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?

Lived there for more years than I have been alive... how does that work exactly?

Agreed ... clothing changes over time for most of us. What the Victorians wore is no longer relevant in today's society.

It seems to be a patriarchal culture that still insists some Muslim women should be dressed in voluminous clothing with face covered for no practical reason anymore. If there was any practical reason for it many men would dress the same but they don't anymore where it's not needed.

A hijab or a niqab is certainly not simply a ‘clothing choice developed in hot, sunny climates that have a practical origin of staying cool and protected from the sun’, otherwise why would women wear them on an overcast October day in the UK?
And why would women in Iran risk punishment protesting against head coverings if they were simply practical accessories?

Many women like the anonymity of veiling. In West, we used to veil quite often.

What type of veiling are you referring to here? The one offering anonymity is surely the niqab – when exactly did women in West wear these, never mind ‘quite often’?

Where did you get these numbers from? Just googled, and that’s what I got:

No, this information is entirely inaccurate regarding the Shard in London.
The viral post you are reading has completely confused the construction of The Shard in London with the construction of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The tragic suicide, the specific floor number, the rejected holiday request, and the shockingly low wages all belong to a well-documented incident from Dubai in 2011.

But maybe you have better sources?

There has never been a tradition of full face covering in the west ( apart from in masquerades)
Face covering offers anonymity and that undermines public safety and societal cohesion. It doesn’t benefit women . It sets them apart .
I don’t understand why it is legal.

Agreed.

We have escaped from the tyrrany of religion where women's dress is dictated.

Hope this is OK MN or are we moving to a more mediaeval mindset.

This will probably be deleted but do Muslim women reflect on their dress or is it just something that they do automatically given they were brought up with it and parental and peer influences are a massive influence? Is there true free will with this? I suppose a similar argument could be put forward about existential ruminations about the existence of God?

I ask these questions because I am interested in whether actually the pure asking of such a question constitutes Islamaphobia and hence my post will be deleted.

Richard Dawkins talks about the same thing. Obviously he’s approaching it from an atheist perspective but he argues there’s no such thing as a Jewish/ Muslim/ Christian child as they are to young to decide and instead you have a child who is indoctrinated into a religion.

I have known Muslim women who reflect on their dress but these tend to be women who have a more liberal interpretation so they would dress to keep collar bone covered but not cover their hair.

I was told that the idea of covering yourself totally was to prevent gossip as no one knew who you were but it was never proscribed in the Koran.

There are some traditions in the past. The moretta mask in Venice, traditions of women in mourning covering their faces across various cultures. Christian women wearing full face covers to church. Jewish women covering their faces. The practice of face covering is actually pre Islamic and worn for different reasons depending on where the person is from. But in my (limited) experience women here who are covered are on the margins of society already.

There is no evidence that banning the veil increases public safety however there is evidence that it makes women who are fully covered less likely to engage with outside services. And we should always be wary of the policing of women’s clothes anyway.

i don’t think criticism of face covering is Islamophobia.

But the key thing is that 0.1% of Muslim women wear face covering. In the west this is much less. When they banned it in Belgium they estimated that there was 200 women who wore a face covering…. All that debate, time, expense over implementation of a law to target 200 women - without any data on how it would improve the lives of these women or public safety generally….i think that disproportionate action was Islamophobia.

Why on earth would it be Islamophobia to ask this.

You can ask so many questions about religion. Do nuns reflect on what they wear and if it reflects their situation where they can never be in a leadership role in the church. Do parents reflect on dressing up their little girls like brides for communion as they send them up the aisles of an institution that covered up child abuse at every level?

Asking these questions is not prejudice. It slides over into prejudice when you start to make assumptions about people’s motivations or generalise about individuals within a religion.

I agree.
It's such a tiny portion of women I am not sure why this thread is constantly reignited to berate this fact.

There are lots of traditions and practices I would never engage in and cannot understand why anyone would. Full face coverings is one. Christian trad wives is another (and runs a lot of parallels with the restrictions placed on women that other posters lament ).

It is a well acknowledged fact that the amount of Muslim women in the West who engage in full face coverings is miniscule (indicating there is choice within the religious edicts) . But yet it is seen as the gotcha for so many.

It is not Islamaphobic to make face covering illegal - especially as you yourself point out that the vast majority of Muslims don’t cover their faces . How Can it be Islamaphobic to object to something that is not required of Muslims and that the vast majority of Muslims don’t do?

( Can you give examples of Christian women wearing full face covering ? I’ve never heard of this . Unless you mean Funeral veils / bridal veils … very specific context and everyone knows what the person looks like under the veil .
The Venetian mask wearing tradition is part of a masquerade / party … Wearing a mask for a fancy dress party is not really the same thing as wearing a niquab every time you’re in a public space )

The minuscule number of women who wear full face coverings does not point to choice . It points to differences of interpretation of Islam. Some Islamic extremists demand that women cover their faces in public . We see this in Afghanistan and elsewhere. This is not something we should tolerate in our country.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/11/19/talibans-mandatory-burqa-in-herat-assaults-womens-autonomy

We are not living in Afghanistan. The mindset that thinks women’s faces should be covered must not be tolerated.

Netanyahu today referred to the UK as the "Islamic Republic of Britain”,

It's easy to see these scaremongering fear inducing tactics are the current narrative.

"In our country " a handful of women wear this outfit but let's panic everyone into thinking it's the norm.

But as pointed out in the horrible posts that were directed at me I'm not in this country .

That is a good thing but in my experience engaging in a debate about the existence of God does make Muslims (as well other religions) uncomfortable. As it is impossible to prove the existence of God that kind of undermines the wealthy practises of religion e.g. clothing determination.

People aren't for ed to be nuns. A very few devout women take this path. I think the question is why should an entire population of women following a religion dress like nuns?

People aren't forced to be

Not sure what you mean here.
Full face covering is not the norm .
I’ve never said it was.
I don’t think it should be allowed at all. I think it should be banned. It’s bizarre to allow anyone to walk around with their identity completely disguised.

Fine., ban it for the few women who do it so in whatever country you live in .
And then all those who engage in Islamophobia ( don't mean you) won't have a reason to complain about Muslims at all and they can live in peace instead of being hounded by the likes of Netanyahu and Tommy Robinson.

I can’t stand TR or Netanyahu.
If we can get rid of both of them and full face covering and religious extremism in all its forms I would be very happy.

Back to the topic -we should be allowed to criticise any and every religion - even if we cause offence. Offence is part of life and I’ve been offended loads of times by people’s ignorance about my religion. But I know I have to suck it up because it’s the price we pay for freedom of speech.
What isn’t acceptable is to demonise others and cause hatred . It’s a delicate and tricky balance.

That's the thing though. Some one like Richard Dawkins is taking a risk talking about Islam in particular and giving thoughtful arguments for atheism is not something a lot of Islamic families wish their daughters to be exposed to. The child doesn't believe in God then the hija b simply becomes uncomfortable and probably got rid of in a western liberal society.

There was a Muslim woman in an office that I am vaguely aware of that claimed discussions about the existence of God was tantamount to Islamaphobia as she felt it was discriminatory for her to think about God's existence or non existence at work. She argued someone saying the existence of God was Bollo*x was offensive as it was denying the fundamental platform of Islam and therefore gravely offensive......