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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.

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.

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.

November 11, 2001 marked the beginning of an era of American terror – an era of reckless massacre, carpet bombing, pillage and rape, and the use of radioactive weaponry against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. The War on Terror expanded into Georgia, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen, Eretria, and programs like extraordinary rendition were active in collaboration with oppressive, tortuous regimes across the Muslim world.

The U.S. government intelligence agencies tapped into foreign government, social circles, and religious networks abroad to mass gather information in pursuit of political and military warfare. Reflectively, the U.S. government organized and executed a discriminatory, racist, anti-Muslim security and surveillance apparatus that (to this day) targets, monitors and entraps Muslims on the basis of their religious identity and practice.

Government programs like the Patriot Act, which Biden has taken credit for establishing the foundation of, greatly expanded the surveillance capabilities of U.S. law enforcement agencies in the pursuit of identifying threats to national security. This was weaponized and translated into the political imprisonment of community leaders like Dr. Sami al-Arian, the first to be charged under the Patriot Act.

As a Palestinian Muslim, he was targeted by the U.S. government for advocating for Palestinian human rights. The targeting of Muslims through discriminatory domestic policy is aligned with America’s foreign policy interests, as seen in the hyper-surveillance and targeting of Palestinians to protect Israel’s (fracturing) hegemony of support in American government and society.

Under the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security relaunched the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program as the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) program. CVE and TVTP trains teachers, mental health workers, imams and others to use faulty social science and racialized indicators to identify those who are supposedly vulnerable to ‘radicalization’ within the Muslim community. The government maps and tracks religious, political, and social activity across Muslim communities.

For example, NYPD agents would document how often Muslims students prayed during school trips, which Egyptian businesses shut their doors for daily prayers, which restaurants would show al-Jazeera, and which Newark businesses sold halal products and alcohol.

According to law enforcement documents, the NYPD post-9/11 eyed and interpreted signs of Muslim religiosity as ‘radicalization.’ For example, NYPD agents would document how often Muslims students prayed during school trips, which Egyptian businesses shut their doors for daily prayers, which restaurants would show al-Jazeera, and which Newark businesses sold halal products and alcohol.

The report Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spring and its Impact on American Muslims outlines how the NYPD surveillance program, as a case study on the impacts of the American surveillance system as a whole, has suppressed religious practice, stifled speech and association, sowed suspicion and distrust, and censored student activists in the Muslim community.

Sowing Distrust and Fracturing Brotherhood

The surveillance of Muslims and the Muslim community at large is often done through the hiring of informants. Informants are people who are typically already in a position to know or learn information from the target individual or community. They can make up to $100,000 annually, and some are hired in exchange for legal favors; such as dismissing criminal charges or expediting immigration proceedings.

As Muslims are overwhelmingly aware of the heightened surveillance of their communities, many Muslims have admitted to being more hesitant to create new relationships with new members like converts.

Since 2009, paid FBI informants have played a ‘central role’ in nearly 50% of all domestic terrorism cases. The known presence of informants in the Muslim community, both at colleges and mosques, has raised suspicion in meeting new people, the development of political and social programming, and maintaining the unity and trust among community.

As Muslims are overwhelmingly aware of the heightened surveillance of their communities, many Muslims have admitted to being more hesitant to create new relationships with new members like converts, and there is greater suspicion around those who express politically or socially radical views. 

Political Censorship

Muslims have also reported self-censorship in discussing mainstream political issues among themselves – cafe owners have admitted to refraining from broadcasting Arabic news channels in cafes, and Muslim students admit to altering language, including regular clarifications and qualifiers when discussing current affairs.

To be coerced to speak in a way that would be pleasing to the government or the average American is to shape the very language to causes native to Muslims and Islam – and this will have long-term implications. The neutering of political speech and advocacy creates a ‘controlled opposition’ to racist and imperial domestic and foreign policy. This restricts Muslims from openly referencing how Islam informs our plight for justice and our political, social, and economic actions against injustice.

How are Muslim communities guarding themselves?

In response to the state targeting religious spaces and networks, numerous human rights and civil rights organizations have emerged in educating and advocating for the Muslim community. Organizations like the Center for Constitutional Rights, CLEAR, the Coalition for Civil Freedoms, the Muslim Legal Fund of America, CLCMA, and CAIR provide educational and legal resources to equip mosques, student organizations, religious centers, and individuals to protect themselves and their communities.

Muslims and Muslim organizations continue to organize and mobilize against the injustice inflicted upon our communities and families domestically and abroad, while facing backlash from the government, U.S. allies, and non-government actors; all invested in the Islamophobia industry and the hindrance of a united Muslim society in the U.S.

In attempting to fracture our communities, sow distrust and suspicion, and censor our political and religious language – the government is recognizing brotherhood and dialogue as the most powerful tools for organizing our community. To continue to build strong relationships with one another and engage in creative and honest discussion on the issues that plague us locally and nationally, internally and externally, is what will protect and strengthen the Muslim community from the act of terror that is government surveillance in America.

On February 15, an internal draft report prepared by the National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV) working under the Ministry of Justice and Security in the Netherlands was leaked to the HP/De Tijd, a Dutch-language monthly opinion magazine.

The draft report is entitled “The Development of Salafism among Turks in the Netherlands.” According to the report, the NCTV is concerned by the rise of Salafism among Dutch Turks living in the Netherlands. The report has not yet been signed by the country’s security services and related ministries. However, it created a reaction in the Netherlands due to biasness, factual mistakes, and the overall ignorance of the analysts employed by the NCTV.

The NCTV claims that there is a possible connection between Erdoğan’s “anti-Western rhetoric” and a tram terror attack in Utrecht in 2019, in which four people were killed by Gökmen Tanış. The draft report claims that Turks may be “vulnerable” and open to influence from Turkey and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It also claims that the Turkish President is following a Salafi Islamization strategy, which may further influence Dutch Turks.

Salafism 

The NCTV draft report argues that the Islamic movement of Salafism originated in Saudi Arabia and has now a huge base of supporters in Turkey. It is claimed that Turkish organizations such as Milli Görüş and the “Turkish Muslim Brotherhood” – if the latter has ever existed – have ideologically merged.

The report further alleges that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a secret agenda and ambition to represent himself as the “leader of the Sunni Muslims” by 2023, the centennial anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. This in all in line with his plot to turn Turkey into an Islamic state.

The draft report raises other issues as well in regards to the Salafist organizations in Turkey that are claimed to have “strong ties” with Turkish-Dutch (youth) organizations in the Netherlands. The draft report allegedly claims that these organizations, having close relationships with Turkish preachers, have become more involved in Salafism in recent years, which the NCTV associates with jihadism.

The report warns about domestic radicalization through social media and the rise of Salafism in the country. It further alleges that the Turkish government provides leeway to Salafist-jihadist organizations, such as the IBDA-C (The Great Eastern Islamic Raiders’ Front) and the Kaplan movement led by Metin Kaplan, and indirectly supports specific groups in Syria, such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

The draft report, in fact, mysteriously omits the fact that both the IBDA-C and the Kaplan movement have been on Turkey’s terror watch list for almost a decade. On the contrary, according to research by the Dutch Nieuwsuur and Trouw (Dutch: Nieuwsuur en Trouw) news agencies that conducted the investigation, the Dutch government itself supported Jabhat al-Shamiya, an armed group in Syria, which the public prosecutor in the Netherlands labeled as terrorist.

The Utrecht terrorist attack of 2019

The NCTV argues that President Erdoğan’s condemnation of the far-right terrorist attacks on Muslims in Christchurch in 2019 might have played a role in Gökmen Tanış’s radicalization and plans to organize an attack in the Netherlands. The terrorist attack in Utrecht killed four civilians. The attack took place a day after “Erdoğan’s anti-Western media appearance,” the analysis claims. After the shooting on March 18, 2019, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) revealed the text which was written on the weapon. According to the sources of Radio Television Luxembourg (RTL), the firearm and silencer had the following statement written on them, “Those who follow Sharia go to paradise. Whoever follows democracy goes to hell. You kill people who are Muslims. And Allah lets me kill you…” (translated from Dutch).

However, the 37-year-old Turkish-born Gökmen Tanış, who had been intermittently addicted to hard drugs and alcohol, was a supporter of Metin Kaplan and expressed his hate towards the Turkish president several times. The claim that Tanış might have been inspired by Erdoğan to organize an attack is, therefore, baseless and exposes the authors’ biases.

Although the draft report immediately received heavy criticism for factual mistakes and inaccuracies, anti-Turkey politicians in the Netherlands, led by the far-right leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) Geert Wilders, suggested that the draft report proved his argument and justified his anti-Turkey and anti-Erdoğan sentiments. On the same evening, Wilders published a cartoon on Twitter illustrating half of President Erdoğan’s face on a Turkish flag and the other half on the banner of DAESH (ISIS) with the word “terrorist” written on it.

Harming bilateral relations?

Following the Dutch-Turkish diplomatic crisis of 2017, the two countries have set the aim of improving their bilateral relations. On January 26, 2021, the eighth meeting of the Turkish-Dutch Bilateral Wittenburg Conference was held. The conference bode well. The ministers of the two nations exchanged views on various issues including trade and innovation as well as their common concerns regarding their fight against terrorism.

Under the influence of right-wing extremism in Western Europe, it’s no longer surprising for political parties to look for fabricated reasons to ignite enmity and polarization, and in this manner gather support. However, there are confusing questions in regard to the draft report. For example, how was the draft report leaked to the press? Why was the draft report by the NCTV leaked to the media a month before the Dutch general elections?

The NCTV’s draft report has a potential to impact the Dutch-Turkish community negatively. Recently, political parties demanded a clarification from Ferdinand Grapperhaus, the Minister of Justice and Security, on how this “unfinished” report could have been leaked. Grapperhaus said the final report will be published in a few months and at that time, the ministries and the security services can express their views and opinions on the report.

As China’s leaders steer their country to the center of world affairs, they are becoming increasingly frightened. They fear encirclement by hostile neighbors and distant enemies. They fear disloyalty from their own citizenry, especially the talented youth who are intrigued by foreign cultures. Above all, China’s political elites fear one another. Treachery at the very top—where raw power carries the gravest dangers—that is the constant terror of party and military factions who see every crack in their facade of unity as an omen of sudden collapse, a long-dreaded Chinese sequel to the fall of the Soviet Union.

When China’s rulers feel that control is slipping through their fingers, they focus on two nemeses that seem to generate the deepest troubles—the United States and the Islamic world. After decades of ambiguity, Sino-American relations have fallen into a downward spiral with no end in sight. Their disputes are far-reaching and mutually reinforcing. Even if compromise emerges on a single issue—trade or climate change—it can’t forestall confrontation in countless other areas, especially military deployments and human rights.

Long-term antagonism with the United States shapes Beijing’s thinking at every level, leading to the securitization of all politics—foreign and domestic. Issues that could once be seen as primarily economic or religious are now viewed through the lenses of police and military headquarters. This shift in perspective has profoundly altered China’s attitudes to Islam and to Muslim societies. Inside of China, the regime has reimagined Islam as a menace instead of a national resource. At the same time, across Asia and Africa, Chinese leaders have chosen to back repressive governments that portray political dissent as the work of “Islamic” terrorists.

These alliances are a sharp break from China’s previous efforts to avoid deep involvement in Muslims’ regional and national quarrels. A long decade of revolutions and civil wars made those disputes more tumultuous precisely as Beijing launched its Belt and Road Initiative, popularly known as the New Silk Road.

In response, China’s rulers turned their view of the Muslim world upside down. At first, the lands of Islam were supposed to create a bridge spreading Chinese power into Europe, the Indian Ocean, and Africa. Instead, warring Muslim societies seemed to morph into a set of spears aimed at China’s heartland through its ever vulnerable western and northern frontiers.

The specter of dual encroachments—American from the sea and Islamic from the land—is animating a growing belligerence in China’s behavior in world affairs and toward its own people.

The specter of dual encroachments—American from the sea and Islamic from the land—is animating a growing belligerence in China’s behavior in world affairs and toward its own people. After Mao, Chinese diplomacy followed a patient opportunism, assuming that international peace would encourage domestic development, eventually creating a stronger nation that could assert itself more confidently in contests for global leadership. Today that patience has disappeared—replaced by a sense that time is running out because China’s enemies are determined to halt its rise while they still have the power to prevail.

This is the misguided logic that seems to justify—indeed, compel—massive assaults on domestic freedoms that prudent defenders of the status quo would normally regard as self-defeating. Sure enough, Beijing’s campaigns of repression have already provoked backlashes from several directions at once. Western and Islamic governments, global human rights advocates, and United Nations bodies are censoring Chinese officials with greater boldness by the day.

Chinese people who once looked forward to wider freedom—like Hong Kong they often said—now see their future foreshadowed in the surveillance state of Xinjiang. The persecution of religion extends beyond Uighurs to Muslims in general and to all worshipers outside of state-control. And religion is just one of many basic liberties vanishing across the mainland.

Freedoms of speech, association, and legal representation are non-existent for most of the population. Even party members are prohibited from gathering in groups of three of more without prior permission—a sure sign that the supreme leaders trust no one, including their professed allies.

Most damaging of all is the growing hostility against ordinary Chinese citizens who travel abroad to study, work, and shop.

Most damaging of all, however, is the growing hostility against ordinary Chinese citizens who travel abroad to study, work, and shop. More and more, they discover that their nation is further than ever from enjoying the international respect they have craved for generations and hoped was finally in their reach. The sting is particularly painful in the Islamic world. Chinese people in all walks of life are feeling the disdain of Muslims in one country after another—lands where they until a few years ago they were unknown or welcome curiosities.

The revulsion is sharpest in the vernacular press and online media across Asia and Africa. In Indonesian, Malay, Urdu, Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, audiences gasp at a flood of films, photos, interviews, police records, and data sets—all testifying to cruelties too shocking to ignore.

Time after time, citizens learn that the inhumane treatment of Chinese Muslims is enabled by open collaboration of their own governments, the very politicians who try to outdo one another in claiming world leadership of Islam as a political and ethical force for creating a more just society.

These shifts in public opinion are perilous for rulers in the Islamic world as well as China. Silk Road dreams for hemispheric integration are dimming as great powers scramble for spheres of influence. China and Russia continue to pry Europe away from the Atlantic alliance, but they increase the risk of entrapment in new proxy wars across Asia and Africa.

In a quest for geopolitical advantage, China is casting its lot with the most despised reactionaries of Islamdom—the predatory generals of Egypt and Syria, the feuding tyrants of the Persian Gulf, and the fossilized police states of Central Asia. The overt persecution of political and religious dissent demolishes any pretense that Beijing will nourish the universalistic values of Chinese civilization to fashion a more ethical global order.

Having chosen such a calamitous course, China’s rulers will find it difficult to reverse direction. Limits on candid debate greatly reduce the possibilities of auto-correction or anything resembling political learning. The result is a drastic impoverishment of Chinese statecraft precisely when it most needs to help manage global crises instead of aggravating them.

Islamophobia is on the rise everywhere in Europe, and politicians increasingly play with Islamophobic sentiments for political gains. Following the discernibly hostile rhetoric of French President Emmanuel Macron against the Muslim communities in France, Faruk Yaslicimen and Nihan Duran interviewed French sociologist Raphael Liogier, professor at Sciences Po Aix (Institut d’Études Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence) and visiting scholar at Colombia University, on the history and current state of Islamophobia in France.

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Q. French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent rhetoric and acts targeting Muslims have aroused a lot of controversy not only in France but also in the global public. Where are we now with the eminent rise of Islamophobia?

Islamophobia emerged in the 20th century in Europe, but the very nature of this Islamophobia has changed over the last decade. It is not a change only in intensity, it is a change in the very nature of what Islamophobia is now. Today, we don’t have Islamophobia, but Islamo-paranoia in France.

Because when you are in a paranoid state, it is very different. You think there is a plot, you presume that there is an intention. The very presumption justifies the action. Because whatever the reaction could be of the Muslim community, we always think that they are constantly at war with us. That is the reason why it would be more accurate to call it Islamo-paranoia rather than Islamophobia.

Q. You talk extensively about the transformation from Islamophobia to Islamo-paranoia. Can you date this back to a certain sequence of events or time? When did it start and how did we get here?

It is a collective paranoia, which is borne out of a narcissistic wound. This means that you think you are losing something narcissistically, you are losing the image of yourself, the image you want to show to others, to the rest of the world.

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; again, I am using the psychological metaphor. And, anti-Islamism, which exists in some parts of the world is directly fed, even constructed, through this complex.

Europe was like the center of the world and what we see throughout the 20th and 21st centuries is the loss of this centrality. The first was the military loss at the beginning of the 20th century.

We [Europeans] lost centrality to the United States of America. But still, until 2003, we had something, we kept our symbolic preeminence, meaning that Europe was still supposed to be the land of human rights, or some kind of moral power.

But in 2003, something incredible happened. The U.S. decided to go to war with Iraq without European powers for the first time. They did not even ask them. And when they talked to them, they talked to them as if they were a colony, not a real ally.

That was the moment when there was some kind of a reversal in the European conscience in general, that created the feeling of being surrounded by enemies. And if you look at it precisely, you can see that all the political parties, which we call the new populist parties were either founded or developed this very year of 2003. All across Europe, these new political parties were anti-Muslim. They all have the same program.

Q. Can you give some examples of these?

The French Front National, for example. It already existed. But from 2003 onward, it changed its ideology completely. Before it was recognized more as an anti-Semite far-right party, but now it turned to an anti-Muslim party. What is more interesting is that this party had an anti-laicity stance before 2003, and after 2003, it became a guardian of laicity, completely the opposite. In the meantime, laicity changed its meaning.

Before 2003, laicity meant the freedom of expression in the public space. Well, laicity stands for that, right? It doesn’t stand to prevent people from expressing their religion; it is to allow people to express their beliefs and opinions.

That is the reason why we have the neutrality. Not at all the neutrality of people, but of the state. 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.

So, we changed completely. In 2004, you can see the act of parliament to prevent the scarf, the simple scarf, in public schools in France. Similar acts reflect the picture all over Europe; and there is something strange with the laicity in France. It is becoming the object of our narcissistic anxiety.

The target is now Muslims. Why? Because Muslims have a peculiar definition in our minds: enemies of the Christian culture, and enemies of modernity and progress.

We are losing something, but we do not know what specifically we are losing and therefore, we need to find a target. And the target is Muslims. Why? Because Muslims have a peculiar definition in our minds: enemies of the Christian culture on the one hand, and enemies of modernity and progress on the other. Thus, you can mobilize masses, both from the right Christian conservative electorates and from the left progressivist electorates.

Q. This is where a deep sense of antagonism in the French society emerges, right?

This is related to the other argument that Muslims see themselves as Muslim first, hence, they value their citizenship less than their Muslim identity. Sometimes on the radio during prime-time shows or in widely read magazines, Muslims are depicted as people who think deep inside that they are Muslims first, and French second.

I remember I watched a film, where they go to a depo in a “secret” place. I myself went to this kind of place with my students and it is no secret. So, in the film, the camera is showing shadowy scenes and there are people with beards, face veils, and headscarves everywhere – quite a scene! And while we watch this on TV, a person in the film says, “If the French law prevents me from practicing my religion, I will not obey.”

Aha! A tremendous scandal against the French republic, and people who are watching immediately react “Look at that! It is awful. If a French law will prevent him from practicing his religion, he will not obey and therefore, he is betraying the republic,” or “He is against the republic.”

Religion is the most intimate thing in our lives, so I find it completely crazy to say “oh, they betray the country” just because they say they choose their faith over a political system. I think it is quite the opposite. And now we are coming to what is happening now.

If one day, the French state, the republic, enacts that people cannot practice their religion freely, and that I cannot practice my religion in the public space, I won’t have any problem with disobeying this law, because it means this state is not a republic anymore.

Due to our imagination of who a Muslim is supposed to be, we are “able” to create a sense of unity. So, we know against whom we can fight. This happened after 2003 in the very structure of the discourses we use.

We presume that Muslims have a plan for France. In such a paranoid state of mind, you’re allowed to do anything to protect yourself. You can react and be violent because whatever you do will always be less violent than what they plan behind closed doors.

Q. Do you think this is a strategic move for the upcoming election?

I know, because I know Macron’s advisors and I talk to them. I examined his program in detail before he was elected. And it was almost symmetrically the opposite of what he is doing now. He just believes in the economy. And I think he wanted sincerely to change the economy in France step by step. And suddenly an identity crisis has popped up on his way.

Following the terrorist attack in Paris in October 2019, he changed his discourse, because he knows well that waging a tight war against terrorism can give him the chance to unite larger numbers of people behind him.

At first, he did not pay attention to mosques or to the questions of the veil and all that. He left it to the other members of his government. But it seems that his political advisors convinced him that if he wanted to win the election, he could not carry on the way he used to, and thus Macron took the issue at hand. He knows that the majority of the French population is concerned with these issues, so, he tries to anticipate what they would expect from him.

Q. You say that there is a recent change in the discourse and the overall attitude of President Macron regarding the Muslim community in France. How does this resonate with the French public?

The problem is that the French public is completely immersed in this paranoia. There is some kind of a theater, a tragic one. In the scenario, there are different roles and functions for different actors. You have these populists, saying “the real” French people are in danger. These real and good citizens are in danger. And, in front of them, you invent, “the fake” people, the enemy, the Muslims.

You are either a hero or a betrayer. You cannot be both. It is impossible. Macron was about to become a betrayer. Now, he wants to become the hero again.

So, we found the enemy, right? Now, you need to have heroes. Then, journalists as well as politicians have to choose their sides, whether they are with the “real people” or they are with the “fake” ones. So, you are either the hero or the betrayer. You cannot be both. It is impossible. And Macron was about to become a betrayer. Now, he wants to become the hero again, because otherwise, they will think he is with the “enemy.”

And so, to answer your question precisely, what is preoccupying me is not Macron because he is just a politician. He knows, and he is right, that he cannot be elected if he carries on not caring about the collective anxiety of losing French identity, because he will be perceived as a betrayer and will not be elected because the majority of the French people consider themselves as the “real people” in danger by the “fake people.” I am sorry to say that, but that is the case.

Q. The division seems so deep. Do you think there is a way to overcome these problems? How can France start to debate this from the right angle?

The first thing we should do is to stop talking all the time about Islam. Because when we comment on Islam, we are discussing Islam per se, and not the Muslim people. But we are just manifesting our own complexes. So, this is the first thing.

Secondly, to ease our socio-psychological tensions, we should stop looking for a reason outside and we need to have public debates to address this very complex issue. We should accept that we are not at the center of the world anymore. We feel weak, but we pretend to be strong externally.

By doing that, we are spending our energy in an extremely useless way and not even addressing the real problems of what is happening here and now. It is pointless. So, what are we scared of? We are scared of our own shadow.

Raphael Liogier is a professor at Sciences Po Aix (Institut d’Études Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence), visiting scholar at Colombia University, and the author of numerous books. Among them are The Myth of Islamization: Essay on a Collective Obsession (2012, Turkish edition is published by Epos in 2012), and The War of Civilization Will Not Take Place: Coexistence and Violence in the XXI Century (2016, Spanish edition, 2017; Arabic edition, 2018). His research focuses on identity, religious identities, collective identities, identity reactions including populism, and how people deal with identity by excluding the identity of others.

According to the official French narrative, the “values ​​of the Republic” express the citizens’ affiliation to the country and their perception of themselves. Therefore, the concept of the nation is inherent in the concept of the “Republic.”

The French concept of the “Republic” is not limited to the abstract political system and its institutions; it also evokes historical moments and symbols dating back to the French Revolution and with it comes a package of values, meanings, ideas, charters, and legislation.

On this basis, specific values and intellectual commitments are presented as conditional to the French identity, defining whether one belongs to the “French nation” or is excluded from French society. Currently, French Muslims are subjected to this trial.

In a speech on October 2, 2020, President Emmanuel Macron coined the term “Islamic separatism” by stating that the Muslim suburbs, which he described as “ghettos,” have been witnessing a tendency to secede from the Republic. He then asked the representatives of Muslim institutions in France, when he summoned them on November 18, to illustrate their commitment to a “charter of republican values” and sign it within a few days. He stipulated the inclusion of specific contents in this charter, one of which was to strictly define Islam as a belief and not a political movement.

It should be noted that Macron exclusively asked the Muslim citizens of France to declare this special loyalty to the Republic by resorting to drawing up this new charter — as if the general charters and legal texts do not suffice or make an exception for Muslims citizens, like for instance the Charte de laïcité, which has been present in every classroom for years.

The campaign against “separatism” does not target mosques alone; it also pursues civil society organizations such as the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), an organization that works against racism and discrimination.

In the context of the 2013 debate revolving around Islam and Muslims, warnings were raised about secularism being “under threat” and that “the values ​​of the Republic are in danger.”

This resulted in the “secularism charter” being issued for schools. However, the political values, which emphasize the strict separation of religion and politics, did not prevent senior French politicians from dictating a specific direction of religious practice and Muslim presence, enforced through a Council of Imams that would allow control, for example, of the sites of the imamah and the rhetoric in mosques.

The above official orders are accompanied by the cultural examination and placement of French Muslims, their mosques, and institutions under the political microscope, and successive announcements of the closure of dozens of their institutions and mosques.

The campaign against “separatism” does not target mosques alone; it also pursues civil society organizations such as the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), an organization that works against racism and discrimination.

These developments came in the context of a wave of heightened populism that has been mounting in France since the end of the summer of 2020. On September 17, for instance, deputies boycotted a parliament meeting attended by Maryam Pougetoux, the president of the Students’ Union at the Paris-Sorbonne University (UNEF), because she is a Muslim who wears a headscarf, which allegedly contradicts the stipulated “values ​​of the Republic.”

This coincided with the start of the trial against those accused of carrying out the Charlie Hebdo attack, and the satirical newspaper’s continued publication of comics that are insulting to Muslims and their beliefs.

Following this, a number of bloody assaults took place, including the brutal murder of a French teacher and the killings in Notre-Dame de Nice by a homeless man who had just entered the country a few days prior to the attack.

One of the possible interpretations of “separatism” in this context includes some aspects of cultural diversity and the right to difference.

However, this concept of “separatism” is hazy and loose, raising the fear that it could be abused by politicians and the executive bodies in a country where the extreme right is aggressively rising and trying to sweep the elections.

One of the possible interpretations of “separatism” in this context includes some aspects of cultural diversity and the right to difference. In any case, it is clear that some of the leading French elites are used to showing discontent with manifestations of diversity in the public sphere. Even the former French Minister of the Interior Gerard Collomb described the appearance of Pougetoux on a French television screen on May 19, 2018 as a “shocking matter” due to her being “different from French society.”

There are clear contradictions emerging from this cultural campaign of the new ruling class in France that mixes political and electoral interests and politically aligned business leaders and entrepreneurs.

The most evident example is that the same government that speaks of freedom is now seeking to restrict other freedoms and expand the powers of the police and security forces, causing nationwide fear and protest.

The brutal attack on the black music producer Michel Zecler on November 21 was a shocking point in this development, since the recorded incident brought to mind the persistent complaints of suburban residents in regard to police brutality and the suspected racist motives behind it.

Freedom of expression as a public value has increasingly been stressed during the cultural escalation in France, especially since the armed attack on the Charlie Hebdo office in 2015. At the time, President François Hollande rallied with world leaders in a march that was also joined by French Muslims and representatives of their institutions despite the fact that they were being targeted by the humiliating comics in the satirical newspaper.

These comics together with the slogan “Je suis Charlie” turned into a cultural expression linked to the values ​​of the Republic. However, the unprecedented emphasis on freedom of expression has paradoxically been accompanied by increasing insults and contempt directed at Muslims and their religion, with officials not expressing the slightest discomfort about these offenses.

Invoking freedom of expression in this selective manner has placed the French official discourse in a crisis of credibility. The French leadership ignores the reference to this freedom in other situations and does not welcome content that does not suit its taste – in fact, it even resorts to measures to curb it.

Marco Perolini, a discrimination and racism researcher at Amnesty International, wrote, “The French government is not the champion of free speech that it likes to think it is.”

Within a context of international Islamophobia and the persecution of Muslim populations in many countries, it has become more and more commonplace amongst Muslims to lament the lack of unity in the ummah, the global community of believers.

Many Muslim rulers seem all too ready to neglect solidarity with Muslims for the sake of narrowly defined national interests.

Certainly, the most prominent example is Palestine. Despite unrelenting Israeli colonization and the entrenchment of apartheid, several important Muslim countries have taken the bold step of normalizing relations with Israel, and appear to be abandoning the Palestinian cause.

Unfortunately however, Palestine is far from the only example. A number of Muslim countries in Southeast Asia have pushed back boats of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar.

Meanwhile, the governments of many Muslim countries have shied away from criticizing China for its cultural genocide of the Uyghur people in Xinyang, where Muslims are openly targeted for imprisonment and “re-education” for praying, avoiding pork and alcohol, or fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.

Despite these violations, no Muslim state joined an initiative in July 2019, when 23 countries sent a letter to the president of the UN Human Rights Council demanding action against China.

Far from campaigning for the rights of Muslims, Muslim states sided with the oppressor.

Indeed, four days later, 27 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) signed a counter letter, praising “China’s remarkable achievements in the field of human rights,” and thanking it for its firm measures against “religious extremism.” Far from campaigning for the rights of Muslims, in other words, Muslim states sided with the oppressor.

However, the situation is not completely grim. In November 2019, Gambia, with the support of the OIC, filed a genocide case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The case is ongoing, but the evidence of genocide committed by the Myanmar military is overwhelming, and the court has already ruled in favor of Gambia’s request for provisional measures.

Many historians note that, outside of the earliest days of Islam, the Muslim ummah has never truly functioned as a unified political entity as a result of the state-based international system being deeply entrenched. The ummah has always been predominantly a spiritual community of believers, not a political force.

Gambia, a West African country many thousands of kilometers away from Myanmar, took the case to the ICJ. This shows that Muslim countries can act in solidarity to advance the rights of Muslims, even when their national interests are not directly at stake.

Nevertheless, that does not preclude the possibility of creating a strengthened ummah, unified in the face of current challenges. The question is one of political will.

In this regard, the Gambia case is an important precedent.

The fact that Gambia, a West African country many thousands of kilometers away from Myanmar, took the case to the ICJ shows that Muslim countries can act in solidarity to advance the rights of Muslims, even when their national interests are not directly at stake.

What is needed urgently is a rethinking of what the ummah should look like in today’s world, and of the concrete framework and institutions that need to be built.

Freedom of movement

International legal standards protecting the rights of refugees and other migrants are sorely inadequate, with millions – more and more of whom are Muslim – unable to secure protection from human rights violations.

Liberal citizenship is also being weakened as Islamophobic policies in many countries target Muslim minority communities for exclusion. A new, modern ummah can and should act as a counterforce to these trends, and put forward a more inclusive form of citizenship: a Muslim citizenship that would allow all believers access to safety.

It is proposed that Muslim countries should issue common travel documents, providing freedom of movement. Similar to the EU, any citizen would be allowed to enter, reside, and work in any other Islamic bloc country, with equal rights and duties as citizens of that country.

Refugees from Muslim countries would automatically have the right to protection, not as a refugee with the limited rights that often entails, but as a citizen of the ummah. Borders within the Islamic bloc would, for most practical purposes, cease to exist.

This is the case in the EU, and while progress has not been linear (and the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in some steps back), it is clear that the EU is moving toward a form of common citizenship that will transcend individual states.

Refugees from Muslim countries would automatically have the right to protection, not as a refugee with the limited rights that often entails, but as a citizen of the ummah. Borders within the Islamic bloc would, for most practical purposes, cease to exist.

This is the case in the EU, and while progress has not been linear (and the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in some steps back), it is clear that the EU is moving toward a form of common citizenship that will transcend individual states.

What is needed urgently is a rethinking of what the ummah should look like in today’s world, and of the concrete framework and institutions that need to be built.

There are potential pitfalls to this proposal, not least that Islamophobic governments could use it to advance even more exclusionary policies towards Muslims.

Despite this being a serious concern, Muslim countries should not refrain from taking steps towards greater unity simply because of the abusive practices of other states.

Countries that wish to exclude Muslims will, unfortunately, find ways to do so. The first obligation of the Islamic bloc should be to protect other members of the ummah, and to provide them with a safe haven if necessary.

Universal rights

Providing for freedom of movement is only half of the picture, since it would not be able to protect Muslim minorities who are unwilling or unable to leave their country of nationality.

Therefore, the ummah must have effective mechanisms to highlight violations of the rights of Muslims and put effective pressure on abusive governments.

Attempting to continue stale debates on the alleged lack of compatibility of the international human rights regime with Islamic religious laws and values is pointless. Even worse, it plays into the Islamophobic narrative that Islam is incompatible with modern norms.

The undeniable reality is that the vast majority of Muslims everywhere by and large accept the universal validity of international human rights standards.

Contrary to the wishes of their people, many Muslim governments have spent far too much time and energy at international meetings arguing against universal standards in a transparent effort to use religion to deflect criticism of their own oppressive practices.

This has damaged the credibility of those governments and, in the eyes of many, Islam itself.