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?

Lots of religions have social edicts.
Orthodox Jews live by huge amounts of rules about food (pork), women wearing wigs modesty, not using technology on Shabbat etc.
Orthodox Christians also fast on certain days and dress modestly.

Do you have the same issues with these causing tension or is it just Muslims you are focusing on.

All religions have beliefs like this. Not everyone follows them either.

Do you know any Muslims at all?

there is a variety of how people practice Islam and there are people who aren’t religious. They aren’t a uniform group.

I’m a lapsed Catholic. But in your world you’d happily lump me in the same boat as Fundamentalist Baptist.

All religions should be open to criticism but it should be focused on criticism of the doctrines not on individual human beings. This goes for every religion.

Maybe go out and try to find people as they come and stop putting them neat little boxes.

And Christianity is growing as well not fading …

I think Islam is amongst all religions currently the one where strict adherence to devious doctrine is more evident. As I said before in liberal societies we give our children options for a belief in a deity but in my experience this is not the case with Islam where denunciation of abdication of faith results in potential ostracism (especially with women). A similar argument results from inter faith marriages.

I don't think you could become a Muslim by just saying I believe in Allah and Mohamed is his prophet one morning. Islam (like other relgions) is a club where you only gain entrance by taking on a large set of rules and socital views. I don't know many people who have converted to Islam but do know of born again Christians.

It is the idea of an exclusive parallel society within a country that justifiably raises questions and whether in modern liberal pluralist Britain we want to be readily embrace this.

Sorry religious above ....not devious typo

I don't think you could become a Muslim by just saying I believe in Allah and Mohamed is his prophet one morning

Converting to Islam is a simple and personal process that requires no formal ceremony, paperwork, or witnesses. The core requirements are to have sincere belief in your heart and to recite the Shahada (the declaration of faith)

You could apply your whole post to other religions (especially Orthodox Jews)as well but yet you consistently single out Muslims for some reason.

That's the point of we had a significant number of Muslims (like Christians) who went religion light i.e. just stick to some internal relationship with God then we would be not having this debate. No one could be Islamphobic openly as we wouldn't be able to easily determine what religion someone was. The point is Islam does not just come won't internal belief at a core spiritual level but with a raft of dogmatic rules and definite opinions on how society should function in an ideal Islamic fashion.

So don't wear a hijab and eat a bacon sandwich and you'll be accepted by the general population as the right kind of Muslim.

An Al a carte Muslim is the only acceptable one.

There’s not a lot of, “Love thy neighbour”, coming through in these posts.

That's a dogmatic rule @JadeHare , no space for that in this society it seems.

It’s fundamentalist Islam that’s the problem. The extremists in Iran / Afghanistan etc oppress and subjugate their fellow Muslims.
It’s not Islamaphobic to point that out .
Sadly extremism and fundamentalism is increasing everywhere.
I think it’s right to call it out. I don’t think there should be Islamic prayer taking over large public spaces in London for example. I think prayer should take place in the mosque.
I also don’t think full face covering should be legal . These things are not requirements of Islam and create a sense of “otherness” that is not helpful in a multicultural society.
Most Muslims obviously are not extremists.

For me the a big red flag was the 2021 situation of the Batley Grammar school teacher . Still in hiding , still in fear for their life - because of unintended offence to the Muslim prophet during a lesson on free speech and Charlie Hebdo .
A review found that the teacher was completely and utterly failed by all the authorities who were afraid to confront Muslim extremists for fear of being considered “Islamophobic “.
The teacher and his family have changed names and are still in hiding.
This is the version of Islam that people are rightly “phobic” about .
It’s a shameful incident .

That has all been buried and an innocent family's life has been stripped away. They just keep pushing and getting away with it..

Loving thy neighbour means doing the right thing by them . It doesn’t mean you can’t criticise or object to their behaviour.

Fundamentalists in any religion are the same though aren’t they? I wouldn’t agree with any religious fundamentalists myself.

I don’t think full face coverings should be banned. I think women should be free to wear what they want in our society. However I think we should fund organisations that want to reach out to these hard to reach Muslim women. Often women who wear full face coverings are hidden from society already, they are merely pushed further into isolation by banning their clothes. It makes more sense to reach out to them ?

it’s worth noting that 0.1% of Muslim women wear a full face covering in the UK. I believe these women are already quite marginalised. But some would prefer to push them further out of public life: and we seem to spend a disproportionate about of time discussing them, politically, considering their small numbers.

Covering one’s face is a way of cutting yourself off from society. It contributes to people feeling alienated from Muslim communities and increases fear about extremist Muslims.

Your assumption that banning full face coverings would further isolate vulnerable women is just an assumption without any supporting evidence.

If we have women who would be forced to stay indoors by their partners then that is further reason to have concerns about extremism in Islam. Ignoring or pandering to misogynistic extremists is not the way to tackle Islamaphobia

While Muslim women purportedly say that the hijab is about religion it is is simply not in the way that hats are not part of Christianity. Ultimately the hijab is cultural and if we are being honest can we say it is the clothing of choice for many Muslim women or simply a by product of being brought up in a misogynist patriarchal society where women should be as 'unseen' by men as possible.

The hijab automatically and quite openly shows that a woman wishes the world to know she is Muslim and is an indicator of which community she belongs. There is a feeling of the hijab being obvious othering and the wish for clear divide between Islam and other cultures.

Maybe the human will become less popular in time as Muslim women in the UK gradually start to enjoy the freedoms offered here in the UK with an increasing willingness to break away from a patriarchal anachronistic world view. Let's hope so.

Whether we want to ban the burqua or not the main factor for me is whether I’m allowed to criticise it without accusations of Islamaphobia being hurled around.
It’s the curtailment of freedom of speech and the intimidation if you cause offence ( deliberate or not) that is by far the most worrying issue. ( see Batley Grammar School teacher)

.we do not have blasphemy laws in this country.

All religions should be open to criticism and indeed mockery without fear. We need to cherish our freedom of speech.

We give to Islam a protection that Christianity does not enjoy. We routinely make programs on television that focus on Christian sects get where are the programs probing Islam? The word Islamaphobia is being used as proxy to try and gain blasphemy laws through the backdoor.

Fully agree with this.
Covering one’s face in a society where it is not the norm, especially when religion does not demand it, carries a strong message. To me personally, it shows a clear desire to visibly distance oneself from the surrounding community.
And if it turns out that it’s the husbands or other male family members forcing women to do it in order to be able to leave the house, what does it say about integration?

I’d say that this conversation is veering into Islamophobia or at least bordering on it.

Why are people criticising the Muslim religion specifically?

Reasons cited on here as to why Muslims deserve to be criticised:

They eat pork, don’t like listening to music and wear headgear.

It is absurd.

I have friends who are from other religions or who are aetheists who don’t eat pork and who cover their hair. I have friends and colleagues who are Muslim who are musicians and who love to dance. Some cover their hair, some don’t. It’s their choice , thank goodness.

As @Fifiworks has pointed out, a fraction of 1% of UK women wear full face coverings. The women I have met seem happy to do so and remove them when there are no males in the room. If people are genuinely worried about male coerciveness and protecting females, perhaps look at the stats which link domestic abuse with alcohol, and the culture which feeds into that.

Also, If people are going to attempt to find reasons to criticise the use of hair and/ or face coverings, they should at least educate themselves on the correct terms for each form of attire first.

The kind of misinformation feeds Islamophobia.

I agree @Ellen2shoes. Dress it up as you like, but it certainly seems to be veering towards being Islamaphobic.

I think for most people it’s not really about someone not eating pork or even about headgear.

It’s about people who were attacked for criticising Islam - the Batley teacher, Theo van Gogh, Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the staff of Charlie Hebdo.
Are we seeing any similar cases with people criticising any other religions?

You say only a small percentage of Muslim women in the UK wear the full face covering.
Does that mean that custom can’t be questioned though?
Especially when people feel that the number of women covering their face is gradually increasing in some areas?

Why do these women choose to do something that separates them so drastically from the society around them? A society where face coverings (apart from bike helmets and Covid masks people always like to mention in this context) is not a done thing?

Why not go for a compromise, like covering your hair but not your face?
I’ve been an immigrant most of my life and I can’t imagine insisting on visibly distancing myself as much as possible from the local community.

You claim the women you know are happy doing it, on the other hand we hear that banning niqabs might mean that some women won’t be able to leave the house, so it’s not always voluntary, is it?

What about women in places like Iran who fight for their right not to cover up? Seems like they see the compulsory cover as oppression.

Absolutely 💯

Are we allowed to express concern about the case of the Batley teacher? Or is that “borderline islamaphobic “?

Yes we are. Christianity is criticised frequently.