MA Sultan - محمد سلطان
"Islamophobia" is one term that covers dozens of contradicted feelings and hidden policies that" might turn the world into a religious fighting arena. According to Dr. Chris Allen, a lecturer of Social Policy at the University of Birmingham, the term itself was firstly used in 1925 by Etienne Dinet and Slima Ben Ibrahim in France, and appeared in the American periodical "Insight" in 1991 as the Oxford Dictionary states.
The issue of tracing back the roots of Islamophobia is very complicated and intertwined. A major factor that contributed to the rise of Islamophobia is the distorted information that Europe has about Islam. Such factor was proliferated after the Islamic conquest in Spain, the fall of Constantinople during the reign of the Ottoman-Sultans-Empire, or even the great numbers of immigrants in the west due to the factors of globalization or seeking better living conditions.
All these factors, either the ancient or the contemporary, are considered as trials challenging the supremacy of the western church. Applying that in the modern events, when the Syrian refugees were blocked from entering Bulgaria in the 15th of Sep, the Bulgarian spokesman and other politicians declared that allowing the "Muslim" Syrians to seek asylum in Bulgaria does directly challenge the Christianity of the country. Such declarations, in my perspective, cannot be interpreted without examining the history of the country and even the region with the Islamic Conquests. One of the main conquests that besieged Hungary is the battle of Mohacs in April 1526, under the role of the Ottoman Empire Suleiman the Magnificent (Turnbull, 2003). The aforementioned battle was a turning point in the history of Hungary and the surrounding domain since that time was characterized by existential disagreements between the Catholic Church and the followers of the Protestant church. So, the internal conflicts in the country were even exacerbated by the advent of an external conquest done by the Ottomans. In other words, the rise of Islam was considered a movement led by Anti-Christ's barbaric masses, which are contemporary converted into a modern form of racism (Geisser, 2004).
Also, the nature of the Islamic dogma is radically different than the Christian creed, and that represented a threat not only to the fundamental Christian beliefs but also to the social and ideological structure or even the identity of the west (Al Shammari, 2013). Therefore, the image of Islam has been fluctuating across different times; during the 17th and 18th centuries Islam was less seen as a violent religion because of the scientific inventions and enlightenment the Muslims had, but by the beginning of industrialization and the emergence of new ideologies, Islam's image became worse.
Another root that caused Islamophobia is the political manipulations and exploitation of any event for the sake of the political arena. Such manipulations appeared due to many reasons, one of which is the misunderstanding of Shariah as Dr. Jamala Badawi, the founder of the Islamic Information Foundation, stated in the 11th Annual Islamic Conference (Rageh, 2012). In fact, the misconceptions about Islam are intertwined with the exploitation of media. The use of media has been always directed towards what the media owners deem as an enemy. The entire process is wholeheartedly pragmatic and lays in the hand of the superpowers just like the way Gobbles and the Nazi Party used to do. Accordingly, young people or even adults who lack the proper knowledge -about how to distinguish between the truth and falsehood- are vulnerable to brainwashing by Media (Revell, 2011)
After the big doom of 9/11 almost Islamophobia became the first issue bothering the whole world, however; is the event of September the main reason behind such widespread of xenophobic feelings? I would argue that what ensued 9/11 as the aftermath of the terror attacks represented in the physical and verbal harassment for Muslims have been always fed for the west under other means. Also, Islamophobia was utilized by some regimes in order to distract the masses from the economic or political corruptions, like the explosion of the two-saint church in Alexandria, Egypt, that was perpetrated under the supervision of the minister of Interior Habib al-Adly as a false flag operation (Ismail, 2011). At that time, the government accused the Islamic extremists of the explosion to distract the masses from the ongoing uprising against Mubarak's regime and to seek the support of the Christians.
In an international scale, the exploitation of Islamophobia has been always used even for achieving a new form of imperialism or for supporting some despotic regimes that have close relationships with the international powers. Such support was done in many forms either by using the black market, stocks, multinational corporations or even funding extremists to cause instability (Perkins, 2004). Ironically, in 1993, the first enemy of US, Osama Bin Ladin, was depicted as a hero in an article by Robert Fisk in the Independent, and even there are rumors that the CIA supported, funded and trained him to confront the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan (Khandekar, 2015).
Similarly, the exploitation of the Islamic figures for political reason or supporting the despotic regimes is also a main factor of the rise of Islamophobia. Such blind and brutal support encourage the extremists to utilize the lack of knowledge in the youth to recruit them for military purposes. In fact, the current status in Syria is very obvious and gives an alarm about what the world is about to encounter. There are several videos on YouTube about myriads of young ISIS militants of the Syrian Opponent Armies who simply do not even know the basics of Islam, and even the majority of them are not Arabs. Such an atmosphere is rich soil for proxy wars and foreign intelligence' operations as John Perkins, the former CIA agent, expounded in his book "Confessions of An Economic Hit Man".
In conclusion, I found out that the rise of Islamophobia occurred due to a couple of reasons, namely, ignorance and the political exploitation. Considering the status quo either regionally or internationally, I expect in the near future that the percentage of those who fear Islam will be multiplied unless the Islamic countries become major actors in the international arena. For the current time and after the terror attacks of 9\11, a country like the United Kingdom has more than 2 million Muslims, the British Muslims became very vulnerable to the acts of vandalism by racists and political extremist like the British National Party, which is waging a war against the British Muslims, explicitly. Also, the counter movements of Islamophobia, I mean Europhobia and Americaphobia, should be considered as an important element for the potential aftermath of Islamophobia. The current European coalitions or any western intervention in the Muslims countries even if they are fighting terrorism, indeed, is considered as a war against Islam by most of the Muslims especially after the American invasion of Iraq. Also, the Russian support for the Syrian regime and the rise of ISIS-pertaining the dimension of proxy wars- is another major element about how the term "Islamophobia" could be redefined in the future especially if the great number of the Non-Arab ISIS members is taken into consideration. It is not anymore about how Arabs are intertwined with the fear of Islam, but rather how the international actors do contribute –negatively or positively- to the fear of Islam.
References
Allen,C. (2010). Contemporary Islampophobia before 9/11: A Brief History. Arches Quarterly, 4(7), 15-21.
Alshammari,D.(2013). Islamophobia. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 3(15), 177-180. Retrieved from: .ijhssnet
Ihsanoglu, E. (2010). Islamophobia and Terrorism: Impediments to the Culture of Peace. Arches Quarterly, 4(7), 11-13.
Giesser, V. (2004). Islamophobia and its consequences on young people. [online] Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe. Retrieved from: .coe
Turnbull, S. (2003). The Ottoman Empire 1326-1699.UK: Osprey Publishing.
Rageh, A. (2012, Dec 22). [tweet]. Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/Abrara_Rageh/status/282676247442636800?lang=en&lang=en
Khandekar,G. (2015). [Tweet]. Retrieved from: twitter
Revell, L. (2011). Religious education, conflict and diversity: an exploration of young children’s perceptions of Islam. Educational Studies. 36(2).
Ismail, F. (2011). Ex-minister Suspected Behind Alex Church Bombing. Al Arabiya News. Retrieved from: http://adf.ly/1a3tIy
Perkins, J. (2004). Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man, San Francisco: Berrette-Koeler Publishers.
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