The Islamophobia Thread

What really bothers me about it (aside of course from how it hurt an innocent person and shows a clear hostility to secularism) is how this will directly fan the flames of Islamophobia. I'm sure bigoted cretins like Sam Harris rubbed their hands together with glee when they heard about this, it's essentially the perfect ammunition to use against Muslims.

The Muslims who reacted against her and the college's faculty should be ashamed of themselves.

The painting in question was made by a Persian painter during the Illkhanite in what is now Iran which is still much more relaxed about images of Muhammad so if anything banning the painting could be seen as anti Shiite or at least anti Iranian.

I’ve seen many people, including on the left, complain about the use of the term "islamophobia", deeming inappropriate because it would imply that any criticism of islam is inherently bigotted (and also the ambiguous meaning of "phobia").

And I kinda get the logic but… what other word should be used then? Muslimophobia? Antimuslimism?

The discrimination and suspicion against Muslims in the Western World and even parts of Asia is a reality, so we still need a word to describe it…

As for the article, I can’t access it but going by the summary, yeah, firing that teacher was really shitty.

I think the term Islamophobia is not without problems because it is a term coined and misused by the Ayatollah.

Interesting, this is the first time I'm hearing this. Do you have a source?

I think this is a pretty easy problem to resolve.

To use a relevant example. The existence of the term "Homophobia" does not mean that you cannot criticize some aspect of a particular region's gay culture. Because criticism is not the same thing as bigotry, humans are fallible and thus a group no matter how marginalized will always have the potential to make mistakes. Thus if you say something like "gay men in Seattle collectively have bad habits x, y, z" then it's not inherently unreasonable. Maybe a significant number of them do have those habits. But it becomes bigotry if you frame things in an overgeneralized manner. For example, by saying that gay culture has problems as if there is a single gay culture.

Overgeneralization is a form of bigotry too.

Thus Islamophobia is appropriate against 'criticisms' that are done in a bigoted manner and not appropriate against criticism done in a reasonable way.

Though of course it doesn't help that the people who reject Islamophobia as a concept tend to belong to the former group. Their criticism is more about Otherizing Muslims through lazy generalizations then it is about actually criticizing Islam's problematic elements.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jan 8th 2023 at 2:37:49 AM

I can't find the one I originally read this on, but this one seems good as well.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/unpacking-idea-of-islamophobia-0/

Edited by Forenperser on Jan 8th 2023 at 11:42:33 AM

It's both a Shi'a thing and an Iranian thing. Iran wasn't yet Shi'a-majority in the 14th century, when this painting was made, and many Sunni cultures that shared the same Perso-Turkic artistic heritage, like the Ottomans, continued to be relatively relaxed on visual depictions of Muhammad — although Ottoman artists typically obscured the face and increasingly opted for calligraphic depictions as time went by. Illustrations of Muhammad are still common in today's Iran, and many people from the wider Shi'a sphere continue to own icons depicting other venerated figures like Imam Hassan and Hussein.

The article noted that the lecturer specifically gave the students a trigger warning for depictions of religious figures beforehand, so it's pretty wack that this was an issue at all. You don't go to a lecture about religious art and then complain when it actually teaches you things about religious art.

That's weird/surprising. Because I had always assumed that some Western anti-racist person derived the term Islamophobia from the terms Xenophobia and/or Homophobia.

On the topic, I've been slightly following the story and I also found it surprising in the sense that it seems like the only time (at least that I can remember) where a fired professor wasn't being a bigoted asshole and the firing is actually unjustified. Like I can't think of a specific example off-hand, but there's been various cases of professors using the N-Word in a poorly justified "teaching exercise".

I'd also say (and this is more of a topic for the Religion thread) that even though I feel like the prohibition on depicting Muhammed should generally be respected, at some points in history, not all observant Muslims felt that way, and it would be perfectly valid to show that image in that context in a number of different courses (art history, Islamic history, history of religion, etc.)

Edit - Not an exact comparison, but from my background being Jewish, the picture of Muhammad makes me thing of the Hammat Tiberias synagogue, which weirdly had a Zodiac mosaic that included the Greek god Helios.

So yeah, religions aren't static.

Edited by Hodor2 on Jan 8th 2023 at 3:03:37 AM

While most N-word controversies involve asshole profs, at least one notable case involved a prof who was saying a word in another language that merely sounded similar.

Obviously this prof was fired for a bad reason. I'm always a little surprised when people defend academic firings on the grounds that they're always justified by bigotry. Florida's Stop Woke bill proves that conservatives are just as willing to use firing power in bad faith.

On another note, I don't really see an issue with the word "Islamophobia" being invented in a different context unless the repressive religious definition is actually more common than the bigotry one. Words can take on new meaning over time. The word "homophobia" was invented to describe an actual fear of gay people, but there's no issue with using it to describe bigotry in the present-day.

Edited by indigoJay on Jan 8th 2023 at 8:10:18 AM

I wasn’t aware of the Khomeini connection but like… he used a Persian word, right? Did it literally translate to "islamophobia" or was it translated like that retroactively?

Regardless, yeah, "phobia" doesn’t always mean "fear" (hell, materials that repel water are called "hydrophobic"), although there’s usually an element of fear in the hatred of a minority, however irrational.

And I don’t know, when someone talk of antisemitism, you don’t hear anyone objecting to the term because it would bar people from criticizing the Talmud… although "semite" has more of an ethnic connotation than a religious one I guess…

Somehow I'm both surprised yet also unsurprised about the Khomeini connection to the word "Islamophobia".

We do have to remember that the Ayatollah gained power by deposing a western-backed tyrant, so of course everything good that was done by the Shah was lumped together with the bad and seen as part of its own culture war against Iran and the Middle East. That also should explain why one of the slogans of the new Iranian Republic was "Neither Western nor Soviet". I'm kind of reminded I discussed previously with @ Fourthspartan 56 about how Anti-Imperialism can also devolve into something uglier in the Latin American thread.

I do believe the word "Islamophobia" does and should have a place as term to call out bigotry and discrimination, but I think it's also important to understand how it can be used as an umbrella term to reject any legitimate criticism to Islam or muslim persons.

I agree, but I don't think this is unique to the word "Islamophobia:" it applies to most words describing discrimination. Criticizing Kamala Harris isn't inherently racist. Criticizing China's policies isn't inherently sinophobic. Criticizing Israel's policies isn't inherently antisemitic. People should be wary of the way all of these words can be used to reject legitimate criticism.

There was nothing good about the Shah's dictatorship.

In either case, it's ridiculous to provide the claim that Islamophobia originated as a term created by Khomeini and then providing zero proof beyond one secondary source that even states it's not clear if Khomeini even invented it. It's even more ridiculous to claim the word shouldn't be used based off this flimsy premise. I live in Florida, I've gone to high school with people who've talked about wanting to beat up Muslim students. It is a genuine phenomenon.

I do not think that anyone here has denied that Islamophobia exists, the debate was about the term. That said, you are correct that it being invented by Khomeini is nonsense [1] [2]. EDIT: Honestly it was rather suspicious claim looking back. It does not reflect well on us for not seeing it, I would say.

Edited by Risa123 on Jan 9th 2023 at 5:05:33 PM

It's the same as buying into Red Scare propaganda, Khomeini (and by extension the Islamic Republic of Iran itself) is the face of the "evil Muslims" within the western world. I offer no defense of the Iranian government as I firmly believe it is a wretched state, but the idea that Khomeini himself created the term "Islamophobia" and that it is thus tainted by association (and then not doing any proper research to prove that) reeks of buying into that propaganda. It comes off as an argument a bigot like Hitchens or Dawkins would use.

Obviously we should be critical of people who use claims of Islamophobia to deflect from criticisms of Islam as a religion (or Islamic religious institutions within different states or communities), but there is a fine, fine tightrope to tread. I remember how the New Atheists would use the argument of "We're not Islamophobic, we're criticizing Islam" and use that to deflect from their genuine racism and support for military intervention in the Middle East.

I find this controversy to be rather ridiculous. It's clear the professor in question gave ample warning about showing a depiction of the prophet Muhammad. But maybe it's just how I've seen these kind of controversies flare up in the past that makes me apprehensive about it. When this kind of stuff happens, the bad faith actors swoop in and start being racist under the guise of "criticism" and it poisons the well. The tightrope becomes harder to tread as a result. I do not suggest silence on the issue, but I do advise caution. I saw how this played out with the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo. It wasn't pretty.

It's a good thing I never said the term was "invented" by him, it was coined and misused by him.

And as for the Shah, while I wouldn't say that we could call his dictatorship "good", it was certainly not as bad as the Mullah Regime, especially for women.

Edited by Forenperser on Jan 9th 2023 at 5:58:35 PM

coined and invented is the same[1]. Honestly, you seem to be arguing in a bad faith here.

Edited by Risa123 on Jan 9th 2023 at 6:00:48 PM

Except it wasn't coined by him in the first place and there was no good evidence cited to prove it. It was coined before Khomeini even took power in Iran in the first place.

And hairsplitting over "coined" or "invented" is ridiculous. The claim was not researched and is bunk.

Yeah, no, let's not go into a case of "Who was worse" between dictatorships. "The Shah's regime was better for women" is frequently used as an Islamophobic dogwhistle.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jan 9th 2023 at 11:01:21 AM

And it seems to me as if you are overly defensive.

And sorry, but saying that it is a "dogwhistle" to state the simple fact that women were free to wear what they want back then and aren't right now is, as you fittingly put it, ridiculous.

Edited by Forenperser on Jan 9th 2023 at 6:04:02 PM

Can I ask for a proper citation on when and by who the term “Islamophobia” was made? That should settle this before it gets any bigger.

arguing that there is a difference between synonymous words is bad faith. You could, you know, just admit that you did bad research instead of this. I already gave a link to mirriam webster.

Edited by Risa123 on Jan 9th 2023 at 6:08:15 PM

I've known people whose families fled Iran during the era of the Shah and the SAVAK. "Less bad" is a callous way to describe a dictatorship propped up by the CIA and MI 6.

I also said that it is *frequently* used as a dogwhistle for Shah apologia. I offer no defense of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Ayatollah regime's treatment of women, but it is no coincidence that a lot of discourse surrounding the Iranian government's treatment of women leans heavily into Islamophobia and Shah apologia. The tightrope must be treaded in such discourse or else it leads into downplaying the butchery committed by the Shah's regime because "Well, women were treated better back then".

Two sources were cited, one from Wikipedia which has a handful of its own sources that cite the term (or variations of it) going back to the 1970's at the latest and the 1910's at the earliest.

That all predates the Iranian Revolution and the rise of Khomeini.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jan 9th 2023 at 11:10:37 AM

I will admit that I used an unfitting term here, yes, mainly because English is not my first language. I should've just written "misused".

Just for clarification, I too think that the Shah's regime was horrible and had to be toppled. I just think it doesn't devalue the victims of the Shah to say that the Ayatollah regime was even worse. I mean, just for example, when you say that Stalin was worse than Tsar Nicholas, it also doesn't automatically mean that the Tsar was a good person, right?

But let's just end this and settle on the fact that Mosaddegh would've been the countries greatest chance.

Edited by Forenperser on Jan 9th 2023 at 6:14:50 PM

Apologies from my part, I for one should have double-checked whether the word was truly associated with Khomeini or not.

For the record, the term appears as early as 1910, the date Diana offered, and was cited by Alain Quellien while the Oxford English Dictionary records it’s first use in the English language in a theology article of 1923.

I'm not entertaining that comparison either. I feel that those kind of comparisons are pointless and are frequently used for bad faith apologia.

Back to the actual focus of the thread now.

I've not seen this pop up among leftists as far as I've witnessed but I suppose I'm not surprised. Back in the 2000's, the New Atheism movement was seen as being part of the political left, so of course the burst of Islamophobia going around in the wake of 9/11 tainted a good chunk of people's views. Nowadays we're aware that people like Dawkins and Hitchens were nothing more than bigots (and you had the occasional clown like Ayaan Hirsi Ali trotted out like an atheist Candice Owens), but that specter is still running around. The tightrope becomes hard to tread.

I do not advise removing the term altogether because it's very accurate. I've seen it play out in action. There is a wretched, disgusting fear of Muslims within many communities in the United States. I remember a girl I knew in high school who was threatened with violence by some hicks in one of my classes because she dared to use "Allah" in her yearbook quote when she graduated. Growing up in a conservative Christian area, a lot of people viewed Muslims with suspicion and hatred. It is a phobia. Fear, hatred, disgust, it is a clear phobia. Renaming it wouldn't do any good and wouldn't have any benefit.

Obviously there's a point to be made about criticizing the religion without being bigoted over it and I think that's important. It's important to condemn the clerics in Iran who use the Koran as an excuse to murder and oppress women just as it's important to condemn the religious nutcases here in the United States who make similar justifications for their bigotry. But I do feel that in addition to "criticism" being used as a smokescreen for bigotry, there's also a degree of...I suppose the best way to put it is ignorant posturing. I mean, I don't know that much about Islamic philosophy or the many differences between different branches and schools of thought in Islam, and a lot of people tend to go off trying to criticize without understanding a lot about the religion. I think that makes it all the more important to raise the voices of former Muslims who *do* know about those issues and can offer more succinct criticisms.

Edited by Diana1969 on Jan 9th 2023 at 11:54:34 AM