“Anti Muslim Hatred” is not enough – the word “Islamophobia” is necessary to understand and tackle how anti-Muslim hatred exists and is sustained.
The recent argument claiming that the term Islamophobia is “not fit for purpose” and that we should instead adopt the term “anti-Muslim hatred” in the UK, overlooks the broader, more insidious forms of prejudice Muslims face in the UK today, and their deep-seated cause.
While “anti-Muslim hatred” can highlight direct acts of hostility against Muslims in the UK that may be found to be crimes under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and s.66 of the Sentencing Act 2020, it fails to capture attitudes against Muslims and Islam that is at the root of this hatred.
A closer look at the word Islamophobia
The Oxford Dictionary definition of the word “phobia” is a “horror, strong dislike, or aversion”; it is also “an extreme or irrational fear or dread aroused by a particular object or circumstance”.
Thus, Islamophobia refers to the irrational idea that Muslims and Islam are dangerous or repugnant, and the assumption that the best way to react to these objects is to avoid, expel, exclude or eliminate them.
Put simply, a phobia is a disproportionate response to what the common view interprets as an ordinary object.
Islamophobia is thus an attitude or a “fear or dread” that perpetuates an unfair, unreasonable, or unexpected action that results in harm to Muslims in the UK.
So, Islamophobia refers to more than just a specific act or incident. Although it may encompass acts of anti-Muslim hatred, the acts themselves are driven by perceptions of Muslims that are irrational; that is, they are is not based on reason, logic, or plausible evidence, but only on the negative emotions above.
A non-statutory definition of Islamophobia important for awareness
Importantly, the irrational bias that is Islamophobia manifests in institutional discrimination in the UK, including policies and media bias, which excuse or encourage attitudes that lead to subtle microaggressions.
Microaggressions don’t reach the threshold of anti-Muslim hate crimes, but they do cause harm. They include acts or attitudes that exclude Muslims at different levels of intensity in different settings.
The Aziz Foundation’s Barriers to Bridges report demonstrates that Islamophobia encapsulates more than overt antagonism, but is felt subtly and keenly by Muslims, especially young Muslims entering the workplace.
A 2022 poll by Hyphen and Savanta ComRes interviewed 1500 professional Muslims to find that seven out of 10 (69%) said they had encountered Islamophobia in the workplace.
This happened when engaging with customers, clients or external people (44%) and at work social events (42%), team meetings and gatherings (38%) and when tasks are divided and allocated (37%).
In this context, the term Islamophobia has a broad reach that is important for awareness – both of Muslims as well as non-Muslims – to innate, sometimes subtle, biases that may not amount to criminal hate but that still inflict emotional harm, reinforce exclusion, and perpetuate phobia-based stereotypes that negatively impact Muslim lives.
Islamophobia as ‘a type of racism’
Islamophobia is characterised by assumptions that in our experience at the IRU, and according to the APPG definition of Islamophobia, are often rooted in racism, or at least signposted by it.
Defining Islamophobia as a type of racism acknowledges that racism is often a part of it, and that the attitude is both anti-religious and racist.
This also allows us to more effectively challenge systemic and personal Islamophobia, since these challenges may share some of the methods of anti-racism efforts.
Seeing Islamophobia as both rooted in and akin to racism allows us challenge it in ways that the term “anti-Muslim hatred” fails to do.
Real world examples of Islamophobia
Islamophobia plays out in everyday settings, such as colleagues who over time will shun Muslim staff for abstaining from drinking during social events, or employers who exclude women who wear the hijab from work promotional material or senior positions.
In the public sphere, political and media narratives that rely on or set down negative and false stereotypes about Islam and Muslims in the UK perpetuate and excuse Islamophobia.
In fact – to return to the linguistic meaning – these narratives and policies can even be seen as an attempt to change the common view, into a phobia.
Though not anti-Muslim hatred as such, it can cause it. Thus, Islamophobia includes anti-Muslim hatred, but it also includes attitudes that give rise to it.
A previous parliamentary briefing has even warned that limiting the concept to anti-Muslim hate crimes, ignores how Islamophobia exists in public discourse and structural settings.
Why a working, non-statutory definition of Islamophobia matters
Without recognising these patterns and defining them as Islamophobic, we may be able to confront acts of hate, but we cannot challenge the policies and the institutions that drive them.
A non-statutory definition of Islamophobia does not inhibit free speech or critique of religion – rather, it demands this speech and critique be responsible and reasonable; that is, it must be based on sound evidence, and rational.
It must also be open to challenge, according to principles of free speech.
This means that Muslims exist with others on an even-playing field. It ensures open doors for debate, as well as public and private challenges to Islamophobia that appeal to reason, not emotion.
A non-statutory definition of Islamophobia would also provide a conscientising framework. It would wake up public bodies, media platforms, and employers to behaviours that are at the root of systemic discrimination – and hopefully direct them to check these behaviours, whether personally or organisationally.
By naming it correctly, we can measure it more accurately in surveys and policy reviews, Muslims can identify it and report it, as well as address it through appropriate interventions.