” in terms of anti-Muslim hate across Canada. He cited surveys showing that more than half of Canadians express distrust toward Muslims, with significant portions viewing Islam as harmful to Canadian society or blaming Muslims for the discrimination they face.

These concerns are echoed by Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s special representative on combatting Islamophobia. In her latest annual report, she wrote that Canadian Muslims are experiencing a wave of harassment, threats, vandalism, and economic consequences, including job losses and exclusion from opportunities, since the escalation of the Gaza conflict.

Her report also highlights a troubling statistic: Canada has the highest rate of targeted killings of Muslims among the G7 nations. Recent high-profile incidents include the 2017 Quebec City mosque shooting, which left six dead, and the 2021 vehicle attack in London, Ontario, that killed four members of one family. A Canadian Senate report in late 2023 catalogued dozens of other incidents — from hot drinks thrown at Muslim pedestrians to hijabs being forcibly removed.

1,000 incidents of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism

Between October 7, 2023, and March 2024, Elghawaby said, more than 1,000 incidents of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism were reported nationwide. “Quite simply, being Muslim in Canada is not as safe as it should be,” she wrote.

The Canadian government continues to officially promote the country as a “multicultural, pluralistic nation” that embraces diversity. But for many Muslims living in Canada today, the reality feels increasingly different. The growing hostility — whether in the form of online abuse, physical intimidation, or systemic discrimination — is forcing them to navigate daily life with heightened vigilance.

As Lara-Villaneuva put it, “We’ve taken steps to proactively protect our family, but there’s only so much we can do.” Her words capture a wider sentiment in Canada’s Muslim community: that the promise of multicultural harmony will remain unfulfilled unless society confronts the prejudice still simmering beneath the surface.

(Source: Anadolu News)

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former aide in the Obama administration, Stuart Seldowitz, has been arrested after a series of videos went viral showing him hurling anti-Muslim vitriol at a New York City halal cart vendor. Seldowitz, who previously served in the U.S. State Department and on the National Security Council, is seen in the clips confronting vendor Mohamed Hussein with accusations and derogatory comments regarding his religion and ethnicity.

In one of the videos, Seldowitz asserts, “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what, it wasn’t enough.” This statement has particularly ignited public furor, reflecting the severity of his anti-Muslim rhetoric. The remark not only displays a blatant disregard for human life but also grossly misrepresents the situation in Gaza, reducing the tragic loss of life to a callous tally.

Seldowitz’s comments have been met with immediate condemnation from various corners, including from the Muslim community, human rights advocates, and city officials. New York Mayor Eric Adams decried the behavior as “Islamophobia” and assured that such disrespect has no place in the city.

The videos have prompted not only social media outcry but have also been a catalyst for a broader conversation about the persistence of hate speech and religious intolerance in the United States.

Seldowitz taken into custody

The NYPD has taken Seldowitz into custody, although the specific charges against him have yet to be disclosed. Following the incident, Gotham Government Relations, where Seldowitz formerly worked, released a statement distancing themselves from his actions and underscoring that they do not align with the firm’s principles.

The halal cart vendor, Mr. Hussein, originally from Egypt, expressed his distress over the incident and has indicated his intention to file a lawsuit against Seldowitz. He denies provoking Seldowitz and claims that the attacks against him were unprovoked and discriminatory.

Seldowitz’s behavior intensified when he called the vendor “ignorant” after the latter expressed difficulty with English. He went further, labeling Hussein a “terrorist” upon learning of his American citizenship. These baseless accusations reflect a profound disrespect for the vendor’s identity and heritage.

In a particularly threatening manner, Seldowitz alluded to Egypt’s intelligence agency, the Mukhabarat, implying harm to the vendor’s family in Egypt. This kind of intimidation tactic is alarming and unacceptable, as it invokes fear of persecution and violence.

Despite repeated requests from Hussein for Seldowitz to depart, the confrontation continued. Seldowitz, asserting his rights as an American in a “free country,” contrasted the U.S. with Egypt in terms of civil liberties, ignoring the vendor’s pleas for him to leave.

Muslims Americans feel increasing hate

The videos culminate a deeply troubling incident, highlighting the challenges many Muslim Americans face regarding Islamophobia and xenophobia. The repercussions of such public confrontations can be far-reaching, impacting not only the individuals involved but also the broader community’s sense of safety and belonging.

The incident has cast a spotlight on the experiences of Muslim Americans and the challenges they face concerning bigotry and discrimination. It has also raised questions about the responsibilities of former and current government officials in their representation of “American values of diversity and tolerance.”

As the case unfolds, many are calling for a firm stance against hate crimes and a reaffirmation of the commitment to safeguarding the rights and dignity of every individual, regardless of their background or beliefs. Muslim Americans await further details on the legal proceedings and the potential repercussions Seldowitz will face for his actions.

Sources: TRT World and BBC

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new study has brought to light the pervasive nature of racism faced by Muslim men in Germany, with over 40% reporting experiences of racial discrimination in their daily lives. The findings, released on November 7, by the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (Dezim) in Berlin, indicate that 41.2% of Muslim men feel affected by racism.

The report underscores discrimination encounters in public offices and interactions with authorities, including the police. A notable 39% of Muslim men recounted more frequent experiences of discrimination within the police force, while a significant 51% reported adverse experiences when dealing with public offices and authorities.

Muslim women also face substantial discrimination, with 46% reporting similar experiences in offices and authorities. The figure drops to 25% when referring to interactions with the police.

Discrimination in Germany’s healthcare system

The study also highlighted discrimination in Germany’s healthcare system. Frank Kalter, the director of the Dezim Institute, noted that individuals who are racially characterized often receive inferior appointments and their grievances are less acknowledged.

This alarming revelation comes at a time when Germany’s government, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, is expressing concern over rising anti-Muslim racism in the aftermath of the recent Gaza war that began on October 7. Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit stated that any attacks on Muslims, whether for religious reasons or otherwise, are “absolutely unacceptable.”

The nearly 5 million Muslims residing in Germany have an inherent right to protection, he asserted at a news conference in Berlin.

Last week, the Berlin-based Alliance Against Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hate (CLAIM) warned of escalating anti-Muslim racism amidst the intensifying conflict between Israel and Palestine. Rima Hanano, head of CLAIM, emphasized the urgent need to address the uptick in anti-Muslim racism, which threatens social cohesion.

CLAIM has documented numerous instances of anti-Muslim threats, violence, and discrimination in a short span, including attacks on mosques. The organization highlighted that many incidents likely go unreported, particularly in the realm of online hate speech.

The NGO advocates for comprehensive measures to counter anti-Muslim racism and safeguard those affected. “It is imperative for our democracy and societal cohesion to actively combat anti-Muslim racism, antisemitism, and other misanthropic ideologies,” CLAIM asserts, emphasizing the immediate need for action.

The recent study and calls from advocacy groups serve as a stark reminder of the challenges facing Muslim communities in Germany and the importance of concerted efforts to foster an inclusive and equitable society.

Source: Anadolu Agency

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he journey of the veil transcends time. From its depiction in French couture to a resurgence in 1990s fashion trends, the veil’s versatility continues unabated. Amidst ever-changing cultural norms, it remains a reflection of identity. From ancient Greece to the present day, the veil reflects the history of mankind.

The veil has a history going back thousands of years and is intricately woven into the cultural fabric of Europe. It is not only a sign of changing fashion, but also a reflection of women’s evolving roles, changing social norms, and religious ideologies. From ancient traditions to modern representations, the history of the veil offers a deep insight into the complexity of European history.

Its evolution from religious symbols to fashion statements reflects the changing currents of society. As Europe continues to evolve, the multilayered meaning of the veil remains. It serves as a tangible link to the past and a lens through which we view the complexity of our shared cultural heritage.

Roots beyond Christianity

Although Christianity played a crucial role in shaping the European veil tradition, the origins of the veil can be traced back to ancient cultures. In ancient Greece, the veil was a sign of respectability and high status. It distinguished women who were protected and women with loose morals. It was illegal for lower status women, such as slaves and prostitutes, to wear a veil, illustrating the role of the veil in the social hierarchy.

With the rise of the Roman Empire, the tradition of veiling took on a new dimension. Women wore the veil as a symbol of their marital bond. The veil became a strong symbol of the husband’s authority, which was emphasized by traditions such as the colorful bridal veil. The roots of this practice reached back to Roman matrons, the vestal virgins, and their particular veiling rituals.

Theological debates further defined the role of the veil. Tertullian’s On the Veling of Virgins emphasized the subjugation of women and spoke of a dangerous attraction that needed to be concealed. Clement of Alexandria echoed similar thoughts in his writings, emphasizing modesty as a reason for veiling. The Council of Gangres reinforced this idea and solidified veiling as a sign of submission.

The development of fashion in medieval Europe gave new meanings to the veil. Noblewomen veiled themselves with hoods and caps, embodying both fashion and humility. The Renaissance, characterized by elaborate headdresses and an evolving esthetic, influenced the development of the veil style. The Protestant Reformation challenged veiling and led to different practices in different denominations. For instance, in Anabaptism, it is believed that wearing a head covering aligned with Saint Paul’s teachings, making it obligatory to be worn continuously.

Transition to modernity: From tradition to accessory

The early 20th century marked a turning point for veiling traditions. The change was epitomized by the rise of “flapper” culture in the 1920s. Flappers were young women who rebelled against the social norms and expectations of the time. They wore short skirts, had bobs, and challenged traditional gender roles. They embraced a freer and more independent lifestyle, and often enjoyed jazz music, dancing, and socializing. This cultural movement symbolized a break with tradition and reflected the general social changes of the time.

Fast-forward to the 1960s and Europe was swept by another wave of cultural change. World War I and the social changes that followed set the stage for the so-called sexual revolution in the Western world. Traditional norms were challenged and the role of women began to change. The birth control pill and the increasing availability of contraceptives triggered the sexual revolution. Conventional notions regarding gender roles, relationships, and clothing norms were completely overturned. The veil, once a symbol of modesty and marital status, was relegated to the background.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the southern states cultivated a unique “church crown” culture inspired by biblical verses: hats, worn with strict etiquette, became a cultural emblem.

Even though veiling has become less common in everyday life in the Western world, it is still present. Mourning veils and religious practices preserve the solemnity of this tradition. The symbolism of the veil is also changing: from obedience to identity, it remains in various forms. In some Orthodox Christian countries, the veil is maintained in churches, while religious communities such as the Amish and Mennonites, maintain the tradition in everyday life.

The Amish branched off from Switzerland, Alsace, Germany, Russia, and Holland and they migrated to the US in the 19th and 20th centuries. In some parts of Europe, the tradition of women wearing a veil during religious practices is maintained. In Orthodox Christian countries, for example, veiling is still required in churches. In Catholic countries, such as Spain and Portugal, however, the custom has disappeared over time.

Continuing legacy and debates

The changing meaning of the veil reveals deeper social currents. Especially with the Muslim worker migration to Europe in the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s. Veiling practices have often been associated with male dominance and female subjugation, and interpreted as tools of patriarchal control. Mona Eltahawy and some contend that instead of symbolizing choice and devotion, the veil has, on occasion, been employed to oppress women’s autonomy and erode gender equality.

Moreover, current considerations about the veil have sparked controversial debates about cultural integration, religious freedom, and secularism. The presence of the veil in European societies has sometimes been questioned for its perceived deviation from secular values, with some voices calling for stricter regulations on its use in public.

From its ancient origins to its role in Christianity and fashion, the veil has reflected changing social norms and beliefs. It is a timeless symbol of evolution and continuity in the fabric of European tradition. In today’s world, where debates continue not only in European society but also on a global scale, the veil retains its complex status as a symbol of tradition, identity, and self-determination. While discussions and bans on the issue continue in global political discourse, people remain determined to preserve their deeply held beliefs.

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ould Brigitte Macron, the wife of President Macron, secretly be a Muslim? According to Gabriel Attal, Minister of National Education and Youth, it is possible.  If Madame Macron were a teenager who tried to enter school in the long white Louis Vuitton dress she wore to the White House reception in December 2022, would she be allowed in? Or, would she be allowed to enter school in the long black dress she wore on her husband’s visit to China?

Last week, a female student wearing a hip-length black jacket and trousers was refused entry on the grounds that her outfit was “too black.”  A female student named Nasima, wearing a cotton, cream-colored tunic and trousers, was also denied entry to her school. Both female students are Muslim. So is Madame Macron secretly Muslim?

Perhaps the answer would be clear if the two moderators on the TV channel BFM TV cross-examined her like they did Nasima: “So your dress is not a religious dress for you, is it? Then, why are you wearing this outfit that is a little bit draped? If it’s fashionable, where did this trend come from? Are you wearing this slightly flowy outfit to hide your curves? Is this outfit related to your religious beliefs? Are there any non-Muslims who dress like this, and if so, can they go inside? Do you wear a headscarf outside school?”

It, thus, transpires that if Madame Macron were a teenage schoolgirl, she would have managed to prove that she was not a Muslim at the very beginning of this interrogation and she could have entered the school without any problems, taking into account her attire on other occasions.

You may be thinking, “What an absurd and stupid fictional discourse!” But I am not the one who started it. What I am trying to do is to explain, in the laconic words of Le Figaro, “the ban on the abaya, the symbol of an education system that fails to transmit the richness of reason, the joy of freedom and the pride of a common heritage.” Otherwise, thank goodness, I am sufficiently intelligent and have common sense.

At the start of the new school year, Minister of National Education and Youth Gabriel Attal announced: “I have banned long dresses for Muslim girls in schools. If you wear pants or a skirt under a short dress or tunic, that is also forbidden.” However, the actual ban would have sounded something like this: “I have banned the wearing of abaya in schools. When you step into the classroom, you should not be able to tell at a glance which religion the students belong to.”

Just like the 2004 ban on the use of large crosses, kippahs, and headscarves in schools, Muslims are the subject of the ban and are facing open discrimination, racism, and persecution. Since students wearing crosses go to private Catholic schools, and Jewish students wearing kippahs from kindergarten onwards go to private Jewish schools, it is no secret that from the very beginning the 2004 ban targeted Muslim girls attending public schools.

Now, the French state is trying to control the body of Muslim girls from head to toe! Like his predecessors, Attal does not openly say “we are practicing cultural racism or Islamophobia,” but instead proclaims “secularism is the freedom to save oneself through education.” “These garments,” he contends, “are a religious expression that tests the resistance of the Republic in schools that are supposed to be the refuge of secularism!” According to the minister, 298 students wearing tunics and long flowing dresses were identified in the first week, more than half of them changed, 67 did not and were not allowed to enter the school. France has launched a mobilization to successfully implement the ban, and starting this year, 14,000 teaching staff will be trained by the end of 2024 and 300,000 by 2025.

President Macron also commented on the ban. “It is not our intention to label,” he began, in an assessment that, because he is the president of the Republic, naturally brought his formidable “French wisdom” to the fore. “We cannot pretend that the terrorist attack or the murder of Samuel Paty did not happen,” he said, emphasizing that the French people live with a minority in French society that “challenges the Republic and secularism” and “abuses religion,” sometimes with “very bad” consequences.

Jérôme Legavre, a deputy from the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) said, “Are these girls suspects who want to behead their teacher? What is Macron looking for? Does he want to create worse conflicts?” He presumably doesn’t want to, but if one remembers that the gap between him and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the 2017 presidential elections narrowed from 32 points to 17 points in the 2022 elections, one gets an idea of where France is heading.

This is how Jews, whose Frenchness is not doubted today, were targeted 80 years ago, denounced by their French neighbors, until France eventually became an accomplice to the Holocaust. Thanks to strong legal protection against anti-Semitism after the Holocaust, no one today talks about the Jews observing a kosher diet, the floor-length skirts of Jewish women, the bonnets or turbans worn by some Jewish women, the robes of Jewish men, the beards that go halfway down their chests, their kippahs, or the academics asking people to help them turn on the light switch at the university on the Sabbath. No one calls it “bondage” when religious Jewish women walk behind their husbands and greet their husbands’ friends only from a distance.

Eighty years later, Muslims are demonized with the help of the media and intellectuals through the “Law of principles strengthening respect for the values of the Republic,” the “Charter of Imams,” and the invention of so-called French Islam. Islam is portrayed as a dangerous religion in need of mass surveillance and repression, and Muslims as an existential threat to the country’s “Civilization,” “Tradition,” and “Values.” Speaking on the occasion of this latest ban, Government Spokesperson Olivier Véran said that these disguises amount to “a political attack,” but also “an act of proselytizing,” and “an act of trying to convert people to Islam.”

According to the national education minister’s formula, it will not be possible to tell what religion a student is when they walk into class—only a few minutes later, perhaps, when asked for their name, “it will be obvious who is a Muslim!” In other words, the names of Muslim students could well be defined as “offenses” as well. Indeed, far-right leader Èric Zemmour has suggested that the names of Muslims should also be frenchized. Considering that Macron’s former interior minister Gérald Darmanin criticized Marine Le Pen for being “soft on Muslims,” why not?

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n August 14, millions of people in Bangladesh watched in shock and disbelief as news broke of the death of Allama Sayeedi. Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, a popular scholar, preacher, and Islamist politician had been imprisoned by Sheikh Hasina’s government since 2010 and died of a heart attack at the age of 83. According to local sources, he suffered a heart attack on August13, but was transferred to a specialist hospital by the authorities a day later. At the hospital, his condition deteriorated rapidly and he was reported to have died at 8:40 p.m. local time.

Experts have pointed to inconsistencies in statements from the medical team, which just hours earlier had said his condition was stable, leading many to suspect that poor medical care was the reason for his death. News of his deteriorating health and subsequent death spread like wildfire on social media, and thousands of his supporters surrounded the BSMMU hospital premises in Shahbag, in the heart of Dhaka, anxiously awaiting news. When news of his death broke, the crowd swelled to thousands, demanding that his funeral prayers be held the next day at Dhaka’s central Baitul Mukarram Mosque.

The Bangladeshi government refused to accept to the request, insisting that the body be buried in his hometown, far from the capital, and that only a limited number of people be allowed to attend his funeral. While Allama Sayeedi’s supporters remained outside the hospital until late into the night, a brutal police force finally dispersed the protesters and his coffin was taken away. The next day, 50,000 people attended his funeral prayers in his home town of Pirojpur.

Allama Sayeedi feared in life and death

Sheikh Hasina’s government had every right to be afraid of the gathering masses in Dhaka on the night of the scholar’s death—the last time people took to the streets in Allama Sayeedi’s name was to protest the 2013 verdict in the case investigating his alleged involvement in war crimes during Bangladesh’s 1971 War of Independence. The same Hasina government ordered security forces to take a hard-line stance and more than 100 innocent protesters were slaughtered when police and army used live ammunition to disperse mass protests in major cities across Bangladesh.

But who was Allama Sayeedi who so terrified the Hasina government both in life and in death? A man of humble scholarly origins, Delwar Hossain Sayeedi was born in 1940 in Pirojpur, Barisal district of Bangladesh, into a family with a madrassa background. He dominated the Islamic lecture circuit in Bangladesh for the past 50 years, clearly delivering the message of Islam and the Koran in vaaz mehfils (open-air/open-air mass meetings) attended by hundreds of thousands of people. His oratorical style, both eloquent and melodious, made him popular with people from all walks of life.

It is very common to hear his lectures still being played loudly in vehicles, restaurants, mobile phones, and people’s homes in Bangladesh, despite a government ban on mentioning his name in public. But that is not all: Allama Sayeedi was also a two-time member of parliament for the Pirojpur-1 constituency in the Barisal Division in southern Bangladesh, representing a Hindu-majority constituency, from July 1996 to October 2006. Fluent in Bangla, Arabic, and Urdu, the author of 75 books, he was also very active in humanitarian causes and was instrumental in raising funds for Muslim communities in the West, such as Europe and the U.S.

A witness in favor of Allama Sayeedi was abducted

At one point in the trial, Sukhranjan Bali, a prosecution witness who was testifying as a defense witness instead, was abducted from the courthouse steps and forcibly disappeared as he was about to testify that Allama Sayeedi had not murdered his brother. Bali was found many months later in an Indian prison, but by then it was too late: Sayeedi had been found guilty by the ICT and sentenced to death. However, Sayeedi’s immense popularity was a factor the government had not taken into account. In the afternoon of the day of the first verdict on February 28, 2013, police and army forces were ordered to crack down on demonstrators, firing on them. An estimated 100 protesters died across the country in the days of political violence that followed.

Following the state-sponsored violence and the exposure of the trial as a farcical, politically motivated witch hunt, the senior judges were forced to resign and Sayeedi’s death sentence was inexplicably commuted to life imprisonment in September 2014, presumably to maintain a veneer of impartiality and, more importantly, to prevent popular protests that could potentially topple the government from getting out of hand.

The trial of Allama Sayeedi at the ICT, along with a number of other trials of well-known opposition and Islamist politicians such as Abdul Quader Mollah, Kamaruzzaman, Golam Azam, Motiur Rahman Nizami, Ali Ahsan Mujahid, Mir Quasem Ali, and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, were touted by the Hasina government and its allies as necessary to bring closure and justice to the victims of the 1971 war. Instead, the farcical and biased nature of these political trials exposed deep-rooted plans to decimate the opposition to the Hasina regime through judicially sanctioned killings of key opposition figures and to strengthen the incumbent regime’s grip on power, effectively establishing dynastic rule for decades to come.

An enormous cost of the Hasina government

Hasina and her allies appear to have succeeded so far, ruling Bangladesh with an iron fist since 2009. But the cost has been enormous. Throughout this long period of Hasina’s misrule, the biggest victims have been the Bangladeshi people. Large-scale corruption, security, and governance failures, high inflation, high unemployment, rising poverty and a general lack of basic services are just some of the everyday problems that are getting worse for ordinary Bangladeshi citizens. Public dissatisfaction with the government is high; serious allegations of widespread vote rigging, ballot stuffing, and voter intimidation by the authorities in the last two general elections in 2014 and 2019 have severely undermined public confidence in the current regime and regularly trigger periods of mass unrest and political agitation.

Whatever relief Hasina and her supporters imagined they would get from Sayeedi’s death, it does not seem to have materialized. Far from diminishing his legacy, the circumstances of Sayeedi’s death and the injustice done to him in life have made him a shaheed (martyr) in the eyes of ordinary Bangladeshis. Many members of Hasina’s political party have criticized her on social media, saying “Islam comes first” when they were expelled for supporting Allama Sayeedi as a victim of Hasina’s injustice.

Tens of hundreds of funeral prayers were held for the revered scholar both locally and internationally. Unable to stop the national and international outpouring of support for Allama Sayeedi and his family, the government has resorted to tactics of surveillance, widespread raids, arrests, and imprisonment of opponents.

If anything, Sayeedi’s death is a Pyrrhic victory and has done more to diminish Hasina government’s legitimacy in the eyes of Bangladeshi citizens than to glorify it. His death has exposed a horrible side of the Hasina government and made it clear for all to see how Islamophobic, incompetent, and authoritarian this government really is. The authoritarian government of Sheikh Hasina may still be in power, but it is long dead in terms of political legitimacy and the right to represent the people of Bangladesh. You can kill many people, but you cannot kill an idea.

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Qadir’s observations underscore an important point: Muslims living in the West often find themselves caught up in the complexities of politics and day-to-day life. While this might sound exhausting, it’s not a rarity, but rather a common experience for Muslims in the West.

In stark contrast, Qadir points out that this level of complexity is noticeably absent in Turkey. The challenges Muslims face in the West seem less pronounced in the Turkish context and daily life as a Muslim is significantly less burdensome. The more streamlined and unburdened life gives Turkish Muslims a sense of ease and clarity.

Qadir’s perspective is a testament to the attraction Istanbul holds for Western Muslims and provides insight to the growing trend of Western Muslims moving to Turkey.

Islamic heritage and Western comfort

Adding to Turkey’s allure is the presence of numerous mosques, shrines, and landmarks intimately tied to Islamic history. These structures serve as tangible reminders of Turkey’s rich spiritual heritage and accentuate its appeal to Western Muslims, allowing them to embrace their faith openly while staying connected to their Western lifestyle. 

Lauren Booth, a British Muslim, author, and activist, shares her perspective on Turkey’s appeal: “It’s a great mix of Islamic and Turkish culture—that’s what’s incredible to me as a European.” “I can feel at home here as a Muslim and as a European. For me, it’s like two sides of my life are matched, finally,” she adds.

Booth also notes the growing trend of many Muslims being drawn to Turkey from countries such as the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. She describes this as a significant coming together that promises a hopeful atmosphere of prosperity and unity. Her experiences in Turkey, especially her visits to the grand mosques, led her to reevaluate her ideas about the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish people, and to acknowledge that her earlier understanding had been influenced by Western-centric Orientalism.

The lure of Western comfort and Islamic character make Turkey an ideal destination for Western students of Islam. Students from countries such as the United States find the mix of a developed society and political freedom and Islamic values particularly appealing.

Turkey’s educational institutions offer comprehensive Islamic Studies programs which attract those with a thirst for in-depth knowledge of theology, history, Islamic fine arts, and jurisprudence. Western Muslims who want to learn more about their faith, history, and culture respond to these points of attraction as well. 

Family ties and cultural bridges

Family ties and cultural heritage influence Western Muslims’ decision to make Turkey their new home. These ties provide a familiar touchstone in a foreign land and foster a sense of community and support. The presence of established networks can ease the transition and help newcomers navigate their new lives in Turkey.

Turkey’s social openness, and the warmth and welcome by the local population offer comfort and a sense of acceptance to Western Muslims who face discrimination in their home countries. In addition, the diversity within expatriate communities creates a supportive environment for newcomers seeking companionship and mutual understanding as shared experiences bridge cultural differences.

Muhammad Tahiri, a longtime resident of Turkey who leads a community of Western Muslims, emphasizes the appeal of Istanbul’s Islamic diversity and modernity. Unlike other Muslim countries with polarizing labels, Turkey has a harmonious atmosphere where labels such as “Salafi” or “Sufi” are less important. The ease of hearing the adhan (call to prayer) on the street and then shopping in well-stocked malls adds to this unique experience.

In addition, the freedom to access the Internet and mobile applications without surveillance contrasts with more controlled environments. Complementing this context, the Majlis of Istanbul Muslims has emerged as an initiative dedicated to fostering spiritual, social, intellectual, and professional dialogue within the Istanbul Muslim community, providing avenues for growth, collaboration, and the promotion of Islamic values and thought.

The migration of Western Muslims to Turkey reflects a blend of historical significance, religious freedom, social openness, and educational prospects. Turkey’s rich history, religious tolerance, and promising opportunities continue to attract Western Muslims seeking a fresh start. In their search for an environment that is consistent with their values and conducive to their faith, Turkey is proving to be a destination where these aspirations can be realized.

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estern Europe is currently experiencing a wave of public desecrations of the Quran. In the Netherlands, the leader of PEGIDA tore pages from the Quran and trampled them. In Denmark and Sweden, activists have on several occasions burned copies of the Quran in front of buildings belonging to Islamic organizations.

What is striking is that the authorities in these countries have acted as mere bystanders, claiming that they are powerless to deal with such activities. They argue that the desecration of the Quran is a reprehensible act, but that it is legal and therefore cannot be stopped. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson recently said, “It can be legal and still be horrible.”

Many Muslims in the countries concerned and around the world are outraged by the authorities’ passive attitude and are calling on them to act. In July, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution, introduced by Pakistan and Palestine, condemning such desecration and calling on states to close the legal loopholes that prevent them from tackling it.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been a vocal critic of the Swedish authorities’ refusal to stop such desecrations. This raises the stakes considerably, as Sweden’s accession to NATO has yet to be ratified by the Turkish parliament. President Erdoğan has indicated that this is unlikely to happen as long as copies of the Quran are being burned. Thus, the question of whether the Swedish authorities are right to claim that their hands are tied has become politically important.

Freedom of expression?

The Swedish authorities claim that rallies where the Quran is burned are protected by freedom of expression and therefore cannot be restricted, thus giving freedom of expression priority over other rights. However, Sweden is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, which does not recognize such a hierarchy of rights. All rights in the convention are equal, and if they conflict, they must be weighed against each other. In the case of the desecration of the Quran, there is a conflict between freedom of expression and freedom of religion.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), in its judgment in E.S. v. Austria, has shown how the right to freedom of expression must be balanced against the right of others to have their religious feelings protected. The case concerned an Austrian politician who had been fined for making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed. She claimed that the fine amounted to an unlawful interference with her freedom of expression.

The ECtHR disagreed: it recognized that religious groups must tolerate criticism by others of their religious beliefs. However, if that criticism incites hatred or religious intolerance, restrictions are justified. The applicant’s offensive attack on the Prophet Mohammed  went beyond the permissible limits of objective debate and her comments were likely to cause justified indignation among Muslims. The ECtHR reiterated that state parties have an obligation under the convention to maintain religious peace, i.e., the peaceful coexistence of religious and non-religious groups.

ECtHR key judgement

It is not clear what is stopping the Swedish authorities from applying E.S. v. Austria to the desecration of the Quran. The verdict is not obscure: the ECtHR has described it as a key judgment, meaning that it has strong precedential value, and although the ruling concerned Austria, it is expected to be followed by all state parties, including Sweden. The ECtHR is the final authority on the interpretation of the convention and state parties are expected to apply the principles arising from its judgments.

The convention has been incorporated into Swedish law by an Act of Parliament and the Swedish Constitution prohibits the adoption of laws that contravene the convention. Thus, even if there were a law allowing people to burn the Quran, such a law would be contrary to the convention, which would render it null and void. The authorities also cannot avoid banning the desecration of the Quran by claiming that they have no express legislative authority to do so; Swedish courts have consistently held that the convention can serve as a legal basis for action in the absence of enabling legislation.

The Swedish government has announced that it has introduced legislation to tighten border controls in order to prevent the entry of persons who might endanger Sweden’s security interests. Presumably this is intended to silence fervent critics of Sweden’s hands-off policy; however,  this is not how the ECtHR expects Sweden to maintain religious peace. The Swedish government has also indicated that it is considering changing the law to allow the police to prevent copies of the Quran from being burned in public. It need not look far: a simple application of E.S. v. Austria will suffice.

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ounded in 1926, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) is one of Indonesia’s oldest and largest Muslim organizations, with members spread across the country and overseas. According to data published in 2021, the total number of NU members worldwide has reached 95 million.

Over the decades, the socio-political role of the NU has changed from being known as the defender of the traditional religio-economic network to the defender of pluralism, inclusion and progress. The latter is particularly strengthened under the pluralistic leadership of President Jokowi and the closer ties of the Religious Ministry to NU, which has promoted more influential national structures and an expansive stage of internationalism, as evidenced by the G20 Summit in Bali in November 2022.

The global highlight of NU has not only invited admiration at national and international levels, but also further scrutiny through a number of critics and deeper observations that characterized NU in various adjectives. Questions related to genuine metamorphosis resulting from internal reflections or artificial voice to fit into global narratives are among the most expressed. A wealth of research on the NU and its political elite’s dual identity links remains at the core of the debate.

A centenary decree proclaimed on 7 February 2023 in Sidoarjo, West Java, has put NU in a brighter light. At least as far as social media and the internet are concerned. Not only is it massively discussed and debated by global Muslim and non-Muslim audiences alike, but NU has also successfully internationalized the image of moderate and progressive Indonesian Islam. Not everyone is happy with the image-building, however, as some Muslims would argue that it is not only un-Islamic but also prone to politicization.

Alternatively, the more optimistic scholarly observers believe that the decree would provide a new framework for a movement that would help mainstream the abolition of the concept of the caliphate and the redefinition of Islamic law against its legal tradition in order to protect Islam from the extremism of fanatics. James M. Dorsey’s opinion piece, Reforming Islamic Jurisprudence Shapes the Battle to Define Moderate Islam, highlights this point as the decree states that the NU wants to “replace the concept of the caliphate with notions of the nation-state and the United Nations”, which Dorsey sees as a ground-breaking movement as it “does not exist in Islamic legal tradition.”

NU echoes global moderate Muslims 

The reforms meant by NU are also not a verbal scriptural reform towards the al Nash, including those in the traditional legal tradition. It echoes the voice of numerous Muslim scholars around the world in recent decades on the reform of fiqh jurisprudence (fiqih peradaban/ civilized fiqh) in the ontological sense. The connection between Indonesia and the wider Muslim world in this case lies in the progress of the debate on whether relevant fiqh rules should be imposed on societies living in post-colonial industrial development, with or without a sense of belonging to a nation-state, and whether the politics of governance can be further incorporated into the bill of state policy-making.

Unlike Muslims in European countries and partly in the Middle East, where the debate and discourse on fiqh has been highly dynamic and has moved from the era of toxic nationalism to the era of equality for all, Indonesia is still fairly divided along class and interest group lines, where the discourse on these issues remains vulnerable to politicization by middle and upper class bureaucrats, professionals and politicians.

That is why when the ‘One Century NU’ decree states its priority for a new mission to replace the Khilafah, it actually echoes what has been expressed by other moderate Muslims around the world. It rejects the conflict and war that would result from a caliphate mentality and calls for individual leadership responsibility towards humanity, which in Islam is called caliphate. This is a grassroots definition of the caliph.

The reform of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) is not only aimed at thwarting extremism and terrorism, but also at fulfilling the core value of syariah, as revealed in the decree: “a new vision aimed at preventing the exploitation of identity, rejecting inter-group hate speech, enhancing solidarity and respecting different races, cultures and nations in the world, so that the world structure of justice and harmony would be based on the recognition of the equal rights and dignity of human beings. This would support the realization of the integral function of Syariah (Sharia law).

So, to talk about NU is to talk about its coherence with the moderate Muslim organizations and educational institutions in Europe and some Middle Eastern countries. Political Islam has provided irrelevance to limit its comparison, in a good way or vice versa, to the Muslim political problems of ISIS (DAESH) or the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., not to mention the Iranian Revolution.

Caliphate vs. Toxic Nationalism 

The caliphate has been constructed as the antithesis of the nation-state. Shouting the word caliphate means revolution against the nation-state. The root narratives in Indonesia were more than 150 years old when the Dutch choreographed the regulation of political Islam in the 1920s. One of the regulations was to suppress the networks of indigenous East Indians with their Ottoman and Middle Eastern counterparts. The regulations included articles that penalized any form of support for pan-Islamism. This is to protect the Dutch nation-state sovereignty that was inherited by the Indonesian aristocratic bureaucrats, politicians and military generals on the island of Java after the independence era.

This is generational rigidity, part of a toxic nationalism that could still be reflected in Indonesia’s national defence and security protocol. This is where Indonesia needs political moderation to be imposed on both sides, the state in its position of caliphate and the groups – many of which have been banned – that have embraced the state caliphate. Failure to do so would mean a brink of extremism where violence is at stake.

In the case of the caliphate, the NU seeks moderation where it rejects the attachment of geopolitical sentiment to the historical sovereignty of the caliphate and embraces the combination of the popular notion of the caliph. The nature of the peacemaker stood alongside the secular global world. Thus, the dual identity of NU reflects a strategic move signalling the sustainability of peacebuilding and peacekeeping in the democratic world.

From the War on Terror to the far-right conspiracies, Islamophobia manifests in various forms. In today’s world, systemic Islamophobia continues to cast a long and dark shadow over the lives of Muslims across continents. Rooted in historical and contemporary contexts, this pervasive form of discrimination and prejudice has significant implications for individuals, communities, and societies at large.

Systemic Islamophobia operates within power structures, institutions, and cultural biases, perpetuating inequality, marginalization, and the violation of human rights. Implicitly and explicitly, Islamophobia is reinforced by various layers of society, including governments around the world.

While its manifestations may differ from one region to another, systemic Islamophobia shares commonalities across countries and societies. It operates as a product of historical legacies, geopolitical dynamics, cultural narratives, and power imbalances. It thrives in contexts where Muslims are viewed as the “Other,” perpetuating stereotypes, prejudices, and negative portrayals that undermine their rights, dignity, and societal inclusion.

The impact of systemic Islamophobia is far-reaching. Muslim individuals and communities face challenges in various domains of life, as the titles included in this Bundle will show. They experience heightened surveillance, racial profiling, and discriminatory legislation, hindering the realization of fundamental human rights and the pursuit of justice and equality. Furthermore, the interconnetedness of discrimination makes the issue even more pressing for all.

Recognizing and understanding systemic Islamophobia is essential for dismantling its deeply entrenched structures. It requires comprehensive analysis, dialogue, and collective action which this collection hopes to envoke.

The Rise of Global Islamophobia in the War on Terror: Coloniality, Race, and Islam delves into the complex and far-reaching consequences of the ‘War on Terror’ on global perceptions of Muslims. The book examines the intersection between Islamophobia, and various social, economic, and political factors that have shaped its prevalence.

The authors convincingly argue that the ‘War on Terror’ has not only intensified anti-Muslim racism but has also provided a framework that perpetuates a global Islamophobic narrative. By framing Muslims a perpetual enemy, this conflict has fostered a climate of fear and suspicion, fueling the growth of nativist and populist movements worldwide.

One of the book’s strengths lies in its comprehensive analysis of the different forms and manifestations of Islamophobia. Through an examination of localized histories, conflicts, and contemporary geopolitical realities, the authors map out the intricate ways in which Islamophobia has taken shape across the global North and South. This approach adds depth to the understanding of the diverse factors contributing to the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment.

The book offers a nuanced and comprehensive analysis of the connections between interpersonal and institutional racism. While highlighting the deeply rooted nature of Islamophobia, the book also sheds light on the activism and resistance that have emerged to confront this issue. By featuring narratives of individuals and groups challenging Islamophobia, the authors provide hope and inspiration for those seeking to combat this pervasive form of discrimination.

Naved Bakali and Farid Hafez, The rise of global Islamophobia in the War on Terror: Coloniality, race, and Islam (Manchester University Press 2022) ISBN: 978-1-5261-6175-8, 264 pages

Islamophobia in France: The Construction of the “Muslim Problem” presents a groundbreaking examination of the multifaceted nature of Islamophobia in the country. Authored by Abdellali Hajjat and Marwan Mohammed, the book challenges the prevailing notion that Islamophobia arises solely from individual bias but rather that Islamophobia in France is deeply entrenched within existing structures of power and control.

The book sheds light on pivotal moments in French history that have contributed to the marginalization of Muslim communities. It highlights the 2004 ban on veils in schools, followed by the 2010 legislation that prohibited face-covering clothing in public spaces, primarily targeting women who wear burqas. President Emmanuel Macron’s public statements regarding the hijab’s compatibility with French ideals further illustrate the pervasive Islamophobia within the country. These cultural biases not only perpetuate discriminatory practices but also position the Muslim population as scapegoats for broader issues surrounding immigration in France.

Hajjat and Mohammed go beyond surface-level analysis to uncover the structural dimensions of Islamophobia in France. They argue that French elites strategically employ Islamophobia as a state technology to exert control and contest the presence of specific groups of postcolonial immigrants and their descendants. By exploring the data on Islamophobia and examining its functioning in contemporary French society, the authors paint a comprehensive portrait of the mechanisms through which Islamophobia operates.

Islamophobia in France is an English translation of Abdellali Hajjat and Marwan Mohammed’s Islamophobie: Comment les e´lites franc¸aises fabriquent le “proble`me musulman.” and an essential contribution to the field, providing a nuanced and insightful examination of the systemic nature of Islamophobia and its consequences on Muslim communities in France.

Abdellali Hajjat and Marwan Mohammed, Islamophobia in France: The Construction of the “Muslim Problem” (University of Georgia Press, 2023) ISBN-10 0820363251, 306 pages

In The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims Khaled A. Beydoun presents an essential examination of Islamophobia from a legal and ground-up perspective. Drawing on his intellectual prowess and moral imperative, Beydoun presents a compelling analysis of the network of anti-Muslim campaigns unfolding worldwide and offers a comprehensive analysis of how Islamophobia is utilized by both democratic and authoritarian regimes to persecute Muslim populations.

The New Crusades does not shy away from challenging the established narratives. It delves into the role of the War on Terror in fueling and intensifying anti-Muslim campaigns around the world. Beydoun skillfully illustrates how Islamophobia operates as a unifying thread, perpetuating state and social bigotry and igniting hate-mongering from both liberal and right-wing factions. Through trenchant analysis and firsthand accounts from Muslims on the ground, the author brings to light the various manifestations of Islamophobia in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and beyond.

The book’s global perspective sets it apart, as Beydoun incorporates on-site experiences, interviews, and a diverse range of contexts. This approach enhances the authority of the narrative and makes it accessible and engaging for scholars, students, and the general public.

The New Crusades unravels the distinct systems of demonization and oppression that have emerged across the post-9/11 geopolitical landscape. Whether it is the imposition of hijab bans in France, state-sponsored hate speech and violence in India, or the existence of concentration camps in China, Beydoun examines how Islamophobia operates as a global phenomenon, perpetuating discrimination on multiple fronts.

The book powerfully reveals the unsettling reality that Islamophobia remains one of the few acceptable forms of hate in the world today. By exposing this truth, Beydoun calls attention to the urgent need for collective action against Islamophobia and its far-reaching consequences. By weaving together social science, law, and captivating narratives, the author highlights the pervasive impact of Islamophobia on Muslims across the globe.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims (University of California Press, 2023) ISBN: 9780520356306, 390 pages

In Fear of a Muslim Planet: Global Islamophobia in the New World Order Arsalan Iftikhar, a renowned American Muslim human rights lawyer, offers a comprehensive exploration of global Islamophobia. The book refers to the chilling reminder of the Christchurch massacre, where a white supremacist perpetrated a horrific act of violence against Muslim worshippers in New Zealand. Iftikhar draws attention to the manifesto left by the attacker, titled “The Great Replacement,” which espoused the belief that Muslims posed a threat and sought to replace white people. This incident serves as a starting point for exploring the dangerous legacy of this theory and its influence on extremist acts.

Iftikhar goes on to emphasize that the victims of the “Great Replacement” theory extend beyond Muslims alone. The tragic attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, which targeted Jewish congregants, exemplifies the broader impact of this ideology including the infamous actions of Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik.. The perpetrator’s anti-Semitic and Islamophobic motivations, fueled by anti-immigration sentiments, underline the interconnected nature of discrimination.

Throughout the book, Iftikhar critiques the presidency of Donald Trump, which he argues has contributed to the exacerbation of Islamophobia in America. He dissects Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies, including his claim that “Islam hates us” and his call for a complete ban on Muslims entering the US. Iftikhar contends that Trump’s leadership has fueled the growth of Islamophobia.

The book goes beyond the United States and the Western world to shed light on global Islamophobia. Iftikhar highlights the genocidal levels of Islamophobia in countries like China and Myanmar, where Muslim communities face severe oppression. Additionally, he addresses the European focus on policing Muslim women’s hijab, exposing discriminatory policies that curtail religious freedom.

Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet: Global Islamophobia in the New World Order (Skyhorse Publishing, 2021) ISBN-13 978-1510761872, 288 pages

The Suspect: Counterterrorism, Islam, and the Security State offers a captivating and deeply personal exploration of the impact that two decades of policing and counterterrorism have had on the state of mind of Muslims in Britain. Drawing from his own experiences, author Rizwaan Sabir takes readers on a compelling journey through British counterterrorism practices and the pervasive policing of Muslims.

Sabir’s narrative describes his wrongful arrest and detention on suspicion of terrorism. He recounts the distressing process of being unjustly made a target in the “war on terror.” With candor and vivid detail, he outlines the events leading up to his arrest, including being found in possession of the Al-Qaeda Training Manual, which he had downloaded for legitimate postgraduate research purposes. Sabir sheds light on the excruciating experience of being subjected to suspicion and surveillance solely based on his Muslim identity.

Throughout the book, Sabir recounts the harrowing aftermath of his arrest. He vividly describes the relentless monitoring and scrutiny he faced upon release from custody. This included frequent stop-and-search encounters, detentions at the border, surveillance by police and government departments, and an attempt by the UK military to recruit him into their psychological warfare unit. The author’s firsthand account provides a chilling insight into the intrusive and discriminatory practices endured by Muslims in the name of national security.

Sabir argues that the profound harm inflicted on individuals like him is not merely the result of government planning errors but rather a deliberate consequence of employing a counterinsurgency warfare approach to combat terrorism and police Muslim communities. Through his writing, Sabir advocates for and building networks of solidarity and support to challenge the injustices perpetuated by these policies and practices.

The Suspect serves as a powerful call to action, urging readers to recognize and resist the profound injustice faced by Muslims. By sharing his story, Sabir empowers readers to challenge the harmful narratives and practices that perpetuate the policing of Muslims.

Rizwaan Sabir, The Suspect: Counterterrorism, Islam, and the Security State (Pluto Press, 2022) ISBN: 9780745338484, 256 pages

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mid massive Israeli shillings and constant explosions in 2009, my family and I were forced to evacuate our home in Gaza. This evacuation saga would repeat itself later, as Israel’s attacks on Gaza became frequent.

We hastily gathered near a dusty road trying to hide in a basement.

I was barely nine years old at the time. My parents would claim the bombing was a game we played to distract us from the harsh reality we lived in.

Many children my age played this “game.”

During the 2008 offensive on Gaza, Israel killed 1,410 Palestinians, including 355 children and 240 women. At least 5,380 Palestinians, including 1,872 children, were injured.

The trauma from that experience has never been erased from my memory.

I am 23 years old, and every loud sound, even the sound of a moving truck, terrifies me.

“Two out of 3 adolescents in Gaza suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and some young children cannot sleep due to nightmares,” according to a report by Islamic Relief.

Early suffering 

Being a nine-year-old child in Gaza deprived me of the liberty to enjoy my childhood, even when I tried to do so.

Amid Israel’s savage aggression in 2008-9, we tried to cling to what remained of our innocence as children.

When the morning dawned, we would run from one door to another trying to make an endless circle around my grandmother, who toasted bread for us for breakfast. When one of us would fall, our laughter would quickly rise.

Israel has its techniques and methods of eliminating every joyful moment, every form of innocence and all laughter in Gaza.

In a blink of an eye, this innocent joy was turned to pain when my father came in with teary eyes and announced that Israel had bombed our home.

The prevalent silence, except for my mother’s muffled crying, made me angry and frustrated at the silence of the rest of the world.

I realized then that I must endure my fate: the fate of living in fear; the fate of not being allowed to be a child anymore; the fate of dealing with the difficulty of life under Israel’s destructive war machine in Gaza, which had rendered my family homeless.

A six-year-long journey started then, moving from one house to another until our home was rebuilt.

Is our new home safe?

No, no place is safe in Gaza.

Gaza’s vicious circle of violence

On any day, our mornings in Gaza can start with the sounds of intense Israeli bombings, explosions, and missiles.

On May 10, 2021, we were celebrating the arrival of Eid Al-Fitr, the three-day-long Muslim holiday after a month of fasting, making traditional kaak (cookies) with our neighbors.

Our joy was enough to make us forget about Israeli aggressions.

The unfolding news had been so horrifying that we were not able to gather for the last meal in Ramadan, leaving our home in fear, which had become a permanent fixture in our lives.

The day after, at 8:00 am, I was standing on the balcony, looking apprehensively at the serene cloudless sky which gave me a sense of assurance that everything would be fine.

Then, the buzzing sound of Israeli drones infiltrated my space, making me keenly aware that something painful was soon to happen.

Like a kid who is lost, I ran towards my mother and the comfort of her lap, trying to convince myself that all this was just a delusion.

Then, someone knocked at the door.

“Evacuate your home now”

“Evacuate your home now,” someone screamed.

They were no longer delusions: I had experienced this dark reality before.

I went to my dad, who had barely had any sleep, tapping on his shoulder to wake him up.

I felt sorry for him: I didn’t want him to live the same spiraling depression of losing his home again.

He woke up terrified, not knowing what to pick up and what to leave behind.

He took our five-war-old black bag, which we call the “bag of memories.”

My mother had been putting my certificates in there since I was in elementary school.

We left our home yet again.

Every time we do so, I feel that it is doomsday.

My family and our neighbors were standing at the very end of the road, waiting for Israel to bomb our homes.

With bitter tears, I observed my room, its purple curtains, and our photos hanging on the walls.

I wished I were Alaa, my seven-year-old youngest sister, who was being hugged by my mother.

A taxi picked us up and drove us to my uncle’s house. We spent one week there. My body was there, but not my mind.

We heard that Israel had bombed an apartment in the same residential building where we lived. The apartment belonged to a Palestinian journalist who had recently got married.

Eid with the taste of bloodshed

In the 2021 war on Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MOH), Israel killed 232 Palestinians, including 65 children and 39 women, and injured at least 1,900 others, including 350 children.

After Israel agreed to a ceasefire, I returned home with my father and three sisters. Everything was covered in dust from the bombings. 

Even Eid was weird to celebrate considering yet another Palestinian bloodshed.

Life in Gaza will always stubbornly repeat itself and no one will ever get used to it. We are just taking a short break between continuous Israeli attacks.

Now, I am a 5-war-old Palestinian, and I don’t know how many Israeli wars are waiting for me yet.

W

hile enjoying a relative peace following the resolution of the Tigray dispute, Ethiopia today finds itself on the verge of yet another conflict, this time for a different reason: the demolition of mosques. In recent weeks, the government of Ethiopia has been under heavy fire from Ethiopia’s Muslim population over claims that it has been targeting Muslims and destroying their places of worship.

What happened? 

The area in question, where most of the mosques are situated, is on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, the capital city. The area has long been a part of Addis Ababa’s administration, and the region has been expanding for years through land purchases and other means, which the government claims are all “illegal.” The Ethiopian government planned to demolish the “illegal” settlement this year and replace it with a new metropolis named “Sheger City” as part of an urban planning initiative that will put the area under the jurisdiction of the Oromia region.

To carry out the project, the Ethiopian government began demolishing houses, mosques, and churches with no title deeds to provide a new space for investment and transformation, turning the area into government property.

However, as the new urbanization process unfolded, the Muslim population expressed dissatisfaction with the approach, leading to tensions. Muslims asserted that among all the places of worship, mosques were being targeted more severely by the government. The Mejlis (Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council), an organization in charge of the country’s Islamic affairs which is frequently tasked with addressing such issues by interacting with the government, emphasized that they were already discussing matters with the government and urged people to be patient.

Although the Mejlis stated that it was attempting to deliberate with the government to stop the ongoing demolitions, the Ethiopian government was unwilling to engage in any form of dialogue. Hence, Muslims became enraged and decided to stage peaceful protest on May 26 after the Friday prayer at the Grand Anwar Mosque in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian security forces responded by firing shots and using tear gas, which led to the deaths of at least two citizens, and dozens of injuries and arrests.

The protest’s organizers remain unknown. Even though there were no organized protests on the following week, there were reports of government security officers allegedly acting aggressively again and employing excessive force against individuals calmly leaving the mosque after praying. It is alleged that this violent crackdown caused the death of at least eight people, and many criticized the Ethiopian security officers’ unnecessary use of force, which caused the incident to become viral.

Who is wrong?

First, it is imperative to scrutinize the urbanization process. Even though the matter gained greater attention and prompted widespread outrage and indignation when mosques were involved, people’s discontent with the government’s actions was already present.

Setting a goal of demolishing at least 400,000 homes in the future, the Ethiopian government has already destroyed close to 110,000 and has declared that it will keep doing so. It’s interesting to note that these homes pay their water and electricity bills to the state. Additionally, the area has grown so much over the past few years that many people have moved there and constructed their places of worship, indicating that state authorities have been involved in land and real estate transactions.

Mosques are no exception to this construction activity: there are over 300 “illegal” mosques and the Mejlis has been unable to legalize them due to bureaucratic restrictions. At the same time, other religious institutions like churches have been legalized without any difficulty, accounting for the disparity. The Ethiopian government asserts that it is not targeting mosques; however, the visible disproportion of demolished mosques, which have reached 22, has infuriated the Muslim community, sparked a dispute, and attracted widespread attention.

Some claim that the government’s targeting of mosques gives the impression that a significant portion of the demolishment is motivated by Islamophobic sentiment. Regardless of the grandiose intentions behind creating a new metropolis, it is imperative to avoid forcibly displacing individuals from the housing they have called home for decades and demolishing places of worship.

There are also allegations that this initiative is part of a plan to alter the area’s demographics as  most current residents are not Oromos. The towns surrounding Addis Ababa’s outskirts that would become Sheger City are under the authority of the Oromia government.

Nevertheless, following a subsequent discussion, the Ethiopian government and the Mejlis released a statement last week stating that they have a plan in place for mosques and churches that will satisfy the needs of the various religious groups. The timing and way this decision came about raises the question of why it was not announced from the very beginning. Why didn’t they act more forthrightly and explain the plan, reassuring the public with their pledge?

Another question is why they attacked and retaliated violently against defenseless and unarmed individuals who were expressing anger and frustration. The government’s actions raise ethical concerns. The Ethiopian government could have taken a different approach by communicating and carrying out its urbanization plan without provocation and unnecessary violence.

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or many Indian Muslims, the Gujarat riots are among some of their darkest memories. However, this year, millions of Indian history textbooks will erase the plight endured by Muslims at the hands of Hindu nationalists in 2002.

India’s state-run National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has prescribed new changes to history textbooks, removing chapters that write about the Gujarat riots.

The removed sections also include the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi by Nathuram Godse of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist volunteer paramilitary organization. Paragraphs on the ban on the RSS after the assassination of Gandhi have also been removed from textbooks.

The RSS shares ideological links with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The changes will apply to thousands of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools following the NCERT syllabus.

With tens of millions of students, more than 24,000 schools are affiliated with India’s CBSE and use NCERT textbooks. In addition, around 240 CBSE-affiliated schools operate in 26 countries across the world.

Erasing “Muslim history”

Among the deleted sections is an entire chapter on Mughal rulers, whom Hindu nationalists have often addressed as Muslim oppressors.

Mughals and other Muslim dynasties ruled many parts of India for hundreds of years and have made significant contributions to the country’s rich culture.

BJP leader Kapil Mishra applauded the changes calling it “a great decision to remove the false history of Mughals.” He added, “Thieves, pickpockets and two-penny road raiders were called the Mughal Sultanate and the emperor of India. Akbar, Babar, Shahjahan, Aurangzeb are not in the history books, they are in the dustbin.”

In addition, all references to the Gujarat riots that rocked Modi’s state of Gujarat in 2002, leaving 1,000 people dead, mostly Muslims, were omitted from textbooks.

India is home to more than 200 million Muslims, the second-largest religion in the country. In fact, India is the country with the third-largest Muslim population in the world. The Indian government has always been at the center of criticism for pursuing a Hindu nationalist agenda and oppressing the Muslim population.

Since the BJP came to power in 2014, the Indian government has attempted to revise textbooks three times with the previous textbook revisions taking place in 2017 and 2019. Interestingly, in the past, India’s BJP government has also changed Muslim-sounding names of places and cities.

In fact, the BJP has previously expressed its desire to rewrite the country’s history. “It is our responsibility to write our history,” said Indian home affairs minister Amit Shah in a 2019 speech.

Rationalization exercises?

As the chapter deletions got widely criticized, NCERT justified the re-edited books as a “rationalization” project aiming to reduce the curriculum load on students.

“There has been a lot of learning loss due to the COVID pandemic and the students underwent a lot of traumas. To help stressed students, and as a responsibility to society and the nation, it was felt that the content load in textbooks should be reduced,” Dinesh Prasad Saklani, director of the NCERT, told NDTV.

However, many historians and opposition leaders have criticized the NCERT’s deletions and called them an attempt to rewrite history.

A joint statement by more than 250 historians in India read, “The decision of the NCERT is guided by divisive motives. It is a decision which goes against the constitutional ethos and composite culture of the Indian subcontinent. As such, it must be rescinded at the earliest.”

It remains to be seen how omitting key moments in Indian history will distort the understanding of history for younger generations in India and across the world. What is certain, however, is that the weaponization of the past and attempts to change history to build a society that is ideologically compliant with BJP nationalism has become the new reality of Modi’s India.

F

ollowing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, NATO membership was deemed so essential and urgent for Russia’s neighbouring countries, Sweden and Finland, that an intense diplomacy traffic was initiated immediately after the start of the war. Just two months later, on May 18, 2022, Sweden and Finland simultaneously submitted their official applications to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to join the Alliance. As the Russia-Ukraine war approaches the completion of its first year,  Stoltenberg stated that “in a more dangerous world, it is even more important that Sweden and Finland become NATO members.”

The accession, which requires the approval of all NATO member states, has brought forward the long-lasting policy of disregard by Sweden and Finland of Turkey’s security concerns. Sweden and Finland have close relations with terrorist organizations such as the PKK and the DHKP-C, which pose a great national security threat to Turkey. The policies and practices of these two countries have now become challenges that need to be addressed for Turkey to give them the green light to join NATO.

On June 28, 2022, Sweden and Finland signed a tripartite agreement with Turkey at the NATO Leaders’ Summit held in Madrid, according to which the two Nordic countries would not support the PYD/YPG and FETO as banned terrorist organizations. In particular, Finland and Sweden should prevent the activities of the PKK and all other terrorist organizations, their extensions, and the activities of persons involved in or affiliated with these organizations.

Sweden’s attitude since signing the agreement

Immediately after the agreement, a positive process started. Turkey viewed the significant change in perceptions and discourses towards the PKK and PYD, especially in Sweden, as an important development.

Sweden made efforts to take concrete steps towards the extradition of terrorists sought in Turkey’s fight against the PKK/PYD terrorist organizations. The extradition of Mahmut Tat, who was convicted of PKK membership, to Turkey was another remarkable step taken by Sweden. Turkey expressed its satisfaction with the constitutional amendments that came into force on January 1, 2023 in Sweden, allowing for the adoption of stricter laws in the fight against terrorism.

However, some policies and practices that will overshadow these positive developments have recently come to the fore. On January 13, 2023, supporters of the PKK directly targeted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at a demonstration where a mannequin resembling Erdoğan was hanged in front in front of the city hall in the capital, Stockholm. Immediately afterwards, prosecutor Lucas Eriksson declared that there was no need to even initiate an investigation into the acts in question, basing his stance on “freedom of expression” and stated that these acts cannot be punished under Swedish law.

The last straw was the permission given to burn the Qur’an on January 21, 2023, near the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. Rasmus Paludan, the leader of the racist Stram Kurs based in Denmark and a Swedish citizen, burned the Qur’an as the police simply watched. The reaction of the Swedish government was again weak, and Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was content with stating that what was done was “disrespectful.”

The limits of freedom of expression

The concept of “limitless freedom of expression,” which is drawn in the official statements of Sweden at the government level, is fundamentally incompatible with the real legal situation. When the statements made are examined legally, they show the intention to create a political approach over a “sympathetic” concept such as freedom of expression rather than relying on a legal basis.

The ECHR, to which forty-six European states, including Sweden and Turkey, are parties, defines the right in question, under the title of “Freedom of expression” in Paragraph 1 of Article 10. Can people say or express what they want even if they hurt millions of people, or even just one?

The answer to the question is basically given in Paragraph 2 of Article 10, which clearly puts forward that freedom of expression is not unlimited:

“The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.”

The court stresses that freedom of expression cannot be regarded as the right to humiliate others on the basis of race, language, religion or gender. In this context, the court applies the principles of “proportionality” or “balancing of rights” while drawing the limits of freedom of expression.

While the person who burned the Qur’an in Sweden had many ways to express his views on the Qur’an without insulting Muslim believers, burning the Qur’an should be clearly considered disproportionate. The person in question did so in a way that would harm the rights and honor of others. As a matter of fact, the court has stated that it is of the opinion that it is necessary to determine whether comments regarding religion are insulting and directed at believers, or an abusive attack against sacred symbols.

If the act of burning the Qur’an is accepted as a form of legitimate expression, attacking mosques, which are places of worship for Muslims, and even burning mosques could be presented as a form of acceptable expression too. This is an action that cannot be considered legitimate from any point of view.

Article 9 of ECHR

The Swedish political and judicial organs’ disregard for this disproportionality essentially violates Article 9 of the ECHR, which regulates freedom of religion and conscience, and Article 14, which regulates the prohibition of discrimination. Burning the Qur’an has harmed the fundamental rights of Muslims in particular. Therefore, the statements of the Swedish foreign minister or other officials along the lines of “there is a wide area of freedom of expression” in Sweden, which sound good at first glance, are essentially an effort to cover up attacks on other fundamental rights through freedom of expression.

W

hat distinguishes the attack on the Qur’an in Sweden from other hate crimes? How have Swedish officials approached the most recent attack on the Qur’an? These and similar questions will be addressed below in an effort to understand the story behind the hate crime of burning a copy of the Holy Qur’an in front of the Turkish embassy in Sweden.

What distinguishes the attack against the Qur’an in Sweden from other hate crimes?

First and foremost, this attack must not be treated as a random hate crime by an isolated individual. That is because Rasmus Paludan, a Danish politician who chairs the Stram Kurs (Hard Line) party in Sweden, carried out the attack, and the courts have already established that Paludan, who also has Swedish citizenship, is a racist. In 2020, he received a prison sentence in Denmark and was disbarred. Paludan’s acts of provocation have consistently been placing Muslims in Sweden and Denmark at risk. The Swedish police continues to protect the politician despite the fact that since 2017 he has committed hate crimes against Islam and undermined public order. The situation is only made more severe as these attacks have been perpetrated by a collective/political movement, have become international, and have been defended by government officials.

How do Swedish officials approach the latest attack on the Qur’an?

Last year, citing freedom of expression, the Swedish police and justice minister allowed Paludan to burn the Qur’an during the holy month of Ramadan, despite objections from the country’s Muslim minority, which constitutes approximately 8 percent of the population, and Muslim countries. Something similar occurred within the framework of the most recent attack. Despite Turkey’s warnings, Paludan burned the Qur’an near the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm with the Swedish police’s permission. In a written statement, the Swedish police stressed the importance of freedom of expression and assembly. However, an important point that Swedish and other European officials who share the same view seem to miss is that such racist behavior has hijacked the political mainstream which has been for the most part ignored.

Why do hateful and insulting statements and acts, which target sacred values, not qualify as free speech?

Like many other rights and liberties, neither the freedom of expression nor the freedom of assembly are unlimited in modern democracies. One cannot enjoy such liberties in a way that violates the rights of others or undermines public order. Indeed, Article 19 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) stipulates that freedom of expression may be subject to certain restrictions to ensure respect for the rights or reputation of others, or for the protection of national security, public order, public health, or morals. Moreover, Article 20 takes a more authoritative step by stating that “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) features a similar regulation. Accordingly, Article 10 of the convention stipulates that freedom of expression “may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder and crime [and] for the protection of the reputation or rights of others.” The United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) also prohibits racist propaganda and activities.

Likewise, the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) stresses that hate crimes and the incitement of discrimination must be punished. Accordingly, the commission argues that such punishment would send a strong signal to all social groups that democracy does not condone any action that violates its fundamental values, including tolerance, respect for human rights, pluralism, and non-discrimination.

Freedom of expression is undoubtedly a sine qua non of liberal democracy. However, it is unacceptable for the freedom of expression to jeopardize pluralism, a fundamental goal of democracy, and peaceful co-existence. That is exactly why international norms include reasons for its restriction. It goes without saying that the true purpose of insults and attacks against Islam’s values, such as the burning of the Qur’an and defamation of Prophet Muhammad, is to target European Muslims and, by extension, pluralistic societies.

Is Sweden’s position in line with international human rights laws?

Sweden is a party to the conventions of the United Nations and the Council of Europe that have been mentioned above. Accordingly, Sweden’s decision to allow Paludan, who was convicted of undermining public order in his country last year, to engage in the same act of provocation represents an abuse of freedom of expression, and violates the rights and liberties of others and undermines public order. In this regard, Sweden’s position is not in line with its commitments under international law. At the same time, such attacks, which promote discrimination and target multiculturalism and tolerance, also place Swedish democracy at risk.

Indeed, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), in its General Policy Recommendations Nos. 5 and 15, asked all member states, including Sweden, to combat and discourage hate speech in light of concerns over racist attacks and hate crimes targeting Islam. It is obvious that hurling insults at the Qur’an lays the groundwork for racist/discriminatory attacks against Muslims and aims to provoke Muslims. Consequently, permitting Paluden’s actions despite the severe and present danger they pose to public order represents a violation of international human rights laws.

What does the European Court of Human Rights’ 2018 ruling mean for attacks against religious values?

On October 25, 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in E.S. v. Austria that insulting sacred values was not covered by freedom of expression, citing the possibility of inciting religious intolerance. The court also held that imposing a ban on acts like the most recent attack in Sweden, which involved harassment against religious values, was legitimate and necessary for upholding a democratic public order. Moreover, the court agreed with the local courts in Austria that the defendant’s statements regarding Prophet Muhammad amounted to “harassment,” rightfully fueled anger among Muslims, and placed religious peace at risk by promoting prejudice.

All in all, the ECtHR ruling establishes that Sweden’s reference to freedom of expression cannot be considered lawful. In this sense, it is necessary for the Swedish authorities to overhaul their national laws and practives to prevent the abuse of freedom of expression in a way that threatens to eliminate the culture of tolerance and social pluralism and to undermine public order.

The Swedish government’s approach is not in line with the country’s domestic laws either, since the Swedish Constitution requires public institutions to combat religious discrimination. Moreover, individuals who humiliate a social group based on their religious beliefs and incite others against that religious community can be sentenced to up to four years in prison under the Swedish penal code.

According to official data, 3,150 hate crimes took place in Sweden in 2020 alone. The weak response of Sweden’s public institutions to the rise of Islamophobia and hate crimes, together with their failure to enforce international and national laws, is deeply worrying.

O

n Friday, December 23, 2022, three people were killed and three others were injured in an armed attack on the Ahmet Kaya Cultural Center on Rue d’Enghien in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. The 69-year-old suspect was first arrested and then rushed to hospital. He was detained a day later. The suspect, named William M., is a retired mechanic with a long criminal record.

According to the statements by the authorities to the French press, the suspect was previously found guilty of an armed attack in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, a suburb of Paris, where heavily populated by Muslims. Later, his conviction was overturned on appeal. William M. was also found guilty of acts such as slashing with a knife and destroying immigrants’ tents in a racist attack against immigrants last year. However, the prosecutor’s office determined that the perpetrator was not motivated by extremist ideology, which is probably why he was released on bail earlier in December 2022.

According to the statement by French Prosecutor Laure Beccuau, the 69-year-old suspect “had a pathological hatred of foreigners, suffered depression, and had suicidal tendencies.” The suspect spent nearly a day in a psychiatric hospital before being brought back into police custody on Sunday evening, AFP reported. His father explained, “My son is mad!” When talking about the attack on television, the emphasis was placed on the suspect’s “madness” in capital letters with titles such as “The Suspect Is at the Psychiatric Unit.”

Did this discourse surprise anyone? Whenever there is a terrorist attack, today, if the perpetrator is European, he is portrayed as “mad,” but if he is Muslim, he is depicted as a “terrorist” who is mentally sound and in full command of his actions. As for the representation of the criminal act, the first is called an “attack” while the second is “terrorism.”

In Norway, for example, Anders Behring Breivik, who was on trial for the murder of 77 people, was also labeled “mad.” In his defense, he said that his actions were “a defense” against Islam, which he claimed was taking over Europe. He explained that this was not a crime, and that he was defending Norway against multiculturalism. Today, the language of politics adopts cultural racism instead of ethnicity-based racism. This is not limited to the far right, but permeates the center-right and center-left parties in Europe.

With French President Emmanuel Macron’s early practices, hostility towards Muslims in France gained legitimacy like nowhere else in Europe. It is enough to take a look at the documents prepared by the Macron government, namely “Reinforcing Republican Principles” and the “Imam Charter.”

The French state stigmatized Muslims as a separate entity based on cultural nationalism and even racism, and defined Islam as a threat to French identity. According to a report published in the French newspaper Libération, there have been 20 attacks, both major and minor, with racist motives in France since September 2022. These, of course, are only the ones recorded. If the suspect had not been involved in this latest attack, despite his criminal record, he would not have made the news.

In his statement, the suspect explained that he originally wanted to carry out an attack in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris, an area with a dense immigrant population, but gave up on the grounds that there were few people around and the way he dressed made it difficult for him to hide his gun. Instead, he went to the Seine Denis neighborhood of Strasbourg, in the heart of Paris, where Kurdish, Turkish, and Arab immigrants have their shops. When he saw the “Ahmet” of the “Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Center” in the 10th district, he attacked!

According to the news published in the French press, the Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Center is a place under the control of people close to the PKK today. French police conducted a search there in February 2007 and arrested 13 people for allegedly financing terrorism in an “organized gang” in the Paris area. In 2014, the center was ordered to be closed down by the Supreme Court due to financing terrorist activities. At the time, the center remained open as a result of large demonstrations in support of appealing this decision. Some may know that the PKK collects racket from Kurdish shopkeepers in Paris, and if they do not, their security is imperiled. Since the 1990s, this is such a commonplace occurrence that it often occurs in front of customers.

William M. attacked with apparent anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant motivations, but in this post-truth age, which has been strengthened by social media since the 2000s, the PKK and its media organs as well as French politicians turned the narrative into an “anti-Kurdish” attack. The PKK, which is defined as a terrorist organization by Europe but protected by many European countries including France, was once again presented by French politicians and media as the representative of all Kurds. Sadly, no one emphasized the real anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant motive of the attack.

In his message, Macron said, “The Kurds of France were the target of a heinous attack in the heart of Paris. Our thoughts are with the victims, the people struggling for their lives, their families, and loved ones.” Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State, tweeted “My thoughts are with the Kurdish community and the French on this sad day.” French politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who was a member of the National Assembly for the 4th constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône from 2017 to 2022 and who narrowly missed continuing on to the second round in French Presidential Election in 2022, said he “does not believe in coincidence when it comes to the assassination of Kurds in Paris.”

PKK media organs and organizations in Europe called on their sympathizers to protest in Place de la République immediately after the incident. Politicians participating in the protests marched and gave speeches, accompanied by PKK flags and Abdullah Öcalan’s posters. Some of the protesters, who had gathered from all over Europe, engaged in violence, forcing the police to intervene.

The statement by the police unions reacted to the violence by saying, “In the heart of Paris and Marseille, protesters burned cars, smashed stones and threw them here and there, and 53 police officers were injured on Christmas Day.” Indeed, the situation was summarized in Kurdish and French from the social media account of Sezai Temelli, a HDP MP in Turkey and former HDP Co-Chair, as follows: “Paris is on fire, let it burn!” Temelli wrote this comment, which he later deleted, as a reply to a social media post by journalist Clement Lanot, who wrote under a photo of a burning car, “There are very violent events taking place during the assembly of the Kurds. Burnt cars, bullets and tear gas.” It wasn’t just Paris – reality itself was turned upside down!

The anti-Muslim and xenophobic perpetrator openly attacked the “Ahmet” component of the Ahmet Kaya Kurdish Cultural Center. But even this attack, which caused the death of three people and the injury of three others and was apparently motivated by racist and anti-Muslim motives, was exploited and dismissed on the premise of the conflict between Turkey and the YPG, the Syrian branch of the PKK and France’s ally. Reality is turned upside down and hostility towards Muslims is turned into “enemy of Kurds.” Yet, for William M. and his like, it doesn’t matter whether the target is Kurdish, Turkish, or Arab, providing the target is Muslim.

T

he Konya 2021 Islamic Solidarity Games were concluded in August 2022, yet their end marks the beginning of a new understanding. Türkiye has united all Muslim countries through sports, which has never simply been a random series of activities: it has always held the potential to serve a greater purpose—solidarity. That being said, we should examine the key notions to understand better what solidarity through sports actually means. 

The Sports Aspect of Diplomacy

It is well known that political institutions and organizations utilize multiple tools and apparatuses to pursue their goals. Information technologies and globalization opened the way for further influence to resonate through multiple channels, targeting different audiences. Political authorities benefit from this ever-growing scope of interaction as well. In fact, political authorities have been generally successful in adapting to utilizing new instruments and opportunities, including the expanding reach of diplomacy that has grown exponentially to include a wide range of activities within its scope.

Any event can be considered an act of diplomacy as long as it contains diplomatic elements. Even a coffee break can create a diplomatic moment. Both the environment and the topic of a meeting can affect the process and outcome of diplomacy. In other words, means and context are highly linked and are intertwined with the results of a diplomatic act. Undoubtedly, in a peaceful context, diplomacy can flourish better. 

Especially in the last decades, sports diplomacy and its positive impact have led politicians to choose such peaceful events for diplomatic purposes. Fun and entertainment have proven their significance for diplomacy long ago. Singing contests and international tournaments are the most known examples.

Sports and games are among the best tools of diplomacy with international attraction and a huge networking capacity that brings many nations together, with or without historical ties, for friendly competition. These are the features that diplomacy looks forward to harvesting. Every international game is a potential diplomatic gathering. High-level politicians, usually ministers, come together on the occasion of sports and exchange ideas, giving messages of unity.

Konya: Sports and the City

Famous travelers talk about the spirit of places in their travelogues. Like humans, cities are also born, grow up, and have certain sui generis features. This usually occurs in a process whereby a people and location shape each other mutually. Peoples and cities form unities with distinctive characteristics. In this manner, sports events are affected by the nature of cities where they are held, while at the same time they affect the city in return. Many factors such as history, nation, and geography play decisive roles in this formation.

Konya has undergone the same process. Gracious people of former times came together, as we did today, and created a new event to provide this need. Scholars, politicians, good-willed locals, and many other sound-minded people convened in Konya and provided something new to the world and gained people’s trust by standing together.

Thanks to their cooperation for a fair world, Konya Province blossomed as a center for solidarity, protection, and peace. The spirit of unity was so strong that throughout generations, it gathered many poets, dervishes, and scholars that helped this spirit resonate even further.

Tracing back history provides strong clues about what we do today and why we do it. The Islamic Solidarity Games can be seen as the most recent addition to the chain that links the present with the past. We, as the Ministry, work for solidarity and aimed to unite people, once again, in Konya. Despite ill-intentioned political authorities across the world that don’t abstain from utilizing harmful means, we strive for peace and harmony with tools that promote the spirit of solidarity. Remember—there is always darkness, it is light that endeavors.

Konya as the Sports Capital of Muslim Countries

Games have evolved in parallel with the evolution of human society. The Olympics took their present shape after public diplomacy became involved. Diplomats, politicians, and policymakers began to see games as an opportunity to create new connections and form new alliances. In this way, games came to serve the purposes of the former.

The Islamic Solidarity Games are one of the best examples of this. On an individual and country level, the games attracted the highest attendance so far. The games accomplished multiple goals at once with the ultimate aim of creating unity among Muslim countries.

Fifty-four countries joined the games and athletes from these countries competed for medals. The Konya Games were also accompanied by academic and cultural activities carried out by academics and experts from across the world.

Konya was furnished with optimal infrastructure and superstructure, as well as human capital. In other words, the games have influenced the city permanently. Konya was chosen as the “Sports Capital of Muslim Countries” and gained a new dimension for its harmonic spirit. The games refreshed the spirit of the city and reminded everyone of its legacy, as well as its vision for the future.

Final Remarks

The Konya 2021 Islamic Solidarity Games are a multidimensional event. The collective structure of the games, and any event carried out by our Ministry, lets people draw their own conclusion. A volunteer working for the games’ organization may regard the games completely differently than an athlete or a politician. This pluralism is a highly positive asset which we purposefully sought. 

The games were a huge success for us. Not only for the medals or records, but also for successfully executing a nine-day-long event that gathered various people who came from thousands of kilometers away and who spoke different languages, but were united by the language of sports. When we speak of solidarity, that is what we mean: our ability to surpass our differences and all obstacles, and come together as one.

In France, a founding member of the European Union, the far-right party has advanced to the threshold of the Élysée Palace, and its voice is now being heard not only at home, but around the world. Marine Le Pen has never been so close to winning the presidential election. What if she crosses the threshold?

Since the night of April 10, French politicians, academics, intellectuals, journalists, and especially President Emmanuel Macron, have been repeating both verbally and in writing: “This is a historical responsibility, it is time to unite against the extreme right!” In the Fifth Republic, when this call was first made 20 years ago, in 2002, Jean Marie Le Pen eliminated the socialist candidate Lionel Jospin, but President Jacques Chirac won the election with 82.21 percent in the second round.

In 2017, when Emmanuel Macron won 24.1 percent and Marine Le Pen 21.30 percent of the votes in the first round, the call was repeated: “This is a historical responsibility, unite your votes against the extreme right!” Although the difference was not as clear as last time, Macron came in at 66.10 percent and Marine Le Pen at 33.90 percent. Here it is, five years later, in the first round, Emmanuel Macron got 27.84 percent, Marine Le Pen got 23.15 percent, and the other two far-right candidates Eric Zemmour got 7.07 percent and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan 2.28 percent.

The far right thus received a total of 32.50 percent of the votes in the first round. This time, according to various polls that see Macron ahead, the gap between the two candidates is closing and is only between 2 and 7 points.

In the last elections, the country’s traditional left and right parties had weakened in favor of Macron’s “neither right nor left, both right and left” party; this time, they were buried. Anne Hidalgo, the candidate of the socialists and the mayor of Paris, received 1.75 percent of the votes. Valérie Pécresse, the candidate of the center-right party of the Gaullist tradition, Les Républicains, is crying foul because her 4.78 percent will not allow her to receive state aid, and has launched a campaign to cover election costs.

Parties that receive less than 5 percent of the votes in France are not eligible for state aid. While that is the scenery, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the ultra-leftist La France Insoumise party, who is a presidential candidate for the third time, scored unpredictably high, receiving 21.95 percent of the votes. In other words, he almost scored high enough to qualify to run against Macron for the second round, the difference with Le Pen being only 1.2 percent.

Why did the far right and the far left get stronger?

So, what happened to make the far right and far left so strong in France? Why is everyone, especially Macron, screaming that “Republican values” are under threat? Why are the leaders of the Rassemblement national (National Rally) party (Le Pen), the Reconquête (Reconquest) (Zemmour), and Debout la France (Dupont-Aignan) called far-right? Who are their enemies, what makes the far right a far right?

The economic measures of Macron’s rival, Marine Le Pen, are similar to those of the far-left and even centrist parties. She wanted to take France out of the military wing of NATO, but De Gaulle also did so in 1966. She does not say, “France should leave the European Union,” but she makes promises that will inevitably create a de facto departure from the EU. “I will recognize the supremacy of constitutional law over European law by holding a referendum,” she says.

While Macron said in his 70-minute speech on “Fighting Separatism” that “in some schools, some students want meals in the canteens based on their religious beliefs” (i.e., they do not eat pork), according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, this was communitarianism and unacceptable. In October 2019, Macron’s former interior minister, Christophe Castaner, described having a beard or celebrating Ramadan as “conspicuous” and a sign of radicalism. These and similar absurd statements were well received by France’s elite, whose apparently influential majority is extremely Islamophobic, and became the cover story of weekly magazines.

The Imam Charter, for example, a unique state-level text on anti-Muslim hostility, was the official declaration that Muslims were a separate and dangerous entity under the French Constitution and laws, even in their very existence. Judging by the ideas and actions that the imams, and thus Muslims, were supposed to commit to never think or act, they were a community prone to committing all kinds of evils, including “discrimination against the sick and disabled.”

Indeed, Macron’s government this year even shut down the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, one of the leading anti-discrimination organizations documenting hate crimes against Muslims. Between 2018 and 2022, France rummaged nearly 25,000 mosques, schools, associations, and workplaces, and shut down 718 bodies, including more than 20 mosques. The state demonizes Muslims with its Imam Charter, Anti-separatism Law, its so-called French Islam with its fabrications and rhetoric, and portrays Islam as a dangerous religion that needs mass surveillance and oppression. Muslim French are presented as an existential threat to France’s “civilization,” “tradition,” and “values.”

With a president and government that patented Islamophobia for themselves, naturally, Marine Le Pen had to go from door to door in the election campaign in order not to get euchred out of her voters. What’s more, Zemmour emerged as another candidate in the elections. “Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind,” say the Turks.

In his brief 10-minute speech after the election results were announced, Macron hastily began embracing Muslims. In his refutation, he said excitedly and surreptitiously, “I do not want a France that prevents Muslims or Jews from eating as their religion dictates. No, we will not.” For the first time, Macron mentioned Muslims and Jews in the same sentence, but because of the strict laws and sanctions against anti-Semitism, no one cares about the kosher of the Jews. He could not stop himself and went on to give a message to Muslims before the second round on April 24: “Madame Le Pen says she will ban the headscarf. Then, she will not be president of all French people.”

Before that, however, Macron had said, “The headscarf contradicts our country’s civilizational understanding of the relationship between men and women, and therefore makes us feel insecure.” Each of his ministers made numerous statements on the same subject. Marlène Schiappa, Minister Delegate in charge of Citizenship attached to the Ministry of Interior stated, “The headscarf is a political act,” and Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer said, “The headscarf is undesirable in our society.”

The Minister of the Interior Darmanin, who opposes Le Pen today, said, “In no democratic country in the world, is there a ban on religious symbols and signs in public spaces,” the women wearing headscarf were taken hostages in accordance with traditions that are not compatible with the Republic.

While hostility to Muslims brought votes from the far right, respect for Muslims also brought votes from the far left to Jean-Luc Mélenchon. French Muslims, who had to choose between deliberate abstention and voting, gave their votes to the far-left candidate Mélenchon by 70 percent, according to polls. Many French Muslims posted the following message verbatim on their social media platforms: “I never look at the world ideologically from the same angle, but Mélenchon does not discriminate, does not point fingers, does not label us and even condemns Islamophobia.”

The legitimization of Islamophobia, which resurged in France after the colonial period, especially since the 2000s, has played a very important role in the growth of the far right. Today, it is no longer just a threat to Muslims, but it indirectly threatens the rule of law, the European Union, and even the country’s strategic choices and alliances.

In a critical time for Boris Johnson, Nusrat Ghani’s allegations have roiled the Conservative Party. The prime minister is awaiting the outcome of a pivotal inquiry into lockdown-flouting parties in Downing Street that took place during a period when government-backed public health restrictions prohibited most social gatherings.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Nusrat Ghani said that when she was fired as transport minister during a reshuffle in 2020, she was informed that “Muslimness” had been mentioned as a concern at a Downing Street meeting.

“At the post-reshuffle meeting with the whips, I asked what the thinking was behind the decision to fire me…that my ‘Muslim woman minister’ status was making colleagues uncomfortable and that there were concerns ‘that I wasn’t loyal to the party as I didn’t do enough to defend the party against Islamophobia allegations.”

The accusations made by Ghani have been previously echoed by former Tory peer Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the country’s first female Muslim cabinet minister and a persistent campaigner against Islamophobia. When she learned that Javid had been named chancellor, she stated in a tweet “It’s a shame… that it’s taken four years and a leadership contest to finally drag my colleagues kicking and screaming to address this issue.”

To be an Anti-Muslim bigot is to be rewarded and elevated to a party post but to speak out against it is to be shunned and politically exiled.

There has been criticism from the wider British Muslim community on Ghani’s role as a Conservative MP in normalizing anti-Muslim bigotry through government initiatives such as Prevent. Ghani’s definition of Islamophobia is markedly different from the standard definition, which is as follows: “Intense dislike or fear of Islam, especially as a political force; hostility or prejudice towards Muslims.”

“Thus, if the archetypal radicalizer in the first decade after 9/11 was the almost pantomime figure of Abu Hamza with his eye-patch, hook hands and wild rhetoric; his counterpart in the last ten years was likely to be smartly dressed, soft-spoken and to mouth platitudes about social justice and human rights,” she continued as saying.

Prevent has faced criticism not only from civil organizations but international bodies including the UN.

In a report on anti-Muslim hate and discrimination by UN Special Rapporteur, Ahmed Shaheed, on Freedom of Religion or Belief submitted, it stated the key issues form the Prevent Strategy:

• That the Prevent duty was leaving students fearful of exercising their rights to freedom of expression and belief.
• The Prevent duty risked being counter-productive by driving children to discuss issues related to terrorism, religion, and identity outside the classroom and online, where simplistic narratives are promoted and go unchallenged.

The language used by media outlets and politicians, notably during the “war on terror,” has contributed to the normalization of this bigotry. As with other types of discrimination, it is critical to hear the victims’ voices loudly.

Despite mounting worries from the British Muslim community over escalating Anti-Muslim prejudice, the conservative party has failed to settle on a definition. Islamophobia, as defined by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, is “rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”

The Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, and the Mayor of London have all endorsed this term, but the Conservative Party has rejected it. The Tory government’s refusal to adopt the definition of Islamophobia despite the support of the definition by cross party parliamentarians is a reflection of the party’s stance towards Muslims and Islam.

A YouGov poll conducted on behalf of Hope Not Hate (an non-partisan organization tackling racism and fascism) show Conservative members showing worrying beliefs in Islamophobic myths, don’t want a Muslim to be Prime Minister, and overwhelmingly reject even the very idea that the Conservative Party has a problem with this issue.” 67% believe  “there are areas in Britain that operate under Sharia law,” as opposed to just 18% who oppose this. 39% of members believe that “Islamist terrorists reflect a widespread hostility to Britain amongst the Muslim community”.

Although the Conservatives are in power and have the responsibility of bringing this problem to the forefront, Islamophobia is not only a Conservative issue; the Labour Party is not exempt.

According to a report conducted by the Labour Muslim Network in Nov 2020 on Islamophobia and the Muslim experience, 29% of Muslim members and supporters have directly experienced Islamophobia in the Labour Party, 37% have directly witnessed Islamophobia within the Labour Party and 44 % don’t think the party takes it seriously.

Regardless of how strongly one may disagree with Nusrat Ghani, justice requires that we contextualize this moment within the larger framework of Islamophobia that Muslims suffer. In the end, when we tolerate one person’s persecution, we all lose. While we are not compelled to demonstrate sympathy or solidarity with one person, we must evaluate all angles in the injustice of Anti-Muslim bigotry, Anti- Muslim hatred, Islamophobia (which all mean the same thing).

Changing a word’s spelling, but the intent remains the same, defining the issue is never the problem, genuine change usually is.

France was shocked when Jean Marie Le Pen, who was the leader of the far-right party and never invited to be on any television channel in France, went into the second round against Jacques Chirac with 16.86% of votes in the 2002 presidential elections. Expectedly, Chirac was elected president with 82.21% in the second round; meanwhile Le Pen could only increase his vote to 17.79%.

But, according to the newspaper headlines, this was a shameful event and a great disaster for France! This was because Le Pen, who was prosecuted for inciting xenophobia and for his statement that gas chambers were “a mere detail” in the history of World War II, achieved a great success considering he could only win 0.74% of votes in 1974 when he first ran.

That’s all water under the bridge now. Over the last 20 years, far-right ideas have flourished and bloomed. They have even ceased to be “far-right ideas” as they have become pretty common. An ambiguous xenophobia against Africans, Arabs, and sometimes people coming from countries in the European Union was replaced by an overt hatred of Islam and hostility towards Muslims. This new xenophobia moved to the center of politics and gained serious ground in both left-wing and right-wing politics.

French Minister of Higher Education Frédérique Vidal, who gave an interview to CNews channel after Blanquer, said, “Islamo-leftism causes social collapse and I think universities as a part of the society are not free of its grip.” Not only that, Vidal also called on the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) to conduct a study on the “Islamo-Gauchisme [French term of Islamo-leftism] effect and its impact on studies on the decolonization process” in universities.

There are many examples of the so-called valorous breakthroughs in the name of Islamophobia that started in the 2000s. An influential figure in left-wing politics, feminist intellectual and philosopher Élizabeth Badinter, in an interview to the newspaper Le Monde during socialist President Hollande’s incumbency stated, “Don’t be afraid of being accused of being Islamophobic; I’m not afraid, no one should be afraid.” She had also secured the support of Prime Minister Manuel Valls at the time.

Before that, one of the founders of the highly circulated right-wing magazine Le Point, Claude Imbert said in slightly more timid words, “To be honest, I’m a bit Islamophobic,” while Françoise Laborde, a former Radical Party of the Left senator who later joined Macron’s party, said, “Frankly, I like being called Islamophobic.” These are only a taste of what’s going on.

With his talent as a writer, Zemmour expresses in a vulgar but impactful way what others could only whisper or insinuate. He is a republican after all, albeit being “radical” or “overzealous” for some. In France, the definitions of secularism, republicanism, and “Civilization” – whether used together or separately – are extraordinarily useful euphemisms for anti-Islamic sentiment and hostility towards Muslims. When it comes to Muslims, Zemmour’s far-right ideological position of “Civilization and the Republic,” Marine Le Pen’s emphasis on “Secularism,” and a socialist or a right-wing politician’s discourse of “Republicanism, Secularism” or “Civilization” are not different at all.

As a matter of fact, Macron’s “Anti-Separatism Bill” was renamed “Principles Strengthening Respect for the Laws of the Republic” after receiving backlash across the world for being Islamophobic; however, it retained its content. In other words, the state does not openly say “give up your Islamic identity” like Zemmour, but does its best to make Muslims live their faith in their inner world and make their physical attachment to their religion invisible.

The French public is subject to constant manipulation; the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP), one of the leading research institutions in France, for instance, published a survey last month based on students’ responses to the question “Have you observed any behavioral patterns at school that show signs of religious belonging?” Zemmour, then, justified his thesis through this survey.

Horrendous cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed being projected on government buildings or Muslim children being forced to look at these cartoons as a part of their education, and two 10- or 11-year-old students who refused to look at these cartoons being taken from their homes with their families and being subjected to investigation is not dissimilar to what Zemmour promises.

Eric Zemmour announced and propagated this discourse and his racist comments by writing for mainstream media outlets like Le Quotidien de Paris and Le Figaro, along with appearing on prime-time shows on channels such as RTL and France 2. Although he faced trial and was convicted twice, it is not possible to claim that he has faced a hostile response to his person. In the last 20 years, he has become a celebrity in political and economic circles. For two years, he was working at CNews, the news channel controlled by the Catholic businessman Vincent Bolloré, who previously supported Macron.

Eric Zemmour announced and propagated this discourse and his racist comments by writing for mainstream media outlets like Le Quotidien de Paris and Le Figaro, along with appearing on prime-time shows on channels such as RTL and France 2.

Despite all this, there is something about Zemmour that renders him unique. Born in 1958 to an Algerian Jewish family, at his first official political rally on December 5, 2021 he boasted of his minority background, describing himself as a “little Berber Jew from the other side of the Mediterranean.” Zemmour, who was educated at a private Jewish school located in a Parisian suburb, says he practices his faith but does not consider himself Orthodox. However, this is not what makes him unique – he is accused of turning historical events on their head, while some describe him as an “anti-Semitic Jew.”

Indeed, Zemmour claimed that “Dreyfus may not be innocent,” [referring to the political scandal riddled with anti-Semitism known as “Dreyfus affair”] and Philippe Petain, who was president during the Nazi occupation between 1940 and 1944, was actually watching over the French Jews! Shocking at first glance, Zemmour’s connection to anti-Semitic history seems to be his far-right ideology, and the anti-Semitic vein at the base of the far-right may have tactically compelled him to make such comments. Indeed, 93-year-old former far-right party leader Le Pen also declared that he supports Zemmour instead of his daughter. “The only difference between Éric and me is that he is a Jew. It’s hard to call him a Nazi or a fascist. It gives him more freedom,” Le Pen said.

On the other hand, there may be another element to explain his shocking historical “revisionism.” In France, there is a publication called Causeur, which was first established as a website by the Sephardic Jewish journalist and writer Élisabeth Lévy. Causeur has been publishing as a monthly magazine for several years now and is deemed a right-wing and far right-wing publication. Alain Finkielkraut, another one of the magazine’s founders, is one of the country’s most influential and prominent philosophers and of Jewish origin, who is known for being “just like Lévy, but more of an Islamophobe.”

Lévy, in the article titled “Salomon, Will You Vote for Zemmour?” states that Zemmour is the talk after synagogue services. She relays that while part of the congregation says, “aren’t you be ashamed to support him, so you’re going to vote for a Petainist,” others say “Zemmour is our savior.” Due to France’s foreign policy discourse or despite the protection offered by legislation against anti-Semitism, the rise of Islamophobia causes tensions between Arab and Jewish children in the suburbs, especially in Paris. Lévy extracts that while many institutions and organizations of the Jewish community condemn Zemmour for his views and allegations, Jewish families residing in the suburbs see him as a “savior” or even as the “last exit before exile.”

According to polls, with 14-17% of the vote, Zemmour is unlikely to become president. However, in a country where far-right parties and ideas are indisputably on the rise, he will retain a significant voter base and will continue to inflame the debates along with consolidating the anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

For many years now, Belgium has been struggling with a teaching staff shortage. According to a survey conducted by Teacher Tapp Flanders, students are frequently left with no classes for several hours a day. In Brussels, Belgium’s capital, some schools lack up to 25 percent of teaching staff. The shortage is so severe that a number of schools could have to shut down. While the number of primary, middle, and high school students have steadily been rising since 2000, the number of teachers has steadily been decreasing.

Many teachers are retiring and newcomers tend to quit after a short period of working. Especially during the COVID19 pandemic, this shortage has become ever more pronounced as many teachers are on sick leave or in quarantine. In August 2021, there were roughly 1,500 teaching positions posted on the government-sponsored employment service page VDAB, whereas in August 2020, there were only about 600 – that is almost three times fewer.

While statistically, Belgium has a lower student-teacher ratio compared to its neighboring countries, the picture isn’t nearly as pretty as it seems. In some smaller areas, there are both Catholic and private schools which pull down the average. Whereas in larger cities, the case tends to be the opposite. The student-teacher ratio is much higher.

The steady rise of new students enrolling in schools in Belgium is a result of the presence of migrants, and it is particularly the case in larger cities. Ironically, this increase in diversity is not reflected in the teaching staff, especially the increase in the numbers of Muslims. With the hijab ban, discrimination, and Islamophobia, the number of Muslim teachers is extremely low.

Islamophobia discourages many migrants in Belgium from pursuing higher education.

As has been shown in several surveys and reports (see European Islamophobia Report 2021, people with a migrant background, no matter whether they are first-generation migrants or not, are often discriminated against at work simply because of the color of their skin or their names.

Islamophobia discourages many migrants in Belgium from pursuing higher education as they feel it will not provide them with anything extra as doors are already shut for them and will remain so. On the other hand, those who wish to continue their studies and become teachers are discouraged because they are not allowed to teach with a headscarf with the exception of Islamic religious education. Belgium’s biggest migrant groups are Turkish and Moroccan, and large portions of these groups adhere to Islam and believe that the hijab is part of it.

Ben Weyts, the Flemish Minister of Education, came up with ten measures to increase the number of (active) teachers; however, none of these measures included actions to help/allow citizens with a Muslim-background into the teaching system, including those with wearing hijabs. Ironically, Weyts is more willing to hire people who have not graduated from an educational program providing that they enroll in a short formational program rather than hiring hijabis who have graduated from relevant departments.

Another poll held by Teacher Tapp Flanders suggests that only in very few schools, teachers with hijabs are allowed to teach all classes; in most schools they can teach only specific classes. However, the vast majority of whom stated that either this was not possible, or, perhaps even more painfully, that they had no clue whatsoever on this matter.

Furthermore, Weyts has launched a campaign to make the teaching profession more appealing to potential teachers, and intends to call back retired teachers and install a system of seniority to encourage young teachers to stay longer. Again, no mention of the hundreds and maybe thousands of trained yet unemployed veiled teachers who are eagerly awaiting the chance to do the job they love and have been trained for. The hijab ban stems from the ban on all religious symbols and yet, it is the Muslim community in Belgium that is unevenly targeted by this ban as religious identity becomes clear with veiled women.

As the Jewish and Catholic communities have their own schools, it is only Muslim women who are left in the lurch by the hijab ban. The reasoning behind the ban is that a teacher is obliged to be neutral. However, this reasoning completely ignores the reality of the composition of current Belgian society, in which over 500,000 Belgian citizens identify as Muslim. What is more, this number is continuously growing, along with the number of Muslim children attending schools. Yet, the Belgian government obstinately takes the position that these two identities cannot coexist – you are either Muslim or Belgian.

If the Belgian government were sincere in its wish to grant all citizens their basic rights to work and freedom of religion, it would accept its Muslim citizens as they are and recognize that their religion and hijab are an inherent part of their identity, and that Muslims citizens wish to represent and be represented. Conversely, the government’s constant infringement of the rights of Muslim Belgians makes one wonder about its sincerity when it clamors for “neutrality” and “equal rights.” The only explanation for this is Islamophobia.

On October 16, 2021, the leading Dutch daily, NRC, reported that during the past few years, mayors of several municipalities in the Netherlands have commissioned a private agency to investigate a number of mosques. As part of this operation, undercover investigators attended mosque services, mingled and socialized with other believers, and reported their findings and impressions to the mayors. The mosques were unaware of these unannounced visits, because the investigators were Muslims themselves – as are the agency’s managers.

In a letter to parliament, the Dutch justice minister, Ferd Grapperhaus, has since commented on the newspaper report, because it also implicated the National Antiterrorism and Security Coordinator (NASC), which is a directorate-general of the Ministry of Justice and Security. The NASC had allegedly recommended this particular agency to the mayors, while it also provided subsidies to cover the costs of the investigations.

In his letter, the justice minister acknowledges that as early as 2017, NASC officials already suspected that the private agency conducted unlawful undercover operations. However, the mayors were not warned about this since, according to the minister, they were the ones responsible for guaranteeing the lawfulness of the investigations.

This is hardly convincing, since, as Grapperhaus acknowledges, the NASC covered the costs of the investigations and recommended the agency to the mayors. As part of this process the NASC assessed the applications for subsidy submitted by the mayors. This should have included a check on the appropriateness of the methodology, especially since reservations had already emerged within the ministry. Since Grapperhaus is also responsible for religious services, his civil servants should have ensured that these investigations would not include infiltration in mosques.

By law, the authority to investigate organizations and persons who pose a threat to democracy and the rule of law has been entrusted exclusively to the Dutch intelligence agency.

This is not the only concern raised by the letter. Grapperhaus admits that mayors, in close cooperation with the NASC, have been involved in detecting tendencies within the Muslim community that might undermine the rule of law and democracy for years. However, mayors and the NASC have no role to play in this area.

By law, the authority to investigate organizations and persons who pose a threat to democracy and the rule of law has been entrusted exclusively to the Dutch intelligence agency. In addition, to be able to use these powers the intelligence agency has to meet strict requirements, such as to demonstrate that there is a serious suspicion that a threat exists. Therefore, the mayors have acted unlawfully.

Research shows that joining terrorist organizations is not triggered by religion, but instead by social exclusion, discrimination, and the treatment of Muslims by Western countries, and in particular the Palestinian people. What is more, it is actually the lack of knowledge about Islam which causes people to join al-Qaeda and Daesh, since possession of such knowledge would make them immune to the claims made by recruiters.

By treating Muslims as a “suspect community,” these problems are not solved but deepened. To combat terrorism effectively, society needs the help of Islam and the Muslim community. As is the case in many countries, the Dutch Muslim community is more than willing to assist and it has even reached out by presenting a plan to combat terrorism, which has ended up in a government drawer.

At the international level, the Dutch government champions the rights of Muslims. Within the EU, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is being nicknamed the “rule of law sheriff.” These laudable international efforts would be much more effective if the Dutch government would lead by example at home.

Throughout history, ties between Christian and Islamic leaders have had more downs than ups. It was Pope Urban II who launched the first Crusade in 1095 triggering almost two centuries of hostilities. But in recent times, relations have largely improved. Pope John Paul II made significant efforts to advance the cause of Catholic-Islamic relations. He condemned the siege of Sarajevo repeatedly. When John Paul II visited Damascus, and prayed at the Umayyad Mosque in 2001, it was the first ever Papal visit to a mosque. Pope Benedict XVI prayed in the Blue or Sultan Ahmet Mosque in his visit to Istanbul in 2006.

However, Benedict’s gesture was in large part to make up for what was seen as a disastrous Regensburg address in September 2008. In the speech, he cited a conversation between a Byzantine emperor and a Persian scholar, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Most Muslims took offence at what they perceived to be the Pope arguing that Islam was inherently violent and evil. The former Pope perhaps to heal ties then changed his position from opposing Turkish entry to the European Union to supporting it. Relations with Al Azhar also were put on pause after Pope Benedict called for the protection of Egyptian Christians after an attack on a Coptic church in 2011. Benedict as a German Pope tended to see everything through a very Eurocentric prism.

Pope Francis has over the last seven years made strenuous efforts to reset ties. Aside from his meetings with the Grand Shaikh of Al Azhar, he has reached out to many figures in the Islamic World. In 2014, he visited Palestine and met with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Mohammad Hussein. This year he made the first ever Papal visit to Iraq in March and was able to sit down with Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, one of the pre-eminent clerics in Shia Islam. Islamic prayers were uttered within the walls of the Vatican for the first time ever back in 2014.

The Vatican-Azhar ties were most profoundly illustrated when Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed signed the document on “Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together” in February 2019. The introduction described the document as “…a joint declaration of good and heartfelt aspirations. It is a document that invites all persons who have faith in God and faith in human fraternity to unite and work together so that it may serve as a guide for future generations to advance a culture of mutual respect…” This formed the basis for an ensuing Papal encyclical entitled, “Fratelli tutti” that was certainly forward thinking.

Productive ties between leaders of different religious traditions matter. One hopes that they retain a positive influence amongst their flock. Who knows if some of the more extreme elements might turn their heads when Popes, Grand Ayatollahs and Grand Muftis work together? One can only hope that increasingly such comings together include senior Jewish and other religious figures from other faiths.

In Europe and North American anti-Islamic sentiment is rife. It has existed of course for centuries in differing forms but in the modern era the events of 1979 and 2001 certainly drove Islamophobia on. The Iranian Revolution saw a major rift with the West and notably the U.S. which continues today. The fatwa against the author Salman Rushdie did not help at all nor did the Danish cartoons crisis, both issues where the divides were considerable. The 9/11 attacks triggered huge anger in the U.S. and elsewhere but also a series of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere which saw hundreds of thousands of Muslim civilian lives lost.

The Islamist extremist attacks by the likes of Al Qaida and Daesh also drove these sentiments. The world stood with Paris, Berlin and London as they suffered vile attacks with major landmarks being lit up.

Much of the above anger is understandable. Such attacks were unconscionable. But the 9/11 attacks did not represent Islam and nor does Al Qaida and Daesh. For the overwhelming majority of Muslims, they are an abomination. Even Donald Trump pointed out that the greatest victims of Al Qaida and Daesh violence have been Muslims. However, at a public level, this is rarely understood. All too often the Western media focusses intently on the western victims of Islamist violence not the Muslims. Daesh’s beheadings of western journalists and aid workers in Syria led to military intervention but little was said of the much larger numbers of Syrians and Iraqis beheaded and even crucified by the group.

However, too many leaders in Europe and North America instrumentalized this hatred as opposed to calming the situation and directing the struggle at those truly responsible. It was more convenient to depict Islam and Muslims as a threat than as part of the solution. This continues today as the likes of Viktor Orban of Hungary likes to portray his country as the last bastion of Christendom against the hordes of Islam as if Vienna was back under Ottoman siege once more. “Is it not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep Europe Christian? There is no alternative, and we have no option but to defend our borders.”

Anti-Immigration like Islamophobia is a vote winner. Hence Muslim immigrants are doubly vulnerable to this, depicted as a cultural, economic and a terrorist threat.’

Anti-Immigration like Islamophobia is a vote winner. Hence Muslim immigrants are doubly vulnerable to this, depicted as a cultural, economic and a terrorist threat’ even though research shows that every act of terrorism in the U.S. since 9/11 has been committed by a citizen or legal resident. The threat is not foreign as the far right likes to portray. But blame the immigrant anyway.

The treatment of refugees is also damning, not least when European powers do so little to help those making the terrifying dangerous Mediterranean crossings. Few make the difference between migrants and refugees, those fleeing conflicts and oppression. Our societies are the poorer for putting up walls, physical and psychological. We need to explore other means of resolving these crises without having to resort to inhuman incarceration or refusing to help save lives of innocent people.

Pope Francis tried to play a positive role. In 2016, he washed the feet of 12 immigrants, some of whom were Muslim and following a visit to the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, he arranged for the Vatican to host 12 Syrian Muslim refugees. But did this get the attention it deserved, and did it stem in any meaningful way the tidal wave of anti-Muslim, anti-immigration hatred? The Pope called on every Catholic diocese to host refugees but the take up was very poor.

Islamophobia still does not get the attention it merits. Many belittle the issue and fail to recognize how widespread this issue has become. Social media is a cesspool of hatred on all issues. In the first 24 hours after the Christchurch mosques’ massacres in 2019, Facebook removed 1,500,000 videos of the attack that killed 50 Muslims. Some uploads were watched over 20,000 times.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not help. Extremists feel empowered by conflicts to vent their hatred. Jewish communities in Europe are not responsible for Israeli crimes, just as Muslims worldwide are not responsible for the crimes of Al Qaida and Daesh.

Despite the national outrage caused by last summer’s terrorism attack in London, Ontario, when a right-wing extremist used his truck to target and kill four members of a Canadian Muslim family, Islamophobia continues to persist in Canadian politics. Earlier this month, the Alliance Citoyenne Quebec, a marginal party competing in next month’s municipal elections, issued a statement declaring that: “Islam is contrary to fundamental Quebec values. Islam is a cancer that is slowly growing inside Quebec society.”

The statement was released by the proudly Islamophobic party’s candidate for mayor of Quebec City, Alain Giasson, in response to the candidacy of Boufeldja Benabdallah. Benabdallah is running in the Cap-aux-Diamants district for Équipe Marie-Josée Savard, the heir-apparent of outgoing mayor Régis Labeaum, who will be stepping down from politics.

Giasson told CTV News that: “The trigger [for the statement] was the fact that the co-founder of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec [Benabdallah] is up for election… His whole adult life in Quebec City, he has worked very publicly for the Islamization of Quebec.”

This justification is even more startling considering that in 2017, six Muslim men were shot dead at the Islamic Cultural Centre. The murder victims were: Ibrahima Barry, 39; Mamadou Tanou Barry, 42; Khaled Belkacemi, 60; Aboubaker Thabti, 44; Abdelkrim Hassane, 41; and Azzedine Soufiane; 57. Nineteen other worshippers were injured.

After decades of campaigning, Benabdallah helped to launch the region’s first Muslim cemetery in 2019. Giasson cites this move as proof of Islamization. Benabdallah, who has lived in Canada for more than 50 years now, told media that: “I was really hurt that there are still people who don’t see me as a citizen, who just see me as a religion.”

Although the party’s statement was subject to a hate speech complaint, Elections Quebec, the agency that oversees campaigns across the province, refused to intervene because of its proclaimed “neutrality,” saying that there is “no Quebec law that addresses the content of political platforms.” Note, this comes only months after the national government held a conference on the importance of combatting Islamophobia in Canada.

In Quebec, the majority of its citizens are still Catholic, and historically the Catholic Church “took advantage of this situation to guide the French-Canadian population through institutions and symbolism.” Although Québécois finally started to embrace secularism with the rest of Canada, spurred on by the Quiet Revolution (1960–1970), many Quebecois still saw – and continue to see – other religions as a threat to their own Christian identity.

As Quebec has increasingly become more multicultural with the arrival of new immigrants, the divisions have intensified. The white, Francophone population often express their outrage towards demands from minorities who request reasonable accommodation for their religious practices. The government of Quebec eventually created the Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences in 2007. However, the resulting report further erased the presence of religious difference in the province by “recommend[ing] that agents of the state be banned from wearing any religious symbols.”

This is why earlier this year, the Quebec Superior Court upheld the new Quebec law barring civil servants in positions of “authority” from wearing religious symbols at work, saying that “Quebec had the right to restrict the religious symbols donned by government employees.” The law mainly targets Muslim women and members of other minority religions, not Christians, which demonstrates a clear bias against some groups over others.

This is a key feature of the brand of secularism that Quebec has embraced, after the French model. This kind of secularism claims to be neutral, instead of geographically linked to the West and favoring Christianity. As a result, other religions are marginalized.

Today, the problem of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred is not limited to Quebec or Canada; a significant portion of Western society also questions if Muslims can be good citizens. Many scholars now argue that Muslims are perceived as dangerous or threatening to society if they are openly Muslim. The result has been stark: Muslims in the West are tolerated only so long as they do not make any political claims and practice their religion in private. When Muslims do become politically active, Islamophobia flourishes. Although the national conversation is improving, the stark reality is that almost half of Canadians (46%) still viewed Islam unfavorably in a 2017 poll conducted by the Angus Reid Institute.

Muslims in the West are tolerated only so long as they do not make any political claims and practice their religion in private.

Fortunately, the Alliance Citoyenne Quebec is a marginal party: in the previous election, Giasson only received 0.61 per cent of the vote. Furthermore, in 2017, the party ran 13 candidates, whereas only five are running this year on election day, November 7. Nevertheless, it should not take two massacres for Canadian politicians to firmly address the scourge of Islamophobia that persists in Canadian society and politics. The country’s secular institutions are only fueling the problem, not offering any working solutions.

The defeat of the Justice and Development Party (PJD) in the most recent general elections in Morocco is a blow for conciliatory Islamism (vis-à-vis the monarchy) and a resounding victory for the Royal Palace. How did the PJD fall from 125 MPs in the House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament, to only 13 MPs, making it the eighth political party in the country? In fact, there is no mystery and one can easily explain this debacle.

The PJD’s critics – and there are many in Morocco – argue that the defeat of the Islamists is the natural consequence of a punishment vote. “During the ten years that they governed Morocco, the Islamists have not been up to the task,” is often heard on Moroccan streets.

This is both true and false. It is true that the PJD lost the elections because it failed miserably on many fronts, primarily the economic and social ones. The party could not improve Moroccans’ economic conditions, could not reduce the huge social disparities, and could not fight against the endemic corruption. It’s claimed that the PJD has not tried to balance power with the Royal Palace by demanding, as the 2011 constitution allows, a real separation of powers.

At the same time, this is not true insofar as the PJD had no control over the government’s strategic decisions. It was certainly at the head of a theoretical majority in the parliament, but the government’s decisions were imposed on it. The parties, which were literally “stuck” to the PJD, came from different backgrounds and did not necessarily share its values and conservative views.

Should we therefore pity the PJD or label it a victim of the system? No. The PJD has voluntarily allowed itself to be drawn into a posture of total submission to the Royal Palace, serving primarily the interests of the monarchy instead of those of the people who voted for it.

Since 2011, when PJD Secretary General Abdelilah Benkirane was appointed head of government, and after his replacement by Saad Dine El Otmani in 2017, the PJD, which won all elections in this period except the latest one, has accepted all the royal cabinet’s diktats.

Apart from the post of head of government, the PJD has let the important ministries, without which nothing can be done in Morocco, slip away and has fallen back on secondary ministerial departments. When PJD officials were appointed, for a time, to head some of these important ministries, such as the Ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs, the Royal Palace placed its men in key positions in order to chaperone the Islamists and to control them.

To this, we must add that the JDP has accepted to take responsibility for all the unpopular measures of the last ten years, knowing that, at the very least, they hurt the feelings of a large part of its electorate, and, at worst, they directly affected their lives.

In all fairness, the PJD is not the only one responsible for its downfall. Other factors also contributed to it. The involvement of the Moroccan state is one of them. For several years, the continuous disclosure of sexual scandals affecting important members of the party by press close to the “deep state” – some real and others invented – contributed to tarnishing the PJD’s reputation.

To this, we must add the direct interventionism of the Minister of the Interior Abdelouafi Laftit in the political life of the country with the aim of putting a spoke in the Islamists’ wheel. For example, it was Laftit, a man of the Royal Palace, who imposed a new electoral law in 2019 that was unfavorable to the PJD. This law brings about a new distribution of seats in the House of Representatives calculated on the basis of the number of registered voters and not of voters. And the funny thing is that this reform was imposed by the Ministry of the Interior on a government led by the main victim of this law: the PJD.

The money that flowed during the elections also contributed to the weakening of the PJD.

The other major factor that contributed to weakening the PJD is the money that flowed during the elections – a fact that was denounced by the Moroccan branch of the NGO Transparency International. Transparency International did not name the beneficiary of this venal strategy, but the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), which came second with 87 MPs, specifically accused the National Rally of Independents (RNI) which won 102 seats of corruption.

To sum up, the latest general elections in Morocco, and especially the legislative elections, meant a terrible setback for the PJD and a victory, as a consequence of a long-standing strategy, for the Royal Palace. Not only is the PJD out, but a friend of King Mohammed VI, the billionaire and president of the RNI Aziz Akhannouch has been entrusted with forming the new government.

With a close friend of the sovereign at the head of the government in Morocco, a balkanized parliament, and a reduced and fragmented Islamist opposition, the legislature promises to be quiet and without upheaval – with a downside, however. Since 2011, the PJD has complacently played the role of the villain, the punching bag that is supposed to take the blows instead of the Royal Palace, in order to preserve the image of the monarchy.

The fall of the PJD in Morocco and the appointment of a man from the Royal Palace, who is said to be a newcomer even though he has been heading the Ministry of Agriculture since 2007, changes the situation. Akhannouch and the RNI are creatures of the real Moroccan power. If the new head of government succeeds in his bid to modernize Morocco and reduce social inequalities, it will be to the benefit of the Royal Palace. If he fails, it is the king who will be primarily responsible.

Eighteen years after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Iraqi Shiites are divided on the relationship between political power, ethnicity, and religious legitimation. However, one thing that is clear is that the greater majority of high-ranking Shiite religious scholars in Iraq support democracy. Peyman Eshaghi of Politics Today interviewed Dr. Ali Taher Elmemmud, associate professor of sociology at the University of Baghdad, on his book titled The Embers of Governance: Iraqi Shiites and Nation-State Building Challenges in the Post-2003 Era, Beirut, Darelrafidayn, 2017 [in Arabic].

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Q. What is the inspiration and motivation behind this book? What is the inspiration and motivation behind this book?

This book was my doctoral dissertation. It took two years to write, and a passionate defense that lasted six and a half hours was held for it. This was because it was the only dissertation defended in the Faculty of Humanities and the Department of Sociology of Baghdad University on Shiism and state-building in Iraq. After that, of course, it took a year to turn the dissertation into a book.

Of course, I removed some theoretical aspects from the book, and it became more suitable for non-academic readers and researchers. To write the dissertation, I conducted field research for more than a year. I succeeded in conducting interviews with twenty notable personalities. It was very challenging to meet Iraqi high-ranking Shiite clerics, known as “Sources of Emulation,” and top political figures due to Iraq’s situation and the sensitivities surrounding the issue. Among them are Al-Sayyid Ali Al-Sistani, Sayyid Muhammad Saeed Al-Hakim, Muhammad Is’haq al-Fayadh, and Bashir Al-Najafi.

Talking to intellectuals was much easier, but as I said, interviewing leading religious figures in Iraq was more difficult. For example, I spent six months trying to interview a Shiite high-ranking religious scholar known as “Marja” (literally Source of Emulation) in Najaf.

Q. How did you conduct research for this book?

While examining the state-building by Shiites in Iraq after 2003, I tried to study the fundamental theories of state-nation building. But I soon realized that many of the approaches cited about Iraq do not reflect the realities of the country. Perhaps this is because most of the researchers who have worked in this field have been non-Iraqis or have not done fieldwork. It must be borne in mind that Iraq is a country with an ancient history and deep-rooted culture. Therefore, it is challenging to bring together all the affairs of Iraq and understand the country in terms of the relationship that the government has had with its people.

For example, Francis Fukuyama has written about state-building in Iraq, and British author Liora Lukitz has written another book on state-building in Iraq. In this book, Lukitz applies Anthony Smith’s theory of national identity to the case of Iraq. However, when we scrutinize the issue, we find that neither of the two writers has been able to consider and understand Iraq’s realities. These two “Western ways” of thinking could not comprehend the local complexities.

Since 2003, Iraqi Shiite Islamists have ruled with the same secular tools and way of thinking. Thus, it must be said that this is a new phenomenon in the course of Shiite political thought. In practice, no Shiite Islamist has tried to pass Islamic law in parliament since 2003. Personal status laws were never transformed into the “Islamic” ones. The budget law, one of the clauses of which imposes a tax on alcoholic beverages, which practically guarantees their free sale in Iraq, has never been criticized by a parliament whose majority is Shiite Islamists. They never tried to establish an Islamic institution called the government. Such things show that their Islamism enjoys a civil approach.

Although this approach is not Islamist in the conventional sense, it is not necessarily secular in the anti-religious sense. Instead, it respects religion without allowing religion to rule directly. Iraqi Shiite Islamists are in favor of a civil society, and Islamism for these Islamists is a belief in Islam and a personal commitment to it. In other words, Islamism is defined by performing a series of private acts of worship, observing sincerity and trustworthiness, and the like. Islamists have no purpose other than themselves and individual issues, and do not intend to lead society towards Islam.

Most of the Iraqi Shiites are following Ayatollah Sistani. However, they are not the only ones. Some Shiites are also openly secular in three types: first, liberal seculars represented by people like Ahmad Chalabi, who passed away a few years ago. Second, the national seculars who are represented in the political arena by politicians such as Ayad Allawi. The third group is the Communist seculars, represented by the Iraqi Communist Party.

Islamist Shiites are also made up of several groups. Most of them follow Ayatollah Sistani. The second group, which is smaller than the first group, is Muqtada al-Sadr. Religiously, they were following Sayyid Muhammad-Sadiq al-Sadr, Muqtada al-Sadr’s father, who was assassinated by state forces in 1999, and now they follow Muqtada al-Sadr. Muqtada is a nationalist figure who has never called for the formation of an Islamic-Shiite state since 2003. He has promoted religious, denominational, and cultural pluralism in Iraq, especially in recent years.

The third group of Shiite Islamists is loyal to the theory of velayat-e faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist). They follow Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, who resides outside Iraq in the Iranian capital of Tehran. These people are mainly affiliated with Iraqi militia groups. They have never dared to say that they want an Islamic or Shiite state since the fall of Saddam, but their approach is vividly focused on the Shiite identity and creating a Shiite ummah. In their view, the Shiite ummah ranges from the Hazaras of Afghanistan to Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to them, the leadership of this Shiite nation will be in Tehran.

The last group of Iraqi Shiites is supporters of Ayatollah Sayyid Sadiq al-Shirazi. They are much fewer in number than others. They are more focused on ritual issues, and they do not have a specific political program.

According to Bayat, Islamic political movements experience certain phases. The first phase is the experimentation, in which the movement gains power. Then, they face the paradoxes of being in power in addition to failure to realize their promises. In the end, the appeal, energy, symbols, and sources of legitimacy of political Islamism evaporate.

Bayat believes that this procedure does not lead to an anti-Islamic approach. However, the supporters of political Islamism tend to resecularize it which negatively affects their political career and their ability to hold on to power and remain as the winner their political career and simultaneously give up their religious ends and ambitions.

In recent years, scholars have tried to apply the post-Islamism theory to different cases, specifically the contexts where political Islam has been active in the past decades. Yadullah Shahibzadeh is among those who have followed political Islam in Iran. In his book Islamism and Post-Islamism in Iran: An Intellectual History, he explains the crisis of political leadership in post-1979 revolution Iran.

By detecting “Islamist totalism” in Iranian politics, he follows the career of Islamists in power. He discusses the challenges they faced with democracy, and the challenges with Islamist and non-Islamist reformists in their effort to guarantee democracy in Iran. Shedding light on Iranian political and intellectual history after the 1979 revolution, Shahibzadeh focuses on Iranian Muslim intellectuals and their understanding of politics and democracy in reference to their religious background and religiosity.

He argues that by providing a large amount of epistemological, ethical, and political insights to society, Iranian Muslim intellectuals have contributed to the transformation of Iranian Islamism into post-Islamism. Therefore, the past, solid Islamic ideology in terms of its avid eagerness to preserve political power and dominance has been enormously weakened and delegitimized.

Although the discussions on post-Islamism were more concerned with Iran, Egypt, and Turkey, after the downfall of the Baathist regime, Iraq also entered the current scholarship on post-Islamism. In Patriotic Ayatollahs: Nationalism in Post-Saddam Iraq, Caroleen Sayej has followed the attitudes of Islamist parties and activists in post-2003 Iraq and has provided a deep analysis of senior Iraqi clerics in the Iraqi political sphere.

Sayej focuses on Shiite clerics’ pronouncements and fatwas on political issues, and narrates their ideas and ideals on contested issues such as democracy. In Patriotic Ayatollahs, she narrates the most important Shiite religious scholars and their followers’ positions. For her, they have selected a progressive and secular approach in post-2003 Iraq. The case becomes more critical as most Shiite politicians and political leaders lived in Iran for years and were influenced by the theory of the “Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist” which is currently prevalent in Iran.

In other words, the Iranian experience has pushed the Iraqi Shiite religious scholars toward a post-Islamist inclination in Iraqi politics. Sayej’s main contributions to the issues of post-Islamism in this work are, first, her reference to the role of high-ranking religious leaders in insisting on the necessity of democracy and its legitimacy over any Islamic theocracy; and second, the vital role that nationalism plays in the political thinking and behavior of an Arab Muslim nation in the Middle East amidst sectarian temptations and tendencies.

In other words, the importance of Sayej’s work lies in the fact that she illustrates a path in which a transnational Shiite movement has been replaced by a local endeavor to guarantee a democratic system and to reinterpret Islamism in a way that deals with personal and communal piety and not with structural-political issues.

Are Knudsen and Basem Ezbidi have edited several articles and published them in a volume called Popular Protest in the New Middle East: Islamism and Post-Islamist Politics. The editors have considered a group of political uprisings in different parts of the Middle East, known generally as the “Arab Spring,” whose immediate outcome was overthrowing decades-long political regimes and substituting them with unstable states.

More than any other place, in post-Mubarak Egypt and post-Ben Ali Tunisia, Islamist political movements have gained power: the Freedom and Justice Party and the Ennahda Movement, respectively. In addition to a foreword by Asef Bayat, the authors have provided insightful analyses of Islamist and post-Islamist trends in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Turkey.

Popular Protest in the New Middle East deliberately moves away from the generalizations and abstractions of post-Islamism attributed to the Muslim world as a whole. The book, an essential read for all those interested in the subject, has applied the concept of post-Islamism and its related notions to different cases in Middle Eastern countries and dealt with the concept in relation to Muslim political activists’ experiences in the past decades in their countries and dealt with the concept in relation to Muslim political activists’ experiences in the past decades in their countries.

Last but not least in this grouping is a selection of articles edited by Mohammed Abu Rumman and published under the title Post-Islamism: A New Phase or Ideological Delusions? It discusses the main problems of post-Islamism as a term and concept. To put it concisely, the authors believe that although post-Islamism is controversial, they have decided to use it “in the absence of a more fitting label.”

Drawing on the experience of the Arab Revolutions, the authors ascertain that the revolutionaries failed to achieve certain of the classical goals of political Islam such as the Islamic state due to ideological delusions and sociological realities. The authors refer to the transformations of Islamists’ experiences in countries such as Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, and Jordan, and try to read the changes in different countries of the Middle East.

Published in 2018 and appearing later than the other works on post-Islamism, Post-Islamism: A New Phase or Ideological Delusions? draws on a range of theories and past discussions of the term. In each article, authors have used, challenged, and developed the theory of post-Islamism, based on its rich literature, and have contributed to this discussion by direct reference to different Muslim countries.

The right of religious adherents to wear religious clothing remains a divisive issue in Europe. Not only national governments have restricted this right in recent years, but private employers too are increasingly imposing bans on religious clothing. And while such bans are usually couched in neutral terms, they are often directed against Muslims, raising the fear that they will entrench Islamophobia. Nonetheless, the EU’s highest court has ruled that private employers may pursue a policy of neutrality and cite their business interests to justify discrimination against female Muslim employees.

Already in 2017, the EU Court of Justice had ruled that private employers may not discriminate directly against employees wearing the hijab, but that they may project an image of neutrality: they may not single out Muslim employees but can effectively reach the same result by cloaking their discriminatory intentions in neutral terms. Despite the torrent of criticism that followed, the Court confirmed its decision last week. Employers may adopt a policy of neutrality if there is a genuine need on their part, for example preventing social conflicts at work or meeting the wishes of customers not to see religious people.

According to the Court, member states can maintain laws that offer greater protection against religious discrimination than the EU minimum, but such laws should not unduly harm the interests of employers. In essence, the right not to be discriminated against was found to be less important than the desire of colleagues and customers not to interact with female Muslim employees.

How will the judgment affect Muslim employees?

How the judgment will affect the rights of Muslim employees in Europe is not entirely clear. Defenders of last week’s ruling point out that individual states may still adopt rules that are more protective of the right to religious freedom at work. In the 2017 judgment, the Court seemed to suggest that all EU member states must allow private employers to project an image of neutrality, including states with rules that are more favorable to the protection of religious freedom. Last week, however, the Court clarified that EU law does not impose uniform standards: member states can maintain rules that are more favorable to the right to wear religious clothing.

How the judgment will affect the rights of Muslim employees in Europe is not entirely clear.

However, the Court also ruled that more favorable national rules must not unduly harm the business interests of employers, a finding that is contrary to EU anti-discrimination legislation. The legislation aims to contribute to the full participation of all citizens in economic life.

To that end, it provides a robust framework for combating discrimination in employment, while allowing member states to adopt rules that are more favorable to the protection of equality than the EU minimum. The Court, instead, ruled that more favorable rules may need to be disapplied when the economic interests of employers are at stake. It found that the pursuit of equal opportunities for religious groups may be less important than the desire of companies to cater to the anti-religious views of their customers.

In particular, they should ask the Court to reflect on the real reasons behind so-called neutrality policies. These policies are not neutral between different beliefs, but disproportionally affect female Muslims. Moreover, private employers seem to have no reason to project an image of neutrality, were it not for their desire not to offend employees or customers with different beliefs. Should they really be allowed to cater to customers who are so prejudiced that they get upset at the sight of religious garment? Asking the question is answering it, but not, unfortunately, for the EU’s highest court.

Perhaps the Court’s approach to religious discrimination is explained by a fear of being drawn into the fractious debate over neutrality in France and Belgium.

Is religion different?

The European Union can be justly proud of its approach to discrimination. EU legislation offers comprehensive protection against discrimination on grounds such as race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion. The Court has been fairly consistent in ruling that exceptions to the right to be free from discrimination must be drawn narrowly. According to settled case law, for example, employers may not invoke their business interests to justify discrimination on the basis of their race or sexual orientation. For some reason, however, its approach to religious discrimination is different. This poses the question: Is religion so different from other protected grounds that a different approach is justified?

Some have defended the Court saying that it would be too controversial to meddle with national approaches to religious freedom. Perhaps the Court’s approach to religious discrimination is explained by a fear of being drawn into the fractious debate over neutrality in France and Belgium. However, even these countries make a distinction between public and private sector employment: the principle of laïcité does not apply to private employment. The Court could have respected the Franco-Belgian conception of neutrality without allowing private employers to pursue similar policies.

Another reason that has been put forward for treating religion differently is that it might seem unfair to distinguish between different expressions of personal belief. If an employer may wear the hijab, may a conservative person wear an “Abortion is Murder” t-shirt? May a vegetarian employee wear a hoodie that reads “Meat is Murder”? However, not all personal beliefs are equally worthy of protection. First, unlike the “Abortion is Murder” t-shirt, no one can reasonably be offended by someone wearing the hijab.

Second, while the hijab can often not be removed without remorse, our conscience is not usually burdened by a ban to manifest our commitment to vegetarianism. So yes, regulating religion clearly poses difficult questions, but that does not justify the EU court dodging such questions at the expense of religious minorities. And the right answer to such questions is certainly not to sacrifice the rights of Muslims on the altar of economic interest.

India’s ruling party – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – has not only been chipping away at the rights of religious minorities in the courts since taking power under Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, but also in the streets, where Muslims are faced with escalating threats from roaming Hindutva radicalized gangs.

The data shows that 90 percent of religious hate crimes in the previous decade occurred after Modi was sworn into office, and that an overwhelming majority of the victims were Muslims and perpetrators Hindus.

What we are witnessing today is the mass radicalization of a Hindu majority under a regime that has made no secret of its intent and desire to transform the country’s secular democracy into a tyrannical Hindu theocracy.

At the same time the Modi Government and BJP ruled states enact laws to make Muslims second class citizens, their most vociferous supporters are lynching Muslims, Dalits and other religious minorities with a perceived sense of total impunity.

And who could blame Hindu nationalists for thinking the Indian state had given them its explicit blessing to carry out dastardly deeds.

And who could blame Hindu nationalists for thinking the Indian state had given them its explicit blessing to carry out dastardly deeds, given the way in which Delhi Police officers so enthusiastically participated in the slaughter of 52 Muslims during the 2020 Delhi Riots?

A fact-finding report into the violence cited “instances of sexual harassment of Muslim women by the cops and also instances of police engaging in direct violence and abuse” during the riots that broke out in Northeast Delhi, after a former BJP leader urged his followers to attack anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protesters.

Victims of the violence, and their lawyers, have accused authorities of pressuring them to drop their respective cases and of sabotaging the investigation by carrying out raids of law firm offices to destroy evidence against Delhi Police.

On 23 May, police raided the home of 42-year-old Mohammed Aquil Qureshi in the state of Uttar Pradesh, after Hindu locals accused him of cow slaughter. According to his surviving wife and two daughters, the police tried extorting a bribe from Qureshi, before cracking him over the head with the butt of a gun and then throwing him to his death from the home’s terrace.

On 23 May, police raided the home of 42-year-old Mohammed Aquil Qureshi in the state of Uttar Pradesh, after Hindu locals accused him of cow slaughter.

What we are witnessing here is the radicalization of the country’s police departments by Hindu nationalist forces, a reality brought clearer into view by the recent upward surge in the deaths and torture of Muslims in police custody.

On 31 May, a 21-year-old Muslim man in Haryana was tortured to death in the custody of Haryana’s cybercrime police unit. The killers not only used anti-Muslim slurs against his family members but threatened violence against them should they file a report.

“If you file a complaint, I will make your entire family like Junaid’s state”, a police officer reportedly told the victim’s brothers, according to their mother.

Sadly, he wouldn’t be only Muslim murdered in police custody that day in Haryana.

Fifty-year-old Ayub Khan was tortured to death by police officer at Panipat’s Quila police station.

On 1 June, police in Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha are reported to have tortured six Muslim men in custody the “whole night,” after locals had falsely accused them of slaughtering an ox. One of the victims said the police boasted that even if they were to murder them, they would only be “transferred” as punishment.

A recent report into custodial torture and death across the world reveals that 1,731 people died in the custody of Indian security forces and correction officers in 2019, with most of the victims hailing from minority communities, particularly Muslims and Dalits.

The authors of the report also found that a majority of the deaths were caused by torture, and that the use of torture is “rampant” in India and meant to punish them or gather information or extract confessions.

Apart from most common methods of torture, such as punching, kicking and slapping, the study found that torture methods used by the police also included administering electric shocks, hammering iron nails into the torso, beating the soles of the feet, hanging detainees upside down and then hitting in private parts, stabbings with hand held tools, pouring petrol onto private parts, branding with hot iron rods, urinating into the mouth, inserting hard blunt object into anus and kicking pregnant women.

On May 27, the Austrian government presented an Islam Landkarte (Islam Map) as a novel contribution and a breakthrough tool to fight “political Islam.” However, this map has been around for years. The project was initiated back in 2012, by Ednan Aslan, the head of the Institute for Islamic Theological Studies at the University of Vienna and the Documentation Center for Political Islam which was set up by the government.

Nine years later, Susanne Raab, minister for integration from the ruling conservative party (ÖVP), launched a website with an interactive map listing the names and locations of more than 600 mosques and Muslim organizations in Austria as well as their alleged connections abroad.

The map is designed to serve as a monitoring tool for the Documentation Center for Political Islam which is a data-collecting center for integration policy and security agencies. However, the data it collects is problematic to the extent that it is outdated and incorrect; some of the names recorded on the website are no longer actively in service. The most problematic part, however, is that it publishes private addresses of organizations.

When starting a non-profit organization in Austria, individuals have the possibility to register the organization using their personal address. As a result, when the Islam Map was published, not only the addresses of organizations but also personal addresses of individuals were made public.

In her presentation, Minister Susanne Raab (ÖVP) further explained that the “Islam Map” does not mean a general suspicion of all Muslims and the intention is exclusively to fight “political ideologies, not religion.”

Even though, Austrian officials categorize the map as an instrument of combatting “political Islam,” which is an ambiguous term as adopted by the Austrian government that describes any Islamist movement seeking to restructure society according to religious ideas and opposing democratic principles, there is no general agreement on what exactly can be labelled as an Islamist movement.

This has resulted in the listing of cultural centers for Bosnian and Albanian immigrants, youth organizations or even sports clubs, without any proof or any links to extremism. Faika El-Nagashi, the spokeswoman for integration of the Greens party which is part of the ruling coalition, affirmed that “no Green minister or MEP was involved or even told about it. The project mixes Muslims with Islamists and is the contrary to what integration policy should look like.”

There was a massive backlash against this action, not only from the Muslim community in Austria but also from the University of Vienna, which was added as a partner to this project.

There was a massive backlash against this action, not only from the Muslim community in Austria but also from the University of Vienna, which was added as a partner to this project. University officials have since distanced themselves and prohibited the use of the university logo on the map’s page with the argument that “the logo on the site gives the impression that the University has scientifically edited and reviewed the contributions, which is not the case.” Meanwhile, the logo has been removed and instead “A project of the University of Vienna – Institute for Islamic Theological Studies – Islamic Religious Education” has been added to the website.

Muslim Youth Austria announced legal action against the violation of personal and data protection rights. An announcement or complaint does not exist yet, however, as a spokeswoman of the organization has declared that “the publication of all names, functions and addresses of Muslims and Islamic institutions represents an unprecedented border crossing and the organization will exhaust all legal possibilities against it.”

While Muslim Youth Austria demands the end of this criminalization of Muslims and that the Islam Map be removed from the internet, the association for Jewish Austrian Students in Austria showed solidarity and sharply criticized the map.

While Muslim Youth Austria demands the end of this criminalization of Muslims and that the Islam Map be removed from the internet, the association for Jewish Austrian Students in Austria showed solidarity and sharply criticized the map. The students told Politics Today that Muslims must not feel “observed and placed under general suspicion and at the same time fear because locations of Muslim institutions are exposed to the public, which is a handbook case of discrimination.”

On May 31, the spokesperson for the secretary general at the Council of Europe, Daniel Holtgen, stated that “[u]nfortunately, the ‘Islam Map’ of Austria overshoots the mark, serves existing resentments and therefore has a potentially counterproductive effect. Many Muslims perceive the form and timing of the publication as extremely discriminatory. They feel stigmatized and feel their security threatened by the publication of addresses and other details. The ‘Islam Map’ of Austria should therefore be withdrawn in its current form.”

In fact, the launching of an interactive “Islam Map” serves as a watch list or a blacklist. The map will only serve as another blow to the presence of Islam in the country, as the map disclosing Muslim organizations not only caused controversy in the country but also led to a spate of Islamophobic incidents. Moreover, the map stirs up prejudices and puts all Muslims under general suspicion. Prior to the introduction of the “Islam Map,” the Documentation and Counseling Center Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Racism – also known as the Dokustelle Österreich – released the “Anti-Muslim Racism Report” with 1,402 cases of racism against Muslims in 2020 alone. This records an increase of approximately 33% from the previous year.

After barely a week since the website of the controversial map was launched, the government decided to take the map offline. Not only was it criticized by Austria’s Muslim community, various people from all walks of life reacted on the website. The Catholic Church, for example, joined the criticism and rejected the map. The head of the church stated that Islam is now “under general suspicion.” He wondered why Islam has a map and other faith communities do not.

Ümit Vural, the head of the IGGOE, warned against stigmatizing all Muslims living in Austria as a potential danger. His organization stated that several Muslims had already been attacked and a mosque was vandalized since the map became available online. Muslim Austrians Initiative chairman Tarafa Baghajati told broadcaster ORF, “Imagine if we had a Judaism map or a Christianity map in Austria.”

It is without doubt that this map is an indirect attack on all Muslims in Austria, many of whom are of Turkish descent. Tanju Bilgiç, spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, who has been calling for an end to Islamophobia for a long time now, declared the map to be “xenophobic, racist, and anti-Islamic.”

Although the “Islam Map” has been taken offline, the attention it got from anti-Muslim, racist groups is worrying. The map definitely signifies a general suspicion of the Muslim community. The growing Islamophobia in Austria and the rest of Europe makes Muslim Europeans, and especially young Muslim Europeans, feel concerned about their future. The social pandemic of hate crimes against Muslims is destroying European values, which once were held in high esteem.

The Canadian public has not been immune from globalized Islamophobic and anti-Arab discourse in popular media. However, we have a problematic local political history that we need to contend with. It was in 1975 that the Globe and Mail published a false story during Montreal’s hosting of the 1976 Olympics, claiming that the Mounties had uncovered a conspiracy by fourteen Canadian Arabs to commit terrorism at the Games. The justice minister and the RCMP commissioner denied the story, but it was picked up by every newspaper and TV and radio station across the country.

During the first Gulf War, Canada joined forces with the United States and began targeting its own Iraqi-Canadian population with CSIS interrogations as it was receiving intelligence from Canadian posts in Iraq. Iraqi-Canadians were pulled out of workplaces, called at home and asked pointed questions about whether they supported Canadian “allies” in the gulf war. At this time, stories of “internal threats” in Canada were rampant in the media, filtered through often less than rigorous journalistic standards.

On January 6 1991, ten days before the United States began bombing Baghdad, the Toronto Sun published a story identifying 12 “pro-Iraqi agents” in Toronto, planning a “disturbance” in case war began in Iraq. A few days later, the Sun ran a headline that read “Police Task Force Targets Agents of Terror.” A slew of “terrorism alerts” were published in various newspapers in Toronto, feeding off of each other, unverifiable by their purported sources.

Discourse about anti-terrorism rang through media without much activity to qualify it, sensationalizing banal threats and connecting it to the language of the “war on terror,” which many Canadians often think began after 9/11. The stories ended up focusing more on security alerts than terrorist activities. The Canadian government did little to dispel this paranoia and CSIS continued to interrogate Iraqi Canadians.

Decades later, when—in the same week—a Muslim family of 5 (the Afzaal family) is run over in London, Ontario (leaving a nine year old boy as the only survivor); three white people show up at a mosque in Toronto, threatening to detonate a bomb, and a black Muslim woman is attacked in Edmonton,  the Canadian public is asking, “How did we get here?,” “How did this happen?” When the Quebec shootings during which six Muslims were killed and eight injured in prayer in 2017 happens in cold blood; when mosque caretaker Mohamed-Aslim Zafis was brutally slain by a white supremacist in Toronto last year, politicians state: “this is not our Canada” and other similar rhetorical repulsions of this violence.

The truth is that Islamophobia has been a fundamental part of the Canadian political fabric and public discourse for decades, operating to help define Canadianness through the very abjection of Muslims, Arabs and other minorities who are read as Muslim or Arab. And this abjection is reproduced and protected by state systems and institutions.

The Toronto Police have been recently reacting in a biased fashion, protecting white supremacists during their marches of propaganda while at the same time CSIS is often found undercover at university campuses in the greater Toronto area, trying to entrap Muslim students into saying something hateful, sometimes even knocking on their doors.

Islamophobic discourse in Canada is often closely linked with “anti-immigration” discourse in politics. Indeed, many extremist groups like the Yellow Vest movement in Canada (to be distinguished in content and nature from the Yellow Vesters in France), and PEGIDA, the Three Percenters have an affinity to politicians who express anti-immigration rhetoric.

In recent years, the tenets of Canada’s Multiculturalism Act have been articulated through the accommodation model—that “Old Stock Canadians” are accommodating Muslims and require of them full cultural assimilation (relying on misleading tropic binaries of cultural differences).

In April 2009, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney delivered a speech entitled, “Good Citizenship: The Duty to Integrate” at Huron University College’s Canadian Leaders Speakers’ Series. The minister noted that The Multiculturalism Act and The Citizenship Act and programs are “pathway[s] through which people must pass to join our Canadian political community.”

Anchoring the concept of old stock Canadians, Kenney cites The Unfinished Canadian, which “deplores the way Canada is becoming…‘The greatest hotel on earth.’” Kenney urges his audience “to take this metaphor of ‘Hotel Canada’ very seriously.” Quoting Rudyard Griffiths, he goes on that this phenomenon “is undermining the very strengths and underpinnings that have made Canada a great country. The lack of knowledge of what has given us the country we know, he warns, is potentially disastrous.”

The idea of “race suicide” is a common rhetoric of extremist groups who are often prophesizing about an imminent so-called Islamicization of Canada. Islamophobic violence is seen as a kind of “defense” or necessary evil to stop this takeover, however, this fear and hate is quite literally born out of the decades of Islamophobic myth creation—supported by Canadian media and the state—that would come to validate Western hands in imperial projects in the Middle East.

In 2015, Kellie Leitch and Chris Alexander (politicians and former members of the Conservative Party) implemented The Barbaric Cultural Practices Act (a snitch line through which one could call about their Muslim neighbors’ violence against women), framing domestic violence as particularly unique to Muslim families. This was following the tragic “honor killing” of Aqsa Parvez. In the same year, there were 84 domestic homicides in Ontario related to Intimate Partner Violence, not to mention horrific structural violence against indigenous women.

Yet, Parvez’ murder is seen to have been exceptional to this national epidemic of violence against women, across identity group categories. Leitch’s policies framed Gender Based Violence as exceptional to Muslim cultures, further dichotomizing Islam and Canadianness. Islamophobia is not growing in some seedy corner of Canadian society—it is being nourished in the public eye, for all to see. It is stitched in the fabric of our political atmosphere.

Kenney’s anti-immigration rhetoric, Stephen Harper’s introduction of Bill C24 (essentially creating a second class citizenship system, disproportionately affecting the Muslim community), and more overtly, Paul Fromm’s (Hamilton mayoral candidate) public celebratory description of the 2019 New Zealand massacre (wherein a white male killed 51 Muslims and injured 40 during Friday prayers) as “cogent” and the alarmingly significant amount of votes for Faith Goldy’s run for Toronto mayor despite her right wing extremist work with the Daily Stormer all illustrate the banality of Islamophobic hate speech in mainstream politics—legitimating the “race suicide” thesis. Such an environment sews the seeds of hate, no matter how covertly this normalization hides behind immigration restriction or integration policies.

Many in the Canadian Muslim community were uncomfortable with the ways in which politicians from the liberal and conservative parties showed up to the emotional vigil for the Afzaal family in London, Ontario last week, arguing that it felt like they were using it as a political platform and not addressing the culpability of Canadian institutions in fear mongering and vilifying Muslims.

Currently, Quebec’s Bill 21 bans religious symbols prohibiting Muslim women from wearing hijab in positions of authority in the workplace as well as public sector jobs; and there appear to be hesitant and murky debates about opposing anti-Islamophobia legislation. The M-103 motion which condemns Islamophobia has seen some debate within the Conservative Party since 2017; and Doug Ford (the Premier of Ontario) blocked a motion on Islamophobia two days after the June 2021 London vigil (even if another was put forth, afterwards).

Austria along with France are currently at the forefront of criminalizing Muslim civil society. The Documentation Center for Political Islam, established in July 2020, has released one of its projects, which has been met with fierce criticism. An “Islam Map” showing the addresses of 623 mosques and Muslim civil society institutions was presented and has created a large societal backlash in Austria.

The Documentation Center for Political Islam

Johann Gudenus of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ, Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs), who has since resigned due to his involvement in the Ibiza-gate, was the first to present the idea of a Documentation Center for Political Islam when his party was still in a coalition with the Christian democratic Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP, Österreichische Volkspartei) in 2018. After the Ibiza-gate put an abrupt end to the alliance, the project was now reintroduced and implemented by the ÖVP.

This time, however, the Greens are the ÖVP’s coalition partners. It did not help the Greens to water down the name somewhat in the government agreement and to rename the fund, which was highly subsidized by the state and thus exempt from parliamentary control, the “Austrian Fund for the Documentation of Religiously Motivated Political Extremism (Political Islam).” For what was in parenthesis and henceforth politically communicated applied: a documentation center for so-called political Islam.

The center has an annual budget of half a million euros and is designed to designate Muslim associations with which public authorities can and cannot cooperate – i.e., those which are blacklisted from public funding and space. It is part of the National Strategy for the Prevention of Extremism and Deradicalization, an internationally increasingly challenged concept.

After the project began its work in mid-2020, a first report was presented in December of the same year, which was scientifically very poor and essentially rehashed previously published rumors. But the goal had been achieved: Chancellor Sebastian Kurz had announced in November 2020 following the militant attack in downtown Vienna that he wanted to introduce a new criminal offense for “political Islam.” The Documentation Center could perfectly serve the purpose of identifying this “political Islam.”

But political Islam, for the Austrian government, was not militancy. Rather, it is imagined to pave the ground intellectually for militant action. Hence, political Islam is about thought. And one could add religious practice. Several legislations and political measures had been implemented in the past, linking the Hijab ban or the closure of mosques to the fight against political Islam. One was the ban of the hijab, another two were the closing of mosques. While all three measures have been repealed by the courts, the government still continues its fight against personal Muslim belief and organized Muslim communities.

Relaunch of the “Islam Map”?

The Documentation Center for Political Islam had its second press conference, where Minister for Integration, Susanne Raab, alongside Muslim theologian Mouhanad Khorchide from the University of Münster in Germany, political scientist Elham Manea, and Muslim theologian Ednan Aslan presented their latest findings. These scholars are known for their support of many anti-Muslim legislations implemented by the ÖVP under the leadership of Sebastian Kurz.

The “Islam Map” was originally launched in 2012 by Ednan Aslan and met only low-voiced critique. But the relaunch was different. While Aslan tried to convince the public that the Islam Map was no Islamism Map, the fact that the project was now financed and presented under its name meant that the 623 addresses were now potentially seen as a target by being linked to “political Islam.” And since the government has presented a bill to make political Islam a criminal offense, what are the implications of being on such a map?

Clearly, the addresses of individuals and institutions on this map have been made vulnerable. When the far-right Identitarian Movement started hanging signs with the words “Beware: Political Islam nearby” next to several mosques, a new dimension of this threat became clear. Very soon, criticism came from the European Council, the Conference of European Rabbis, the Austrian Bishops’ Conference, Muslim Youth Austria, and many others.

The rector of the University of Vienna requested the logo of the university be removed from the website and distanced the university from the project. While the Documentation Center for Political Islam took the map offline as a first reaction, its director said that the information will only be made public by logging in via an account.

Protecting Muslims against “political Islam”

The Minister for Integration reaffirmed that she does not want to stir up “general suspicion against Muslims.” And indeed, we should take her words seriously. Because for her, it seems, the Muslim associations and mosques do not represent the vast majority of Muslims. This is in line with a widespread narrative in continental European countries that follows a divide-and-rule politics by marginalizing organized Muslims and substituting their voices with state-funded and self-proclaimed “liberal” Muslim voices.

If the 623 sites of organized Islam according to Austrian Integration Minister Raab are not “the Muslims,” then she is indeed consistent in stigmatizing 623 Muslim institutions as potentially dangerous, while all the time pretending to save the Muslims. In a way, this is another episode in the recurrence of a colonial mindset that pretends to save the many good – read obedient – Muslims from the bad ones, i.e., those who claim their own agency.

What is needed

Currently, Austria’s political leadership sees Muslims as a walking danger that is criminalized with surveillance programs like this map, intimidated by raids, and problematized as a national security threat. This hawkish politics against the Muslim minority has to stop. Otherwise, the Muslim minority that makes around nine percent of the whole population, will be further estranged and the societal divide instigated by the government will create the ground for major conflicts.

Fasting during Ramadan is one of the most important expressions of faith by followers of Islam. From sunrise to sunset, Muslims abstain from eating, drinking, and other specified human activities. Many Muslims collectively spend time during the nights and days of Ramadan performing acts of worship and, above all, reciting the Quran and repeating remembrances of God, Allah.

One of the most challenging issues in relation to Ramadan is determining its beginning and end based on the crescent moon. Since the beginning of the month is bound to sighting the moon in the lunar calendar, the exact declaration of the new month is difficult. Therefore, for many years, announcing the sighting of the crescent moon has been a challenging task. Many Muslim scholars and jurists believe that the beginning and end of Ramadan can only be determined by spotting the moon with the naked eye and that using modern tools to calculate the appearance of the crescent is not religiously valid.

However, especially in recent decades, others have emphasized the calculability of the lunar month. As a result, Muslims and Muslim-majority states are divided over the start of the month. Although it is the same as any month of the lunar calendar, the beginning and end of Ramadan is important as it determines the start and end of the month of fasting.

Declaring the sighting of the crescent moon is not the sole issue regarding Ramadan that is disputed among Muslims. Based on the sect and school of thought to which they belong, Muslim jurists also differ on various aspects of fasting during Ramadan.  These include the exact time of the beginning and end of fasting, what invalidates fasting, and the fitrah payment, a charity given to the poor at the end of Ramadan.

Among the disputed points is the challenging issue of the end of Ramadan. The day and usually its following days are among the most important feasts in most Islamic countries and Muslims living in non-Islamic countries. In recent decades and with the bureaucratization of urban life in the world, the performance of the rituals of the feast of Ramadan mostly depend on the official calendars that are enforced by the states.

In recent decades and with the bureaucratization of urban life in the world, the performance of the rituals of the feast of Ramadan mostly depend on the official calendars that are enforced by the states.

The lives of Muslims today, like those of worshippers of other religions, are shaped by a network of physical/biological, sacred/religious, and secular/political times and calendars. Muslims living in Islamic and non-Islamic countries and working in modern institutions have difficulty matching the biological time of fasting with their working hours during Ramadan. While Muslims tried to regulate their work with fasting in premodern societies, now many Muslims are forced to adapt their fasting to modern work. This unconformity has caused some Muslims to complain about this issue as their efficiency in the labor market decreases during Ramadan: they cannot compete and reach their full potential at work. On the other hand, the need to work affects their ability to worship as they would like.

Muslim states and the announcement of the sighting of the crescent moon

Apart from having to match the biological time of fasting with the demands of the labor market, the intersection of religious time and secular/political time has also caused problems. Almost all Muslim-majority countries designate certain days to the holiday of Eid al-Fitr. This closure for administrative and economic reasons has a long history and is determined by the states long ago. It is a challenging task due to the difficulties of determining the exact time of the end of Ramadan. This is made more complicated by the fact that in some Islamic countries Muslims belong to different sects which may not declare the same day as Eid al-Fitr.

Due to this fact, we see that sometimes countries that are located, for the most part, on the same meridian (line of longitude), for instance Iran and Saudi Arabia, or different parts of a country (for example, Iraqi Kurdistan and the Arab regions of Iraq) declare different first and last days of Ramadan. There was also the interesting case of Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan leader, who always announced the Feast of Ramadan on a different day that that announced by Saudi Arabian authorities.

In addition to governments, there are rivalries and disputes among religious elites and religious interest groups that lead to unanimity on the declaration of Eid on an exact day. Although most of the differences in declaring the Feast of Ramadan result from different jurisprudential views, the role of the rivalries and disputes between clerics cannot be ignored.

In Iran, the first and last days of Ramadan are declared by the Supreme Leader. The Iranian state propagates that the declaration is binding for all citizens regardless of any school of thought within the Shiism they follow.

Iranian Shiite religious scholars are an example. In Iran, the first and last days of Ramadan are declared by the Supreme Leader. The Iranian state propagates that the declaration is binding for all citizens regardless of any school of thought within the Shiism they follow. However, followers of other Shiite clerics, who consistently challenge the religious legitimacy of the Iranian state, provide their understanding of the start and end of Ramadan based on reports of the moon’s appearance received by their witnesses. Their followers do not attend the state-run feast prayers and prefer to join those held by their beloved clerics. These differences in announcing the end of Ramadan and of congregational prayers contest the state’s religious authority and legitimacy.

Transforming a local issue into a state one

Until very recently, the majority of Muslims lived in rural areas. The “local” determined many religious issues and believers solved their religious problems by referring to the “nearest” sources of authority and reference embodied in the local imam, saint, or other “men of Allah.” They generally did not know what others thought and did, even in nearby neighborhoods. Gradually and by becoming part of modern nation states, believers became connected to centers of political power. They had to adapt themselves to the state calendar. On the other hand, technological developments, such as the telephone, radio, television, and recently the internet, contributed to being notified of state decisions regarding the lunar calendar.

Muslim communities in countries where Islam is not the majority religion deal with the issue of the exact dates of Ramadan in a variety of ways. Some trust calendars prepared by international Muslim organizations, others seek the opinion of their local religious institutions, and others yet refer to the announcements of their country of origin.

In conclusion, spotting the new moon is something that any Muslim can do. However, moving away from traditions of moon sighting, which are still prevalent among Muslims in rural areas, has caused a significant dependence on state-run media. Nowadays, most Muslims do not know how and when the new moon can be sighted. Living in air- and light-polluted urban areas makes it generally impossible for millions of Muslims to spot the moon.

On the other hand, Muslims are deeply involved in state calendars and cannot easily swim against the current. Muslim states have other expediencies and interests in religious matters as well; they consider international necessities, regional realities, and their denominational structures.

A good example is Iraq. Sunnis generally obey Saudi Arabia in announcing the Feast of Ramadan, Arab Shiites generally follow their high-ranking Iraqi clerics, and a minority listens to the Iranian Supreme Leader. The Iraqi government declares the holiday to include the days heralded by the followers of both denominations.

In a nutshell, for the first time in history, Muslims have found themselves in a node of modernization, transnational sectarian networks, and state policies. They are obliged to obey state calendars, whether they live in a Muslim country or not. At the same time, they can expand their individuality by seeking information about the beginning and end of Ramadan from non-state sources via modern technologies. This has added to the rising crisis of authority among traditional Islamic actors in the contemporary world.

As a result, the fact that one cannot known with certainty when Muslims who live kilometers away from one another will celebrate the Feast of Ramadan and being obliged to live according to predetermined state calendars have led to unprecedented confusion and disputes among Muslims and Muslim-majority states. This phenomenon is another example of the Muslim world’s rising, new social, cultural, and symbolic mobility and crisis.

Religion in politics is obvious in Africa but also a sensitive topic because of the confrontations it incurs between critics and supporters of secularism. In a country like Nigeria, it might lead to tensions between Muslims and Christians, considering the fact that religious affiliation and ethnicity were excluded in the country’s national census in 1991 (and since 2006) to avoid ethnic conflicts and religious rivalries.

Regardless of the sensitivity, religion still plays an important role in leadership issues, and religious leaders still influence directly or indirectly the decisions of their followers during political practices, ethnic and social dialogues. Religion institution has also been the refuge of whenever people in the region lost confidence in their political leaders.

Contrary to the opinions of some Islamic scholars who frown at secularism, and the stands of secularists who see secularism as a value to exclude or categorize some sections of the society, the political developments in Mali between 2018 and 2020, and the events in Senegal following the 2021 protests offered a glimpse of what religious leaders can achieve in moving a nation forward and avoiding plunging it into unending chaos or “civil” war.

When the news of protests in Mali broke out in 2020, the focus quickly shifted after some days from the critical issues that led to the protests, such as the government incompetence, endemic corruption, and a declining economy, to the activism of the former president of Mali’s High Islamic Council (HCI), Imam Mahmoud Dicko, who was one of the leaders of the protest.

The Malian case showed that Islamic religious leaders in the country are diverse in their intellectual tradition, but also collaborative in political and other important issues.

On the one hand, the Malian case showed that Islamic religious leaders in the country are diverse in their intellectual tradition, but also collaborative in political and other important issues.

Iman Dicko, a “Salafi” figure who studied in Saudi Arabia and Mauritania, has been at the forefront of demanding social change and the basic needs of Malians since 2013 when he supported the presidential ambition of the ousted president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. During this period, he collaborated and worked with other religious leaders from different sects of the society, including Sufis and liberals.

Also, the current president of the High Islamic Council (HCI), Sheikh Chérif Ousmane Madani Haidara, a Sufi leader with strong followership in Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and the Malian diaspora, criticized the rebellion activities of the Mouvement National de l’Azawad and considered members of the group as “apostates”.

The 2020 events in Mali showed the role of an Imam in a troubled nation. While foreign allies of Mali, neighboring countries, and critics, including Salafi figures, accused Imam Dicko of instigating instability and stirring violence by heading the protest movement, the Imam has served as a mediator between the Malian government, terrorist groups in the northern part of the country and the oppositions.

Forcing the idea of non-participation of a religious leader in politics in a country like Mali and looking at religious activities through the limited established lens of fighting terrorism, anti-extremism, and radicalization could be more problematic than the solutions it tends to present.

Mali’s population based on a 2019 estimate was over 19.66 million of which 94.8% are Muslims, while the remaining 5.2% are Christians (2.4%), Animists (2%), and none/unspecified (0.8%). This also explains the reason behind the strong supports Imam Dicko and other Malian Imams enjoy many occasions, among which were Dicko’s campaign that forced the Malian government to weaken legislation that promotes gender equality, and his successful opposition toward the introduction of sex education in schools.

On the other hand, the participation of the Malian Imams in politics cannot be used as a yardstick for many other countries in the region due to their diverse population. There is still a lack of interest in democratic politics from Islamic leaders in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa despite the region’s history of harmony and integration between priests or religious leaders and kings, who also occupied religious positions in some of the ancient kingdoms and societies.

Another issue is the reserved positions of some Islamic leaders in the region toward secular democracy, repercussions of western invasions on their societies, and the fear of losing their dominance. The most noticeable feature in Mali and Senegal is the active interaction of religious leaders with government officials through their positions of independence from authorities which gave them the freedom of engagement in the most effective ways.

The distinctive case of Senegal aligns with the equivocal relationship between the religious institutions and the government. Senegal is considered a secular state influenced by France and about 96% of the population are Muslims, and records of peaceful transfer of power. These, according to Rachid Id Yassine, differentiate Senegal from other countries with predominantly Christian populations where the participation of religious leaders in secularism and democracy is usually linked to Christians.

Senegal’s secularism has been described as a model between the French and American models: political leaders have used religion in governing their people, anti-religion groups have also tried to tone down the influence of religion for their gains, while religious leaders have also used their power in their sector or regions of dominance without threatening the country’s peaceful coexistence. Hence, religious and democratic institutions have benefited one another rather than seeking to undermine each other.

The Senegalese marabouts have guided the country in turbulent times: many of them played a neutral role in the 2012 presidential election. Although some of them also took sides by either supporting the then President Aboulaye Wade or the opposition candidate and current president Macky Sall because of the financial interest or recuperation of their waning influence as a result of participation only in spiritual and religious matters.

The recent Swiss referendum to ban the wearing of the burka and niqab in public places follows similar decisions by the governments of France, Belgium, and Austria, reinforcing the mediatized perception of Muslims as the “difficult-to-integrate “other” in Europe.” This development converges with the state level institutionalization of anti-Muslim sentiment by the likes of Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who wants to form a common front against “political Islam.”

An EU level policy idea already floated by French President Emmanuel Macron, who believes that “Islam is a religion that is in crisis today all over the world,” and the implication that the presence of Muslims in Europe are a threat to domestic security and the national identity.

The truth of course, is far more complex. European Muslims are well aware of the complex socio-political challenges before them and are increasingly challenging Islamophobic narratives as their communities grow and younger people become active agents of transformative social change. This has led to the emergence of various political leaders and social influencers who have become vocal public figures and are positively impacting their communities and wider societies. This can be seen in the rise  of assertive Muslim politicians in mainstream parties across Europe such as the Italian MP  Khalid Chaouki,  Mahinur Özdemir the first  hijab-wearing MP in Belgium and emergence of the DENK party in the Netherlands.

In Britain, despite facing various socio-economic inequalities, Muslims are an essential part of the U.K’s economic and cultural fabric.  Around 10,000 of National Health Service (NHS) doctors and nurses are Muslim; they were at the NHS front line during the Covid-19 crisis, and at forefront of community responses to the pandemic.

They have also made significant strides in mainstream politics at local and national governance level, with some achieving senior positions, such as the current Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a former cabinet member of the Conservative government and the recently elected Leader of the Scottish Labor Party –Anas Sarwar. Muslim Leaders have also emerged from faith based NGOs such as the Muslim Council of Britain, which recently elected its first every  female leader,  Zara Mohammed,  while others lead think-tanks, such as Halima Begum, CEO of  the Runnymede Trust.

In the media, sports and cultural industries, the journalist Mehdi Hasan became internationally known as an anchor for Al-Jazeera English and is currently host of a NBC news program. The writings of Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik are among the sharpest commentaries of race, religion and politics and Nadiya Hussain, is a household name after winning the Great British Bake Off competition, and has hosted several TV programs for the BBC. Other British Muslims have reached the highest levels of their chosen fields in the world of sport like the long-distance runner ‘Mo’ Farah, a four-time  Olympic gold medalist,  Moin Ali, who has captained the English Cricket team and Amir Khan  a former Light-Welterweight world boxing champion.

Like other European states, Britain needed the post-war labor of immigrants from its former colonies, which resulted in a multiculturalist model that enables Muslims and other minorities to achieve a large degree of social mobility.

Though currently going through immensely turbulent times, the U.K is still viewed by outsiders with a degree of admiration for its historical achievements, continuing political influence on the world stage and soft power of its creative industries. Like other European states, Britain needed the post-war labor of immigrants from its former colonies, which resulted in a multiculturalist model that enables Muslims and other minorities to achieve a large degree of social mobility.

These advances are all the more noteworthy given the tough challenges that this faith group encountered and continues to experience today. Social polarization has reached levels not seen for decades, as forms of prejudice multiply –particularly racism and Islamophobia, which are rationalized in the name of freedom of speech.

The continued fallout from BREXIT, presence of refugees, growth of the far-right and unresolved anxieties about security have shaped a climate of suspicion towards ‘outsiders.’ Muslims are often the focus of mistrust and accused of being the “enemy within,” their faith incompatible with “British Values” and alleged to have a unique vulnerability to criminality and violence.

Before his election as leader, Anas Sarwar was subjected to racist slur from within the Labor party and another senior member withdrew her support for Sarwar after seeing a picture of his hijab-wearing wife.

Most of the leaders and influential figures highlighted here have struggled with racist and Islamophobic abuse on a regular basis. Some of shared on social media while others have faced institutional barriers and media attacks. A recent instance was when the leader of the Runnymede Trust was misrepresented by Conservative MPs in a Women and Equalities questions session in the House of Commons. Before his election as leader, Anas Sarwar was subjected to racist slur from within the Labor party and another senior member withdrew her support for Sarwar after seeing a picture of his hijab-wearing wife.

These and many other incidents vindicate the observation by Sayeeda Warsi over a decade ago, when she argued that prejudice against Muslims had “passed the dinner-table test.” Islamophobia and racism has quantifiably worsened in recent years to the point of being normalized in the media and political establishment.

Muslim journalists like Nesrine Malik regularly receive abusive emails and are trolled on their social media and Nadiya Hussain has often encountered racial and religious discrimination both on the street and within the industry that she works in. Furthermore, athletes like Moin Ali and Mo Farah have both complained about racism  they have experienced during their careers.

Representation in the elite levels of political power while symbolically encouraging, is not enough. Most of the politicians highlighted above downplay their faith so they don’t fall out of favor with their party leaders or alienate the voting public.  Other figures are only able to secure positions because their political values align with the party leadership.  This is illustrated in cases of former Conservative cabinet member  Sajid Javid, who denied the existence of Islamophobia, citing his own appointment as proof and  Munira Mirza –an advisor to Boris Johnson,  was selected  to lead the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, even though she believes institutional racism is a myth.

To shape a more amicable future, Western European governments would need to reset relationships with their Muslim citizens and conduct honest conversations that acknowledge failed policies and misperceptions. This looks highly unlikely given the converging political consensus that appears to be forming against Muslim political visibility.

European Muslims communities also need to do better and resolve their internal divisions and nurture infrastructures that help cultivate visionary leadership which can address the multidimensional challenges confronting their communities and wider societies. The increasing number of talented Muslims entering public life raises the possibility that this can become a reality.

Last year, President Emmanuel Macron launched a war against “Islamist separatism” in France after a terrorist attack that targeted a French schoolteacher. On February 16, the French National Assembly passed a bill to reinforce “Republican Principles,” officially aimed at fighting an ideology associated with extremism. However, the bill targets entire Muslim communities in the country by making it easier for the government to shut down mosques, associations, and schools that are found to be critical or not complying with the vaguely defined “Republican values.”

For the French sociologist Raphaël Liogier, professor at Sciences Po Aix and visiting scholar at Colombia University, Islam in France has gradually been constructed as a problem in the media and became the product of a long history of people perceived as refractory to civilization and progress. “Muslims have a peculiar definition in our minds: enemies of the Christian culture, and enemies of modernity and progress.” If Islam has been depicted like this for a long time, the new rhetoric of “Republican values” used by the French government gives another perspective as to how Islam is also “anti-Republican.”

In the name of “secularism”

The Macron law aims to bring about a radical and reactionary transformation of society and politics by imposing a strict state control over the Muslim religion and a principle of collective responsibility which allows political parties and the police to decide the fate of religious associations, organizations, and schools. The law of 1905 that supports neutrality of the state and freedom of religious exercise is a law of separation which implies that the state must renounce the regimentation of cults.

A secular state has nothing to say about what religious dogma should be. It does not have to intervene in the way believers live their faith as long as they respect the laws in force. “Before 2003, secularism meant the freedom of expression in the public space. However, from 2003 onwards, we changed its interpretation. It was not only the neutrality of the state, but also the neutrality of people, which is very different,” says Liogier.

Stigmatizing not only Islamism but Islam itself, is a symptom of this new unqualified rejection of the Muslim population, which is nevertheless largely integrated into the French society. The 2004 law banning religious symbols in schools has opened the floodgates to significant abuses, explains the sociologist. “In 2004, you can see the act of parliament to prevent the scarf, the simple scarf, in public schools in France.”

The recurring persuasion to ban veiled mothers from accompanying children on school outings even though they are not public officials; the attempt by political figures to constantly direct the debate towards Muslim community are in reality a form of Islamophobic propaganda in the name of French secularism.

In reality, this tactical election strategy shows first and foremost the contradictions of a government that is walking on eggshells. With the responsibility for the catastrophic balance sheet of the health crisis, and a historic economic crisis and its consequences on the working classes and youth, Emmanuel Macron aims to replay the card of the bulwark against the extreme far-right for the presidential elections of 2022.

A strategy that pushes him to carry out an offensive on the reactionary and Islamophobic ground of Marine Le Pen, while at the same time delimiting himself intermittently in order to embody the party against the populism of the National Rally and its leader. A vast program that has nothing to offer to the youth except for the accentuation of the authoritarian and racist offensive.

Emmanuel Macron aims to replay the card of the bulwark against the extreme far-right for the presidential elections of 2022.

This shift towards authoritarianism is linked to the homicidal policy of the ruling class in response to multiple crises within the country. To implement its homicidal policy, the international ruling class is cultivating fascist forces and turning to authoritarian forms of power. “Similar acts reflect the picture all over Europe; and there is something strange with the laïcité in France. It is becoming the object of our narcissistic anxiety,” recalls the sociologist.

Throughout Europe, similar processes are underway. In Spain, the army reacted to last year’s strikes that forced a policy of closure by plotting coups and rehabilitating the leader of the 1936 fascist coup and dictator Francisco Franco. In Italy, banker Mario Draghi is forming a government of “herd immunity,” including both the far-right Lega and the former Stalinist Democratic Party.

For Raphaël Liogier, this narrative shaped a collective paranoia, born out of a narcissistic wound which resulted in imposing an ideology at the expense of Muslim communities. “It is very important for everybody, but it is even more important for Western Europeans because they are used to the idea of being at the center of the world, and this created some kind of a complex. And, anti-Islamism, which exists in some parts of the world, is directly fed, even constructed, through this complex.”

The end of the Cold War in the 1990s and the emergence of religiously motivated political groups on the international scene, made us aware of the role of religion in international conflicts. The Clash of Civilizations written by Samuel Huntington around this time, became central to decipher the political role of religion. Although it has been invalidated by numerous surveys that show that actually clashes occur mostly within civilizations (which are far from operating as homogenous monoliths), the thesis nevertheless remains politically influential.

In the current international context, this simplified vision of religion on the international scene has led to the exclusive focus on Islam and terrorism. This contributes to the misleading perception, that the scope and reach of terrorism in the name of God has grown out of control, that this violence is inspired by the specifics of the Islamic tradition and resilient to usual forms of compromise or negotiation. The reality is that all religious traditions can partake into political violence and challenge democracy.

Case in point: in the 1960s, the Catholic Church was seen as a major obstacle to democratization because of its support to authoritarian and military regimes from Franco in Spain to Pinochet in Chile. The ongoing radicalization of Buddhism in Myanmar or Hinduism in India are highlighting that shift to radicalism that can affect all traditions, not to mention the rise of global Orthodoxy that pursues international projects in contradiction with the international order. Regretfully, the systematic comparison of these modes of radicalization has yet to be undertaken.

I have repeatedly shown that the relevance of religion is not in the content of the religious  tradition per se but in the interactions between religious and political actors, institutions, and ideas. From this perspective, limiting Islam or any other religious tradition to beliefs or texts proves to be a dead end as the text can lead to opposite interpretations and mobilizations.

Instead, looking at the ways religious belonging and behaving intersect with political identities and behaviors solve the puzzle of apparently very secular projects leading to political battles over Islamically correct social behaviors, which are currently happening not only in Egypt, Iraq, Sudan to name a few but also India, Myanmar or Israel.

In other words, the social and political visibility of religion is not caused by an increase in personal beliefs or religiosity. People are not more fervent believers than they used to be, but their identification to religion has certainly shifted, creating a conjunction of religious and political identities that facilitate political mobilization and sometimes radical actions.

The politicization of religion in Muslim countries can be traced back to the building of the nation-state and the active role of “secular rulers” in reshaping the Islamic tradition.

Such a perspective requires a “longue durée”, historicized analysis that drastically challenges the rational choice centered theories that still dominate the field of radicalization and security studies.

To be more specific, the radicalization of religion is related to its nationalization. To be clear, most of religions within nations operate peacefully but to understand how and when religious identities or practices become radicalized, the starting point is the establishment of the modern political community a.k.a.  the nation.

Religion and National Community

For example, the politicization of religion in Muslim countries can be traced back to the building of the nation-state and the active role of “secular rulers” in reshaping the Islamic tradition. Nation-building put an end to the political  autonomy of religious institutions  that dominated the caliphal periods. It also went hand-in-hand with the homogenization of the populations inhabiting the nation’s territory.

That is why nation-building systematically omitted and sometimes eradicated particular ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups in order to create one nation defined by one religion and one language. This homogenization led to a politicized narrative of religion, that I have called political Islam.

With the rise of the nation-state, a congruence was created between Muslims of a certain religious obedience (for example, in the Sunni groups, Maleki, Shafi’i, Hanbali, and Hanafi schools) and bounded territory. Although the westernized elites were not always pious, they understood that they could not build a nation without including the belonging to Islam. To be clear, this readjustment to the national territory happened to all religious traditions but with different outcomes.

For example, Christianity in Europe at the time of the Reformation, saw its societal influence reordered by the nation-state, but also its doctrinal content redefined to make room for the state sovereignty over mundane matters. In the case of Islam, what I have called hegemonic forms of religion appeared.

Religious hegemony is not reflected in whether a state has an official religion but in a wide range of government religion policies found in many states without official religions.

It entails three main features:

– Absorption of the institutions and personnel of the religion into the state system while the other religions at best do not benefit from the same status or at worst lack legal recognition

– Inclusion of some of religious prescriptions within the legal system (family law, blasphemy)

– Shaping of the national narrative by making the belonging to the hegemonic religion the by default civic and national identity of all citizens.

In other words, religious hegemony refers to exclusive legal and political privileges granted to a specific religious group, and the association of this religion with citizenship and national belonging, while all other religious groups are marginalized. This nationalization of religion also happened in Buddhist countries like Thailand, Myanmar or Butan. Surveys show that states with hegemonic religions tend to be less democratic, independently of the specificity of the religious tradition.

Judaism, along the same line, has become a hegemonic religion in Israel, hence fueling discrimination against other religious minorities as well as uncompromising positions vis-à-vis the Palestinian claims. That is a sharp departure from the status of Jewish minorities in Europe where they had adapted to the secular national contexts by disconnecting their religious belonging from allegiance to the European political communities. We see the same trend of hegemonic Hinduism expressed in Hinduist movements that now dominate the political scene in the originally secular Indian democracy.

Additionally, global radical groups like Al Quaida or ISIS do not represent a return to pre-national forms of Islam. Quite the contrary: They are the result of dissemination of concepts that were originally framed within nations but now have spread beyond national boundaries. In other words, the existing forms of global Jihad are the transnational versions s of the interpretations of Sayyid Qutb (initially aimed at fighting against the national unjust ruler), combined with the Wahhabi doctrine which is also a modern (albeit not a modernist) religious interpretation.

Unlike the forms of national Jihad, the transnational dimension of the global Jihad appeals to young Muslims across countries because it offers and idealized and imagined Community of Believers all united in one single goal. In other words, to understand the radical forms of Islam today, it is more relevant to look into the political and cultural socialization of the activists than into their level of piety or the content of the Islamic tradition.

This nationalization and globalization of religion is also visible in Christian majority countries. Although religious diversity and pluralism in the U.S. has increased over recent decades, Christians remain the largest religious group in the country. Seemingly paradoxically, this increase in religious diversity has also been accompanied by an increase in the view of America as a Christian country. Like in Muslim countries, such a perspective remains for most Christian citizens symbolic without becoming intolerant or radical.

Many scholars and pundits of the MENA region are wondering why the Islamists did not take over during the massive protests known as the “Arab Spring.” This question is relevant to the extent that political Islam for many decades has been a popular movement that has threatened regimes marked by a deficit of legitimacy.

To address this issue, we need to bear in mind that the ideological references of Islamism pertain to a sort of utopia which prevented the movement from being politically efficient. Many Islamists became aware of this ideological handicap, seeking another path in order to play a role in the state institutions.

What is Islamism?

Islamism can be defined as a resistance to the inescapable secularization, or at least, an attempt to bargain the place of religion in the public sphere. Facing the social and cultural transformations of past colonization and current globalization, religious consciousness is worried about the future of Islam.

Hence the demand for the implementation of Islamic law, sharia. But this demand is not limited to the judiciary; it encompasses a worldview that dictates how the state and society should be.

In this regard, Islamism is a utopia expressing the desire for a perfect society and a fair state. The utopia is about building a social world where selfishness does not exist. For instance, in the Islamist literature of the 1980s in Algeria, including the weekly publication Al Munqid, the issue of underdevelopment was explained by mismanagement and bad economic policy.

The idea is that despite the fact that God created enough wealth, poverty is widespread and it is the result of the rulers’ corruption and selfishness. To reach this utopian goal, the state needs to be run by righteous people who fear God and who are not prone to corruption. Islamists are in search of the ideal government and the ideal leaders in a society marked by fairness.

The excessive violence in Egypt and Algeria led to a split of the movement: a mainstream approach to take over the state peacefully through the electoral process, and a minority trend supporting Al-Qaida and Daesh. It is worth noting that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt accepted to create a party (Justice and Liberty Party), meaning that by implication they saw themselves as a political party among others, while in the past they claimed to be the party of all the Egyptians.

Islamism evolved towards what is called “post-Islamism,” inspired by the Turkish experience as embodied by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

By foregoing violence to take over the state and by accepting other parties as legitimate competitors, Islamism evolved towards what is called “post-Islamism,” inspired by the Turkish experience as embodied by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Islamists took part in elections, and in some countries, they won. They won in Tunisia in 2011, and in Egypt and Morocco in 2012 following the nationwide protests.

The internet factor

The internet factor, as a societal phenomenon, reduced the influence of the Islamist discourse among young people. Multiple debates in many virtual forums gave the opportunity to oppose the Islamist views on society, women, culture, etc. There was a sort of deconsecration of the Islamist discourse with the idea that the verses of the Koran could have many different interpretations. This deconsecration was made possible by the free speech that was encouraged by anonymity on social media.

Some young people went as far as to claim to be atheists, and others questioned Muslim theology. At the university, professors and students engaged in debates questioning the religious authority of thinkers such as Al Ghazali and Ibn Taymiyyah.

There is a climate never seen before where people are demanding a reform of the theology inherited from the past. Students have started to read Mohamed Shahrour, Mohamed Taha, Mohammed Arkoun, among others.

Undermined by its ideological and political contradictions, Islamism failed to emerge as the dominant force to take over the state following the Arab Spring. The Islamists do not see themselves any more as the party of the nation; they have accepted to be one party among others.

In Tunisia, they backed down on issues of women and freedom of consciousness. In Morocco, they aligned with the king who kept the army and the foreign affairs under his control, despite having gained more seats in the National Assembly than any other party.

In Egypt and Algeria, certain Islamists are seeking the blessing of the military to take part in the state institutions. In Iraq, Sunni Islamism has been weakened by the excesses of violence perpetrated by Daesh. It leaves a space to Shiite groups to be more active, whether they align themselves with Tehran or not.

Following the terrorist attack on Christchurch mosques, on March 15, 2019, the Royal Commission of Inquiry took on an investigation to cast light on the dreadful incident in order to reduce the risk of future attacks to stand in solidarity with those who lost family members and the community as a whole. Nihan Duran interviewed Anjum Rahman, a founding member of the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand, on the overall conditions of Muslim communities in New Zealand.

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Q. The terrorist attacks in Christchurch shocked the world and caused deep sorrow. As a founding member of the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand and as a member of the community that has suffered from the attacks, how do you evaluate the overall situation of the Muslim community in New Zealand?

New Zealand is generally a peaceful place and I think Muslims have so long felt comfortable and peaceful here. We are able to build our businesses, build mosques, pray, fast, wear hijabs – we can do all the activities that we wish. And generally, we can do them without too much interference. But there were undertones of discrimination, and we particularly felt it when there were incidents overseas, such as the September 11 attacks in the U.S. in 2001, or the more recent attacks in France.

When things happen overseas, there is often a reaction against Muslims locally. So, from around 2015 and onwards, we could feel that there was an increase in the level of negativity, such as people yelling at you, not serving you well in a store, making unpleasant comments in the classroom. And we know that Muslim women are particularly targeted since they are more visible with their hijab.

Q. So, especially after 2015, one could foresee or perhaps expect a terrorist attack against Muslims, given the rise of social media where anti-Muslim sentiments spread instantly. Could you elaborate on this?

This is where the chapter in the life of the terrorist is quite important. Brenton Tarrant grew up in Australia. As is common in many terrorist profiles, there was family violence in his childhood and, in this case, Tarrant experienced violence from a partner of his mother to the extent that they had to seek legal protection against him.

Tarrant grew up in an environment where there was a lot of anti-Muslim talk in the media and in the political realm; he grew up during the John Howard years when there was a lot of negative commentary in the media against Muslims.

Consequently, in March 2017, we met with high-ranking officials and discussed the rise of white supremacy, far right extremism, and the neo-Nazi movement. We found that they were becoming more organized in New Zealand. We felt that they were more active but, of course, we are a community organization, so we couldn’t collect statistics or data as evidence. All that we could present were reports of incidents from Muslim women.

We also met with the Minister for the Secret Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security Bureau, which are the agencies that engage in intelligence gathering activities for counterterrorism. We told the Minister that we are concerned by events overseas and domestic, and that we wanted to be assured that the agencies are taking care of such a threat.

At that time, in March 2017, we were told not to worry, that it was only an overseas problem, and it was not a particular problem in New Zealand. Clearly in the Minister’s mind, it was not perceived as a threat.

Q. In line with your last remark, what drew my attention in the report is that the Commission admits on page 15 that “the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service had concentrated its scarce counter-terrorism resources on the threat of Islamist extremist terrorism.” Do you think that this contributed to the attack on the Christchurch mosques not being properly foreseen?

Yes, what we see in the report is that the state agencies were focusing on “Islamist extremism.” Due to their overseas partnerships, they received intelligence mostly about one particular type of extremism. As New Zealand is a small country, they didn’t have tools for complicated intelligence activities, at least not until 2018.

But what is disappointing in the report is that intelligence services were not looking for far-right extremist or white supremacist threats. Consequently, there was nobody to be held accountable before the incident happened.

Why do we have security and intelligence services if they are unable to prevent attacks like this? We believe that if they had been vigilant to different types of extremisms in the country, they would have stood a chance to prevent the Christchurch attack. We are deeply disappointed with this finding in the report.

Q. How well do you think the findings in the report expose the dreadful incident? Do you believe the new measures are sufficient to tackle the existing challenges and help reduce the risk of future attacks?

The report’s time scope is very limited. We do not have an inquiry by the Australian government on the terrorist Brenton Tarrant’s life and the stages of his radicalization. We know that by January 2017, his sister had concerns for his mental health.

We know that in December 2018, a couple of months before the terrorist attack, his mother came to visit him in New Zealand and she had significant concerns about him, with regards to his views and his state of mind. These examples show the stages of radicalization. If he had got the appropriate help at that time, maybe something could have been different.

The bigger question is how we prevent people from going down this path of extreme hate

The report states that there are many people making similar hateful comments so there is nothing that makes a person like him special. However, the number of hateful comments was so high. I don’t know how the government monitors hate speech.

It is clear that such a high level of hate speech and threats did not alarm the government agencies. But we need to stop people going down that track. So, the bigger question is how we prevent people from going down this path of extreme hate.

Q. What about the role of biases in impeding your efforts to warn the government for a potential upcoming threat?

When we spoke to high-level state officials in 2017, they did not take our experiences into account. And I think this is somehow linked to their biased view that Muslim women are “weak” and “submissive.” They just did not take us seriously and this needs to change.

Yes, we are still able to speak to the government, to speak to ministers or civil servants, and express ourselves in the media. Also, when the report came out, we had the opportunity to share our views and to speak clearly about the things that we were unhappy with. And I think, for me, as a Muslim, our duty is to make the effort. You are there to make sure that they are accountable to your community.

Q. In the report, it is frequently stated that New Zealand is home to Muslim communities and that Muslims should feel safe there. How do you feel today as a Muslim woman in New Zealand?

Despite everything, I do not think I would live anywhere else. New Zealand is still one of the safest countries. The response by the country to the attacks was overwhelmingly positive.

Every mosque in the country had thousands of visitors, people kept coming, brought gifts, flowers, and as if they were our neighbors and friends, they sincerely asked what they could do or how they could support us.

Yes, all the concerns that I addressed are still there. There are people who are being radicalized, going down the path of hate in social media. The systemic and institutional discrimination is still there. But for me, this is my country, and this is my home. I do not belong anywhere else.

French president Emmanuel Macron gives a positive definition of laicism: “Laicism is the freedom to believe or not believe. The freedom to practice religion as long as it doesn’t disrupt public order, which is guaranteed by the state. And this is the cement of a united France.”

Macron stresses again and again, “The problem and the danger is separatist Islamism.” But when he says, “We cannot victimize Muslims with the stigmatization of polemicists and extremists,” he actually spills the beans! Since right-wing extremists are not the soldiers of laicism and what they practice is cultural racism, when we look at the discourse of the president we see that the problem is precisely “a matter of identity, conditions of being proper French.”

Whatever this being French is, in Algeria under French colonial rule those who took off their headscarves and became Catholic or fought against their own people in the French army in order to overcome half-citizenship status, never really became French. But the state still tries nevertheless. The first thing to do was to ban and impose sanctions on practices of Islam as much as possible. We will be able to see these in the bill of December 9, “115 years after the 1905 Act” as the president says. One article has already been revealed.

According to the bill of Minister of Interior Darmanin, if a man or a woman rejects being examined by a doctor of the opposite sex, they will be sentenced to imprisonment of up to five years and a fine of 75,000 euros. Yet, France recognizes Catholic doctors’ right to decline to perform abortions because of their religious beliefs. No matter how firm and strict a state is, like France’s authority today aimed at Muslims, how close can it get to reaching its goal by banning or punishing?

The French president is clearly serious when he talks about getting to the bottom of the issue. Whatever is deemed to be incompatible with the republic, regarding the beliefs and practices of Muslims must be eradicated. How can that be? A French Islam will be invented, everything suspected to be incompatible with the republic will be assumed foreign.

As a matter of fact, Macron means this when he says, “Islam will be freed from foreign influences, imams from other countries won’t come to France,” and “[i]mams fully compatible with the values of the republic will be trained in France.”

Just like François Hollande, Macron thinks there were no Muslims in France when the 1905 Act, which is considered to be the foundation of laicism, was enacted. However, Madagascar and Algeria were French colonies at the time. Ultimately, France did not need a protocol similar to the agreement with the Catholics to define its relationship with Muslims at the time for the addressees were not citizens!

Macron keeps saying that Muslims came “to our land” during the 1960s-70s. The expression “our land” reveals the fact that Muslims are not accepted as “real” French citizens.

Today, Macron once again echoes the fact that Muslims were not accepted as French citizens when he says Muslims came during the 1960s-70s and keeps using the expression “to our land.” It is debatable whether he is aware of it or not, but it seems he wants a hierarchical Islamic structure similar to Catholicism.