The Case for ‘Islamophobia’

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In Canada, Thursday, Jan. 29 was the national day of remembrance and action against “Islamophobia,” and so it is an apposite time to step back and ask: What exactly is wrong with “Islamophobia,” anyway?

Before delving into that question, however, an immediate confusion must be cleared away. The term “Islamophobia” is used in a deliberately confusing manner to label two quite distinct phenomena: vigilante attacks against innocent Muslims, which are never justified, and honest examination of and opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women and others, which is always necessary. Under the guise of banning that vigilante violence, governments all over the West, including Canada’s, are moving in various ways to silence all criticism of Islam. No one should endorse violence against any innocent person, but everyone should endorse honesty about an aggressive, violent ideology.

There is ample justification, and even need, for criticism of Islam. Since 9/11, the left and the national press have worked hand in glove to stigmatize those who would question the official U.S. government position that Islam is a religion of peace. Thus Barack

Obama lamented in March 2016 that “the Republican base had been fed this notion that Islam is inherently violent.”

How could anyone get such an absurd, Islamophobic idea? Perhaps from the Qur’an, which in many places enjoins warfare against unbelievers. The Qur’an directs Muslims to “kill them wherever you come upon them” (2:191), “kill them wherever you find them” (4:89, 4:91), “kill the idolaters wherever you find them” (9:5). It quotes Allah saying “I will cast terror into the unbelievers’ hearts” (8:12) and tells Muslims to “strike terror into the enemy of Allah and your enemy” (8:60). It tells Muslims to fight non-Muslims until “religion is all for Allah” (8:39).

The Qur’an tells Muslims to fight against “the people of the book until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (9:29). The “people of the book” is the Qur’an’s designation for Jews, Christians, and other monotheists who have a book they consider to be divine revelation. In Islamic law, the people of the book have a special status: while polytheists, atheists, and others who are not people of the book must ultimately be compelled to convert to Islam or die, the people of the book have a third option: submission to Islamic hegemony and acceptance of a second-class status marked by the payment of a tax (jizya) and various humiliating and discriminatory regulations designed to ensure that the people of the book “feel themselves subdued.”

There is much more, including the justification for suicide bombing in the promise of paradise to those who “kill and are killed” for Allah (9:111) and for beheading: “When you meet the unbelievers, strike their necks” (47:4).

These and other verses give the clear impression that Muslims have an obligation to wage war against unbelievers. I’m frequently charged with cherry-picking violent passages out of the Qur’an and ignoring mitigating peaceful passages, but in reality, these verses of warfare have been interpreted by Islamic authorities throughout history as being normative for all time in a way that more peaceful passages are not.

Besides all that, there is the misogyny. The Qur’an calls for the beating of women “from whom you fear disobedience” (4:34). Muhammad adds in a hadith that women are “deficient in religion and intellect,” and comprise the majority of those spending eternity in hellfire. Women are essentially slaves of men; they will be cursed by the angels for refusing their husbands sex: “If a husband calls his wife to his bed [i.e. to have sexual relation] and she refuses and causes him to sleep in anger, the angels will curse her till morning.”
(Bukhari 4.54.460)

There is much, much more, including the draconian punishments the Qur’an specifies for the vague crime of a spreading “corruption” upon the earth: “This is the recompense of those who fight against Allah and His messenger, and strive upon the earth corruption: they shall be killed or crucified, or their hands and feet shall alternately be struck off.” (5:33)

All this in the founding documents of a religion, and from its most revered figure, make for a culture of violence. And that culture is making its character increasingly obvious in the West.

If opposing all that (and there is much, much more like it) is “Islamophobia,” shouldn’t everyone be an “Islamophobe”?