Confronting Islamophobia

• What is Islamophobia, and how is it visible in the world today?
• What is the impact of Islamophobia?

This lesson is designed to fit into one 50-min class period and includes the following student materials:

• 1 video
• 1 handout (intermediate and advanced versions)
• 1 classroom-ready PowerPoint

Islamophobia is a form of religious prejudice and racism that impacts the opportunities and treatment of Muslims living in the UK (and around the world). 

Islamophobia is driven by bigoted attitudes towards Muslims, which in the UK are widespread. In research conducted by the University of Birmingham, 25.9% of Britons surveyed about their attitudes towards ethnic and religious groups harboured negative feelings about Muslims. ¹ Stephen H. Jones and Amy Unsworth, the researchers behind the report, state that these attitudes highlight both greater levels of discrimination and ‘less public sanction against openly acknowledging one’s dislike’. ² These negative feelings can result in acts of violence and discrimination. Muslims are regularly the victims of hate crimes: in 2021–22, 42% of victims of religious hate crimes in England and Wales were Muslim (there was a 22% increase in attacks against Muslims compared with the previous year) ³ , while over 35% of mosques reported experiencing a religiously motivated attack at least once a year. 

Islamophobia, however, does not just manifest in the perspectives and actions of individuals. It is also structural, impacting Muslims’ life opportunities. As highlighted by the Muslim Council of Britain, Muslims ‘face disproportionate [and rising] levels of deprivation’ ⁴ : despite only making up 6.5% of the UK population, 40% of Muslims live in the country’s most deprived areas. ⁵ They also face discrimination in the workplace: the Runnymede Trust notes that Muslims have the ‘lowest employment rates and earnings [of] any group in Britain’ ⁶ , while a 2022 survey found that 69% of Muslims surveyed had experienced Islamophobia at work. ⁷  

Muslims are also profiled by state institutions and disproportionately targeted by counter-terrorism policies: they are stopped and searched at airports; ⁸ surveilled in society, ⁹ including in schools; ¹⁰ and, according to the Institute of Race Relations, are at greater risk of having their citizenship removed than other UK citizens. ¹¹ Moreover, the foreign policy of Western governments, notably the UK and the US, has seen Muslim countries invaded, ¹² and Muslims illegally detained without reason and without trial due to the ‘War on Terror’. ¹³

These systemic and governmental forms of Islamophobia highlight how it is a form of racism. ¹⁴ It exists structurally, feeding into the way in which institutions are organised, dictating the laws that are created and how they are enforced, and underpinning a social hierarchy that privileges whiteness. This systemic form of racism impacts the opportunities available to Muslims – and all minorities – in the UK, and the way that they are treated, hindering their political advancement, accumulation of wealth and social status. 

Such racism has deep roots and is deeply entwined with the religious prejudice that arose with the emergence of Islam and the Early Muslim Conquests (622–750 CE), which saw military campaigns that spread Islam from Mecca in modern-day Saudi Arabia to areas of modern-day Spain to the west and India to the east. As Muslim leaders claimed land that was part of the Christian Roman Empire and people converted to Islam, there was a backlash from the Christian Church. That said, it is important to note that, despite this conflict, there is evidence of trade and good relations between Christians and Muslims – in eighth-century England, King Offa minted an Anglo-Saxon coin that was modelled on an dinar coin made by Al-Mansur, the Caliph of Baghdad, ¹⁵ while in Spain, the ruling Muslims established working relationships with senior Christian figures. In Spain, the Muslim influence on art, culture and architecture can still be seen today.

The establishment of a Muslim ‘other’ in the minds of Christians can be traced back to the Crusades, when the Catholic Church, led by Pope Urban II, called on Christians to take up arms against Muslims, who he described as ‘pagans’, ‘the enemies of the Lord’ and ‘a despised and base race, which worships demons’. ¹⁶ While race did not exist as a concept denoting supposed biological differences, the term possessed meanings related to lineage and kinship, and its use depicted Muslims as a distinct group to Christians.

When the Crusades ended in 1291, Muslims had been established as a spiritual and cultural enemy in the mind of Christian Europe. 

As academic and writer Todd H. Green notes, 

Christians increasingly saw in Islam a formidable threat to Christianity’s claims of superiority and hegemony in Europe and beyond. Faced with the Muslim world’s competing theological claims, impressive military accomplishments, expanding empire, and superior intellectual and scientific advancements, mediaeval Christian authors responded polemically and aggressively. ¹⁷

This notion of the Muslim ‘other’ was reinforced throughout the Middle Ages with the advent of colonialism, and as a means of attacking successful, and somewhat threatening, Muslim empires. Dehumanising Muslims and depicting them as inferior thus served both theological and political ends. 

Tropes that emerged in the Middle Ages that portrayed Muslims and Islam as antagonistic to Christianity, as violent and barbaric, as oppressors of women, as monolithic and as a threat to Europe continue to circulate to this day, having been adapted to different socio-historical contexts. These tropes shape how Muslims are treated, both in European countries and elsewhere through the foreign policy of Western/European governments. 

Understanding the historical roots of Islamophobia, how it manifests in the present day and the impact it has on Muslims is vital if it is to be challenged. 

• 1Jones and Unsworth, The Dinner Table Prejudice: Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain, p. 22.
• 2Ibid., p. 23.
• 3Hate crime, England and Wales, 2021 to 2022, Home Office, 6 October 2022, accessed 16 December 2022.
• 42021 Census: As UK Population Grows, So Do British Muslim Communities, Muslim Council of Britain, 29 November 2022, accessed 16 December 2022.
• 5Ibid.
• 6Farah Elahi and Omar Khan, Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All, Runnymede Trust, 2018, p. 11, accessed 16 December 2022.
• 7Tara Walsh, ‘Islamophobia: Muslims describe abuse suffered at work’, BBC News, 5 July 2022, accessed 27 February 2023.
• 8Dan Sabbagh, ‘Detention of Muslims at UK ports and airports “structural Islamophobia”’, The Guardian, 20 August 2019, accessed 24 January 2023.
• 9Dianelle Dwyer, Wesley Johnson and Pa, ‘Police apologise over CCTV in Muslim areas’, The Independent, 30 September 2010, accessed 24 January 2023.
• 10Diane Taylor, ‘Boy, 11, referred to Prevent for wanting to give “alms” to the oppressed”’, The Guardian, 27 June 2021, accessed 24 January 2023.
• 11Frances Weber, Citizenship: From Right to Privilege, Institute of Race Relations, 11 September 2022, accessed 24 January 2023.
• 12Since the 1990s, Western governments have engaged in the following conflicts in the Middle East: the Gulf War (1990–91); the war in Afghanistan (2001–21); the Iraq War (2003–11); Yemen (2010–15); and the war in Iraq (2013–17).
• 13Steve Swann, ‘Who are the Guantanamo Brits?’, BBC News, 2 March 2017, accessed 24 January 2023.
• 14For further information on the definition of Islamophobia, please see our note ‘Defining Islamophobia’ in our Notes to Teacher section.
• 15Gold dinar of King Offa, The British Library.
• 16Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos, 1, pp. 382f., trans. in Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar Holmes McNeal, eds, A Source Book for Medieval History (New York: Scribners, 1905), pp. 513–17.
• 17Todd H. Green, The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015), p. 52.

Given the widespread acceptance of Islamophobia, and its detrimental impact on Muslims, it is vital to educate people about this form of hatred and what can be done to challenge it. An important step in this educational process is outlining exactly what Islamophobia is, which remains a point of contention in some areas. 

Since the term Islamophobia gained prominence at the end of the 1990s, there has been much discussion about its appropriateness for describing the discrimination faced by Muslims (and those perceived as Muslim). Detractors of the term critique it for two reasons. Firstly, they argue that focusing on Islam endangers the right to criticise and question religions, which are systems of belief and thus should be open to critique, particularly in societies that value freedom of speech. Secondly, they assert that the suffix ‘phobia’ with its suggestions of illness and/or fear is confusing to use when describing prejudice (though, in such debates, its deployment to describe other forms of discrimination, such as xenophobia and homophobia, is often ignored). ¹

As Shenaz Bunglawala ² and others ³ highlight, this focus on the appropriateness and semantics of the term can detract from the oppression faced by Muslims, and thus can divert energy away from countering it.

Acknowledging the religious element of the discrimination faced by Muslims is important. One element of Islamophobia is anti-religious prejudice, which is fuelled by bigotry and ignorance, and miseducation concerning the principles of Islam. ⁴ People’s misconceptions of, and hostility towards, Islam thus impact the treatment of Muslims. ⁵

The Runnymede Trust’s seminal 1997 report Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All captures this interplay. Claire Alexander (in Runnymede’s subsequent 2018 report Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All) explains that the original report highlights how ‘antipathy towards Islam as a religious ideology and set of practices, and discrimination against Muslims’ are inseparable: the former leads to the latter. ⁶

Islamophobia, however, is not just a form of religious hatred; it is also a form of racism. 

In 2018, the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims created the following working definition of Islamophobia: 

Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness. ⁷

This definition of Islamophobia, however, has been criticised: some detractors state that, given its religious focus, Islamophobia cannot be a form of racism, ignoring that, as Farah Elahi and Omar Khan highlight, ‘justifying discrimination or inequality by referencing the cultural practices of minority groups is a defining characteristic of all forms of prejudice and racism’. ⁸ All forms of racism have a cultural element ⁹ and, since Nazism’s support for eugenics resulted in the Holocaust, people have sought to distance themselves from eugenics and the ‘scientific’ racism rooted in ideas of biological difference, focusing instead on cultural differences. ¹⁰

Others argue that Muslims do not constitute a race, despite the fact that race is a social construct, used to enforce hierarchies and justify oppression. While systems of racial classification often focus on appearance, thus giving physical differences significance, race is not a biological reality. ¹¹ What Stephen H. Jones and Amy Unsworth call ‘the malleability of race’ is evidence of its invented nature; they explain how ‘[p]ast attempts to racially classify Irish people as “Iberian” act as an instructive reminder of how flexible racial thinking has often been’. ¹²

Furthermore, they continue, 

Islam has been, and is today, racially coded. In many countries, being Muslim is associated with ethnic group membership and skin colour. In Britain, for example, being Muslim is typically associated with being South Asian or Arab. Imagery denigrating Islam has also often utilised somatic tropes such as the ‘bulbous nose and bushy eyebrows’ familiar from the history of antisemitism in Europe. Islamophobia is a centuries-old prejudice and, as with antisemitism, it prefigured modern racism, with depictions of Muslims (or to use the time-appropriate terms, ‘Moors’, ‘Turks’ or ‘Saracens’) echoing the tropes later used to classify racial groups. … The argument that Islamophobia and racism are separate, then, involves ignorance of Europe’s history as well as its current reality. ¹³

Muslims were racialised for centuries before race existed as a concept. They have also been at the receiving end of what is today referred to as ‘cultural’ racism, having been attacked for their customs, practices and religion. 

Islamophobia is therefore a form of both anti-Muslim prejudice and anti-Islamic prejudice; it is a hatred borne of the racialisation of Muslims and of religious hostility. Both these forms of Islamophobia, while they may manifest separately, are connected, reinforce each other and impact the quality of life of Muslims – and those perceived as Muslim – all over the world.

• 1Farah Elahi and Omar Khan, ‘Introduction: What is Islamophobia?’, in Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All, Runnymede Trust, 2018, p. 7.
• 2Shenaz Bunglawala, ‘What’s in a name?’, in Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All, Runnymede Trust, 2018, p. 69.
• 3Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All, Runnymede Trust, 2018.
• 4Jones and Unsworth, The Dinner Table Prejudice: Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain, p. 8.
• 5Elahi and Khan, ‘Introduction: What is Islamophobia?’, p. 7.
• 6Claire Alexander, ‘Raceing Islamophobia’, in Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All, Runnymede Trust, 2018, p. 13.
• 7Islamophobia Defined: The inquiry into a working definition of Islamophobia, All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, 2018, p. 11.
• 8Alexander, ‘Raceing Islamophobia’, p. 13.
• 9Elahi and Khan, ‘Introduction: What is Islamophobia?’, pp. 7–8.
• 10Jones and Unsworth, The Dinner Table Prejudice: Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain, p. 15.
• 11See our lesson Introducing the Concept of Race as part of our unit Discussing Race and Racism in the Classroom.
• 12Jones and Unsworth, The Dinner Table Prejudice: Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain, p. 14.
• 13Ibid., p. 15.

Throughout the unit, when referring to the West and Western views, we mean countries that have cultural and ethnic similarities either by geographic origin in western Europe or through settler colonisation by Western Europeans; that share economic, social and political views and interests; and that, due to their colonial histories, have significant economic and political power. This includes the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, alongside European countries.

While there are many problems with this term, notably its colonial roots and how it places ‘the West’ in contrast to ‘the East’, it does still have widespread traction and use. Moreover, it highlights the shared culture and mindset of countries that cannot be grouped together under a geographical term or location.

As noted above, there are disagreements over the exact definition of Islamophobia. Facing History and Ourselves UK is opting to use the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims’ working definition of Islamophobia: 

Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness. ¹

This definition has been adopted by some organisations and political parties, but not others. If you would like to share other definitions with your students, you can find some here, and if you would like to discuss the lack of consensus on a definition, you can find information here. 

• Islamophobia: a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.
• The West: Countries that have cultural and ethnic similarities either by geographic origin in western Europe or through settler colonisation by Western Europeans; that share economic, social and political views and interests; and that, due to their colonial histories, have significant economic and political power. This includes the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, alongside European countries. There are many problems with this term, notably its colonial roots and how it places ‘the West’ in contrast to ‘the East’; however, it remains a quick and clear way to describe the connection between culturally similar, yet geographically separate countries. 
• Trope: A commonly shared idea, phrase or story.
• Orientalism: Western ideas about the Middle East and about East and Southeast Asia, especially ideas that are too simple or not accurate about these societies being mysterious, never changing, or not able to develop in a modern way without Western help. ²

Add these words to your Word Wall, if you are using one for this unit, and provide necessary support to help students learn these words as you teach the lesson.

• 1Islamophobia Defined: The inquiry into a working definition of Islamophobia, p. 11.
• 2Definition of orientalism from The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus.

While the term Islamophobia is relatively recent, anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic prejudice are not a recent phenomenon: they have been circulating since the emergence of Islam and were cemented by the Crusades (1096–1291). These wars and the rhetoric used by the early Christian Church in the lead up to them, painted Muslims as an inferior ‘other’, a notion that was reinforced over the  following centuries and during European colonialism. Understanding this long history is an important step in tackling present-day Islamophobia.

Several Islamophobic tropes have their origins in the discriminatory behaviour of the early Christian Church and its treatment of Muslims. When teaching the reality of this difficult history, it is important students understand that a range of organisations around the world are working on creating interfaith dialogue. In the UK, these organisations include the Christian Muslim Forum, The Inter Faith Network and The Centre for Muslim–Christian Studies.

Ignorance and miseducation about Islam drives bigotry and discrimination. It is, therefore, important that students learn about the beliefs and customs of Islam, so that they can challenge ignorance and they do not themselves believe falsehoods spread about Islam and Muslims. Share information from one or more of the following sources with your students: Key facts about Islam: KS3 (BBC Bitesize), GCSE Religious Studies (BBC Bitesize), and/or Beliefs and Daily Lives of Muslims (PBS). You might also choose to share this video about the founding of Islam: How Islam Began – In Ten Minutes (True Tube).

To teach your students more about the Crusades, you might choose to share the Khan Academy’s lessons, which include videos on the Crusades: Introduction to the Crusades (7:24) . To teach your students about the Spanish Inquisition, consider sharing the video Ugly History: The Spanish Inquisition (5:41) by Kayla Wolf (TED-Ed).

There are several Islamophobic tropes in circulation, some of which students will learn about in Lesson 2: Exploring Islamophobic Tropes. The trope depicting Muslims as monolithic fuels much Western Islamophobia. Viewing Muslims as the same, and as holding the same views and ideologies makes it easy to collate the actions/experiences of one Muslim as representative of all Muslims as a whole: one person’s act of violence or oppression, for example, marks everyone. To introduce students to this trope, you might wish to share the Get the Trolls Out! video Islamophobic Narratives: Monolithic (4:02).