Can someone explain Islamophobia to me?

[BaMamma]

I don't think I have an irrational fear of Muslims, but I think I have a reasonable concern about radical Islam, does that make me Islamophobic?

Antithetical to your cultural concept of something does not mean that's universally experienced in that way. There are many things I've encountered around the world which are culturally very different from my own experiences and perspectives. There are ways of asking about such things without approaching them judgmentally.

Example:

"What motivates you to become invisible?"

vs

"What is it like to wear niqab in your community?" or even "I'd imagined it could feel like being invisible - is that what it's like?"

The first one comes across as you've already concluded that your idea of it must be correct. It's entirely possible that someone might not feel invisible at all, but your expressed assumption that they do starts any discussion off on the wrong foot and does not give an impression of genuinely wanting to understand a different perspective.

Thank you, what an interesting thread this is.

I would love to see them one day.

She mentioned so many people following Imam Mufti Menk so I looked him up and thought people might be interested to see more about his views:

Menk opposes terrorism and has pledged his aid in curbing religious extremism in the Maldives.[17] On 31 March 2018, he urged Muslims to avoid Muslim—Christian violence, arguing that Muslims and Christians are brothers and sisters from one father, the prophet Adam.[18] He blames western media for misleading the world that Muslims are terrorists.[19] According to Gulf News, Menk said that everyone on this earth is a part of a family and has one maker, therefore, no one has the right to force any belief or faith on another.[20]

When is a Muslim woman going to be awarded a Brit or Oscar .... it's unlikely.

We seem to accept a situation where Muslim women are constrained in their pursuit of creative/artistic profession s due to patriarchal ancient system that suppressed a lot of their scope in life.

We seem to be in a position to not be able to comment on this as a society for fear of ofdence. How many Muslim women in reality can be open about living an almost puritanical lifestyle in western societies and their true feelings. I think this is why there is such a visceral feminine reaction against the veil, you are literally dehumanizing women removing their visible presence from society. Women are shamed into not showing skin in public in a way that degrades years of female liberation. There is also the mediaeval concept of only a husband of having the 'right' to see any part of the wives skin. Can I ask do we want this in 2025 UK?

https://www.halaltrip.com/other/blog/exceptional-muslim-comedians-that-redefined-humor-with-wit-and-charm/

"When is a Muslim woman going to be awarded a Brit or an Oscar?"

For the Oscars, 2011 was the first time a Muslim woman won one, I believe. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Incidentally, she was also the first Muslim to win two Oscars (2011 and 2015).

For Brit Awards, SZA won one in 2024 and I think Dua Lipa and Jade Thirlwall both have a few. I'm not particularly into pop music so don't really follow things like the Brit Awards.

The main limitation for Muslims in many careers is prejudice against them by others.

Some people may not want Muslim women in the UK in 2025, but we're here anyway. Some of us cover our hair, some of us don't. Some of us cover our faces, some of us don't. Some of us wear abayas, some wear jeans, some wear bikinis, and some wear anything and everything depending upon what we feel like wearing. Pretty much all of us, though, experience aspects of Islamophobia - prejudice, discrimination, stereotyped assumptions of us in media and daily life, verbal abuse, physical aggression, etc.

Thanks, I'll bear that in mind in future.

I'm surprised by the bikini comment; I thought modesty was important in Islam.

Just like other faiths, people will have different degrees to which they practise different aspects, and different ways in which they balance that with their daily life. There is often an assumption that all Muslim women will look and act in certain ways, but we're a diverse population.

I may have missed this, but where would you place yourself on a scale of burka to bikini? If you lean more towards the burka, how do you feel about your Muslim sisters in bikinis and vice versa?

I would call it Islamsphobic to be honest.

You are too kind. Well done to you for explaining your faith in such a calm, coherent and clear way to someone hasn’t shown a modicum of respect in return.

Your posts are really interesting and I just want to thank you for them.

I hope this doesn’t come as islamaphobic but I do have a prejudice against face coverings. I know @Niqabihere very kindly explained her reasons and I respect her reasons which were about feeling closer to God .
However I feel that in an urban UK setting face covering can be seen as threatening. Identity can be disguised and crimes committed.

If inherent Muslim humour about Islam and being Muslim is parallel to your sarcasm and art of projection and extrapolation....it follows that Muslims are the funniest, hardest to trigger and most reflective people in creation.

I can't see how it's inherently Islamophobic to object to face coverings. It's the face covering that's being objected to, not the religion itself. We are generally wary of people hiding their faces, it's part of what made covid so difficult.

There are different ways to discuss the face coverings and some ways, name calling and so forth, are clearly wrong, but people should be able to comment on the safety aspect of full face and body coverings without being called Islamophobic.

I should have said *full face coverings

I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle, probably.

If I'm swimming, I wear swim leggings and a long-sleeved swim top. There are a number of reasons that contribute to that choice, including how I choose to interpret modesty, and practicality for the environment in which I'm often swimming (eg cold water swimming in the North is pretty cold and I'm a wuss). If someone wants to wear a burkini or a bikini, it's their personal choice and I wouldn't really think about it that much, really. If someone hassled a woman for wearing either, I'd have an issue with that though. So, for swimming, I'm probably a bit more covered than the average swimmer, for several reasons. I'm far from the only person cold water swimming in that sort of outfit, though.

Day to day, I'm pretty much in the middle of the spectrum, I think. What other people choose to wear is up to them, and none of my business. I might think "oh, that's nice" or "that wouldn't work for me but that's ok", but I don't judge people for what they wear or look like. Whatever someone was wearing, though, if they told me they were being forced to wear it, that would concern me and I'd offer support if they wanted it.

But isn’t there a potential security risk to full face coverage? How can wrong doers be identified?

The day will come sooner or later. Think of Malala.

or one of the greatest architects there has been Zaha Hadid:
she’s a British citizen, an Arab, a Sunni Muslim, an Iraqi brought up in pre-Saddam Baghdad and educated by Catholic nuns;

Palestinian women are particularly well educated. Think of the female doctors in Gaza. If they could have normal lives they would shine.

The Arab civilisation made the Renaissance possible.

The day already came (posted earlier).

@Scirocco So sorry that you experience prejudice and discrimination for being Muslim and absolutely disgusting that you have been subject to verbal abuse and physical aggression.
I used to think we were a tolerant society to different ethnicities and beliefs but it seems to be going the other way.

I don't wear niqab or a burqa or any other face covering myself, so may not be the most experienced person to comment on it. I can understand why people have concerns about full face coverings of any sort, and on the other hand I can understand that there may be many reasons why someone may choose to wear a face covering. For the most part, I don't actually feel that bothered about face coverings myself.

From a relatively external perspective (as a non-face-covering woman), the amount of anxiety expressed about Muslim women covering their faces does feel disproportionate in comparison with the amount of anxiety about medical face masks, and other face coverings used by people outside of settings which might be concerning in themselves. Quite a few people wear face coverings in public while doing things like shopping, to reduce exposure to pollution or infections. That tends not to raise significant amounts of anxiety, because the people doing so are usually recognised to simply be going about their business. Meanwhile, there are settings in which people, usually youngish men or teenagers, cover their faces while endeavouring to intimidate and engage in criminal activity. That, understandably, causes anxiety. When people are talking about Muslim women covering their faces, there is often more expression around threats and safety and potential wrong-doers than there is recognition that the vast majority of Muslim women are just ordinary people going about their business (and have more in common with the former group of people than the latter). I wonder whether part of the reason for that is the widespread presentation of Muslims in media and in societal narratives as inherently being threats - eg Muslim characters in media are disproportionately presented as dangerous/aggressive/criminal.

Thank you. It's a worrying global trend - it feels like the world is becoming far less accepting of diversity of ethnicity and beliefs, and I feel social media and the mainstream media have massively contributed to this in recent years. Hate crimes, bigotry and prejudice against groups based on faith and/or ethnicity are at distressingly high levels, not just for Muslims but for other groups too.

Your objection to people being concerned about potential threats while failing to recognize that Muslim women are just ordinary people strikes me as similar to the argument that transwomen 'just want to pee' and it's only a small percentage that may be taking advantage to gain access to female only spaces for nefarious reasons. They'll also say those people aren't 'real transwomen'.

The problem in both cases is that there's the possibility of taking advantage. It's not so much that people are threatened by a Muslim woman in a veil, as that they are threatened by not knowing who is under the veil, male or female, friend or foe. And the full-face veil covers more than a medical mask, with the most extreme having only a grid in front of the eyes.

I don't actually have an objection to people having concerns about potential safety concerns about face coverings, though. It's a valid discussion to have, including issues relating to existing legislation and gaps therein, the balance of privacy and freedom of self-expression with punlic safety, etc. I simply made an observation that discussions about face coverings seem to have more of a threat-focussed starting point when people are discussing Muslim women covering their faces.

Relatively few Muslim women, at least among people I know, wear face coverings. Of those who do, most wear something not that dissimilar to face coverings widely used in the pandemic, and some wear niqab. I think the number of women wearing burqas in the UK is pretty small. Yet the amount of hostility expressed towards Muslim women about face covering, even towards Muslim women who don't actually cover their own faces, is significantly more than might be expected. Most of the people I see covering their faces are not Muslim women. Most of the Muslim women I see are not covering their faces.