Islamophobia

This past weekend, there was a conference I attended in Washington DC on the topic of Islamophobia. Experts and academics from around the country had gathered to talk about this issue as it relates to our lives in the US. Although all around, it was a good conference, the interesting point of note was that all the speakers talked about the cause of Islamophobia to be a fear that was unjustified and something beyond the scope of the Muslim Community. I am not sure I agree with either of the two explanations.

The first point about the fear of Islam being unjustified in my opinion because it assumes that the fear came out f nowhere. That Americans woke up one day, and without any provocation, decided that they fear Islam. On the contrary, I think one can point to several reasons why the fear is there.

1) We cannot lose sight of the fact that the 9/11 tragedy was perpetrated by men who claimed that they were doing it for Islam. No matter how much we, as Muslims, defend that they were wrong and Islam does not condone such behavior, the impression is still there and will take time to erase. But even before this incident, you have many others as well where after some bombings, religious fanatics claimed responsibility and there objective was to rid the world of the “infidels”. It is important that if we want to rid the world of Islamophobia, we must be honest with where it comes from. On this same note, we must also admit that to this day, almost 3 years after the tragic event, Muslim, by a surprisingly large number, still believe that it was not Muslims who did it, but rather blame the “other”. As such, no matter how much we try to hide it, non-Muslims can pick up on this sentiment, no matter how small. In the least, when talking about the issue, they pick up on the fact that “something is not right” in the discussion about this matter. This feeling can lead to a sense of mistrust and suspicion and worse, it breaks down the bridges of dialogue before they are ever fully constructed. If no bridge exists, then distance persists. And with distance comes suspicion of the othe r and with suspicion comes fear and thus Islamophobia.
2) Another reason for this fear in my opinion is that prior to 9/11, we were a very isolated community. Even if we lived amongst non-Muslims, we didn’t socialize much. Of course here, I am talking about the masses. One can come up with reasons for our lack of socialization, but justification doesn’t make the cause go away. This point reminds me of an incident that happened in NJ after 9/11 where there was a Muslim family living amongst non-Muslims for many years. The FBI got a call from one of the neighbors saying that the family was having a gathering with many cars outside. Strange smells were coming from the house, and later in the day, the father of the household dumped a huge pot with foam on top out into the backyard. The implications were clear. When the FBI investigated the incident, no charges were filed because they found that the Muslim family was merely having a party and they had cooked traditional dishes that were filed with spices (and thus the smell) and the huge pot was just soap water as that is one of the most effective ways of cleaning a pot after cooking biryani. So should we blame the non-Muslim family for calling the FBI and for their ignorance, or should we blame the Muslim family for living in the neighborhood for a long time and not inviting their neighbors over and thus creating suspicion and fear? I choose to blame the later
3) Before 9/11 and in most cases even to this day, our efforts in relation to non-Muslims is still mostly on conversion and making them understand us, rather than for Muslims to become part and parcel of American society. Cases where Muslims, in various social, political, and economic services, reach out to the larger society to help in alleviating some of the ills is rare. One can use the excuse that it is because we are still a young community and don’t have the infrastructure to reach out and this would be no lie, however, one can also argue that a large number of Muslims still feel a sense of superiority versus non-Muslims and thus don’t feel a need to impact the larger society.

It is very important for us, in a discussion of Islamophobia, to first turn inwards and ask ourselves what are we, as Muslims doing wrong, and then turn outwards and ask what are others doing wrong to have this fear. This is the only honest dialogue.