Islamophobia in the United States

There were 221 publicly reported hate incidents targeting mosques during the April 2013-June 2017 period, according to a ProPublica review. ProPublica notes, "Most of the incidents are threats to worshipper's lives or acts of vandalism." A Council on American-Islamic Relations staffer who collected the data that ProPublica verified noted that the organization saw spike both "during election years and after news coverage of major terrorist attacks." It is not known with certainty if the spikes were related to a greater number of incidents, or that more people were taking the time to report the incidents. One high-profile example features the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, which faced a years long campaign opposing its construction and expansion. While a local Muslim community maintained space in an office park to pray since 1997, when plans for a 52,000-sq. ft. facility became public there was immediate backlash. Subsequently, the site was "vandalized multiple times" including an arson attack and a bomb threat. An attempt to stop the mosque from opening ended in 2014 when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Lawyers had asserted in the case that Islam is not a religion and thus not protected by the First Amendment. The new building opened in 2012. A second high-profile example was Park 51, originally known as Cordoba House and branded by opponents as the Ground Zero Mosque. Park 51 was a proposed Islamic prayer space in lower Manhattan, two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center. It became a national controversy during the 2010 mid-term election, with some public figures defending the project as religious freedom and other insisting its proximity to the site of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack was a provocation. At the time, the New York Times reported, "Polling shows that a majority of Americans oppose building it near ground zero." Academic analysis has argued that media coverage of the Park 51 controversy relied heavily on imbalanced sourcing and the repeated use of "terrorism" and "Sharia," which reinforced Islamophobic narratives and undermined the inclusivity of American religious pluralism. == Religious freedom ==

According to 2020 AP/NORC Poll, slightly more than half of Americans (52%) believed that the religious freedoms of Muslims are being threatened. However, one-third of respondents perceived the claims of religious freedoms by Muslims to be a threat to others, higher than the other religions in the survey. The government has disproportionately engaged in surveillance and infiltration of Muslim religious spaces and programs. These issues have led some Muslims to distrust those around them and their motives. A notable example of governmental surveillance include the Mosque crawlers, where informants dispatched by the New York Police Department monitored and spied on Muslims. The program lasted from 2001 to 2011, until it was exposed by the media. Once considered a fringe belief, numerous anti-Muslim entities that advocate for the denial of religious freedoms for Muslims have witnessed growing public and political influence, especially among the political right and conservative Christians. Claiming that Islam is not a religion but a dangerous political ideology, these figures than contend that Islam does not qualify to be protected. These arguments and other ones like it have been used to justify anti-Muslim rhetoric among politicians or commentators and efforts by local communities to block the construction or expansion of Muslim religious spaces. Such a title, "Under My Hijab" written by Khan was banned in school or public libraries in a few Republican states under laws barring the teaching of or promotion of topics surrounding diversity or equity. Khan also wrote that such censorship harms not just Muslim children but all children, along with stifling discussions around race and identity. ==In employment==

In hiring A 2013 Carnegie Mellon University study found that, nationally, Muslims had "13% fewer callbacks" than Christians after submitting identical job applications to the same establishments. The study also concluded that discrepancies between callbacks for Muslims and Christians were larger "in counties with a high fraction of Republican voters," with Christians getting almost four times as many return calls in these constituencies. On the other hand, there was no discernible hiring discrimination against Muslims in Democratic counties. Biases were larger on the state level, with Christians getting more than seven times as many callbacks than Muslims in Republican states. Democratic states, once again, showed "no significant callback biases." The study added that "employers in older counties are significantly less likely to call back the Muslim candidate compared to the Christian candidate" In the workplace Protection against religious discrimination in the workplace is found in the context of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Employees claim religious discrimination when it involves any of the following: disparate treatment, religious harassment, failure to reasonably accommodate religious beliefs, and retaliation against an applicant or employee who alleges religious discrimination. Moreover, the number of discrimination claims made by Muslims over a four-year period, from 2001 to 2005, nearly doubled when compared with another 4-year period. Religious harassment In regards to religious harassment, studies show that, in general, these types of suits are increasing. In the case of Zayed v. Apple Computers, an Arab Muslim woman sued Apple Inc. on the grounds of harassment, retaliation, defamation, and infliction of emotional distress based on religion, national origin, and gender. Zayed had been employed as an at-will engineer since 1994, and stated that she had experienced dramatic changes in her work environment after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Zayed claimed that fellow employees began inquiring as to whether or not her religion encouraged Muslims to engage in suicide bombings. Soon after Zayed claimed that she felt marginalized and believed that she was wrongfully excluded from projects and career opportunities that were mostly given to white, non-Arab, colleagues. The supervisor told the former chaplain that it's hard to respect women who cover their hair. According to EEOC, the manager decided against hiring the woman because she didn't fit the Abercrombie look, which would violate the company's "Look Policy". This policy functions as an internal dress code that explicitly prohibits head coverings. Religious retaliation In the case Ibraheem v. Wackenhut Services, the black male Muslim claimed religious retaliation when he was fired after submitting an EEOC charge of discrimination and filing for a lawsuit involving claims about hostile work environments and religious discrimination. == Muslim women ==

The existing discourse that positions Islam and Western values against each other also underpins how the Americans perceive Muslim women in society. Scholars assert that media, Islamophobic organizations, and politicians have played a tremendous role in depicting Muslim women as consistently endangered and subjugated by the alleged patriarchal nature of Islam. Although the First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, the modern social and political climate surrounding the use of the hijab has caused "various restrictions on hijab, the headscarf worn by Muslim women" according to a study by Aliah Abdo. One of these issues includes the rising controversy and questioning of the meaning behind veiling. Furthermore, just as the definition of what constitutes veiling varies, so do the attitudes of those who choose to veil. As the Pew Research Center reported in 2011, the number of Muslims in America is about 1 million, and "43% of them wear headscarves all the time, about 48% — or half a million women — don't cover their hair". ==In health ==

Muslim women's health Although empirical research on Muslim women's health in the United States is limited, sample studies provide insight into the experiences and health behaviours of American Muslim women. Recent studies on depression and experiences of stigma measured through heightened vigilance, risk for non-communicable diseases (e.g. cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc.), and contraception utilization provide a scientific foundation for future research studies with Muslim women. Impact on Public Health Islamophobia is a significant issue in the United States with significant impacts on the public health of Muslims. According to a 2016 study, anti-Muslim rhetoric in the media and politics contributes to the marginalization and stigmatization of Muslim communities, which in turn can lead to negative health outcomes such as depression, anxiety, and reduced access to healthcare services. To address these issues, the author of the study recommended a multi-faceted approach that includes raising awareness, challenging stereotypes, and promoting cultural sensitivity among healthcare professionals. Despite growing research into mental health among the American Muslim community, little research has been conducted to fully explore the links between Islamophobia and suicide. A 2020 survey conducted by the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley showed that almost all Muslim respondents (nearly 94%) said that Islamophobia affects their mental and emotional well-being. ==In travel & immigration==

In airports Since the terrorist attacks that occurred on 9/11, American airports have considered it their duty to act as the "front line of defense". Polls conducted in the United States also show that more than half of Americans support the policy of more extensive security checks for Arab and Muslim Americans in airports. At the San Francisco International airport, a 12-year-old U.S. Squash Team player was forced to remove her hijab while boarding the plane. The San Francisco Bay Area office said that the federal and state laws were violated when an Air Canada gate agent forced Fatima Abdelrahman to remove her hijab. This purportedly occurs because Muslim women are seen as less of a threat than Muslim men. In 2020, it was reported that Muslim detainees at a federal immigration facility in Miami, Florida were repeatedly served pork or pork-based products against their religious beliefs, according to claims made by civil rights lawyers and immigrant advocates. The Muslim detainees at the Krome detention facility in Miami were forced to eat pork because halal meals that ICE served had been consistently rotten and expired. The Chaplain at Krome allegedly dismissed pleas from Muslim detainees for help, saying, "It is what it is." Civil rights groups said many had suffered illness, like stomach pains, vomiting, and diarrhea, as a result. Previously in 2019, a Pakistani-born man with a valid US work permit was reportedly given nothing but pork sandwiches for six consecutive days. ==In politics==

History a few days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks After the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush's administration passed sweeping, unprecedented legislation in response to the American public's demand for action. After three days, Congress passed the law called the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, giving President Bush the power to use the military in any way that seemed "appropriate or necessary towards unspecified states and non-state actors." Six weeks after 9/11, the PATRIOT ACT was passed, greatly expanding several government agencies' abilities to acquire information via searches, electronic surveillance, and wiretapping. A poll conducted shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, echoes this line of argument when it found that about one-third of Americans thought it was acceptable to detain Arab Americans in camps reminiscent of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. A 2004 poll by Pew Research Center found that almost half of Americans were willing to exchange certain civil liberties for the cause of national security. The enforcement of the Patriot Act had far-reaching repercussions. It was widely believed to target Muslims, Middle Eastern and Arab-looking men. According to the ACLU, the New York City Police Department has been spying on Muslim-American communities since 2002. In this same report, the ACLU asserts that the NYPD has singled out Islamic associations, mosques, and businesses while not subjecting non-Islamic groups to this type of surveillance or scrutiny. Even though the Justice Department claimed that the system is highly sensitive in its targets, it also stated that the system will track "all nationals of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria," even though none of the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks were from these countries. In spite of the money dedicated to the new homeland security paradigm after 9/11, Of over 83,000 men who were registered, only about 13,000 of them were deemed dangerous enough to enter deportation proceedings, Listed individuals are not allowed on commercial flights that will fly over or are destined to land in the United States or are managed by a U.S. airline. Although the No-Fly List and the Automatic Selectee List predate the 9/11 attacks, they were little used; there were only 16 names on the No-Fly list before 9/11. The combined total of names on both lists rose to more than 20,000 by the end of 2004, These government policies institutionalize racism against Muslims, especially those who are foreign-born. The foreign-born Muslims seeking air travel to the United States are depicted as potentially violent and religiously extremist. First Trump administration (2016–2020) The administration of Donald Trump is often considered to be the most or first openly Islamophobic administration in recent American political history by several scholars. This included calling for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" and supporting the idea of closing down mosques. During his campaign and into his presidency, Trump expressed interest in creating a national database of all American Muslims and creating a surveillance program aimed at spying on Muslims. These figures have claimed that Islam is a dangerous ideology, that fear of Muslims is rational or that Islam and the Quran promotes terrorism, among other claims. In November 2017, Trump shared anti-Muslim posts from the far-right group Britain First via Twitter. Despite facing backlash, a spokesperson for the Trump administration defended the retweet. 2020s In November 2023, after the start of the Middle Eastern crisis (2023–present), President Joe Biden nominated Adeel A. Mangi to be the first Muslim appeals court judge. Catherine Cortez Masto, Joe Manchin, Jacky Rosen, and Senate Republicans said they would not vote to confirm Mangi. Islamophobia has been aimed at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. In March 2026, Representative Randy Fine tweeted "We need more Islamophobia, not less." After Representative Andy Ogles tweeted "Muslims don’t belong in American society", House Speaker Mike Johnson said "the demand to impose Sharia law in America is a serious problem. That’s what animates this." The immigration policy of the second Trump administration has increased Republican's Islamophobia including opposition to EPIC City, Texas. In elections During the 2016 presidential election, a rise of anti-Muslim sentiment and the propagation of right-wing fake news articles demonizing Muslims and Islam was prominent. Anti-Muslim rhetoric was almost exclusively produced by Republican candidates and campaigns. While surveyed Muslim candidates reported facing little Islamophobia when face to face with constituents, most did report high levels of Islamophobia during their campaigns. The study concluded that online narratives surrounding Muslim candidates was disproportionately Islamophobic due to the exaggerated influence of a few anti-Muslim accounts on the online attitudes of some netizens. Prejudice towards Islam and Muslims have increasingly become more partisan, with Republicans holding far more negative views towards Muslims and Islam than Democrats. In recent surveys, a majority of Republicans have associated Islam with violence, with majorities (72%) claiming Islam encourages violence more than other religions. Similarly, a 2017 Pew Research Centre report showed that 68% of Republicans said Islam was not part of mainstream American society while 65% said Islam and democracy aren't compatible. Additionally, 56% of Republicans also said there is a great or fair deal amount of extremism among American Muslims. A BuzzFeed News analysis found that since 2015, local and state Republican officials in virtually every state have engaged in anti-Muslim rhetoric, attacking Islam, or proposing laws targeting or disproportionately affecting Muslims. The mainstreaming of Islamophobia among Republicans is at least partially due to growing anti-Muslim rhetoric and beliefs becoming more readily expressed and at times even supported by influential Republican politicians. As a consequence, hostility towards Muslims and Islam from some Republicans have gotten little to no pushback from fellow conservatives. A 2018 survey by the New America Foundation and the American Muslim Institute found that 56 percent of Americans believe Islam is compatible with American values and 42 percent said it is not, while 71 percent of Republicans say Islam is incompatible with American values. ==In the media==

In the immediate months following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, an expected surge of media attention was devoted to American Muslims and Arabs. Frequent news stories and discussions involved the issue of civil liberties that American Muslims were facing due to the increase in reports involving physical violence and assaults on Arabs and Muslims. Other studies conducted by LexisNexis Academic and CNN found that media outlets devoted more coverage to terrorist attacks involving Muslims, especially Muslims who were not born in the United States. Author and researcher Nahid Afrose Kabir examined similar reporting on violent events. One event he studied was the Fort Hood shooting that occurred on November 5, 2009. Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who was identified as American born but held a Muslim background, shot and killed thirteen soldiers and wounded thirty more. Some of the interviewees commented on how the news reporting of this event emphasized Hasan's Muslim background. The Times subsequent reporting indicated that Pakistan's Tehrik-i-Taliban took credit for the failed attempt. In the same report over the incident, Kabir noted that the Times report used this incident to further legitimize the wars in the Middle East, emphasizing the need to take out potential terrorists. Kabir echoed Reem Bakker's sentiments, an interviewee in Kabir's study, that the failed attempt further ostracized the Muslim community. ==In other areas==

In the justice system In a 2018 study conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, the report found that Muslim or Muslim-perceived defendants were given longer and harsher sentences compared to non-Muslim defendants for comparable crimes. In sports In October 2019, a 16 year old Muslim girl athlete from Ohio was disqualified from a cross country race because she was wearing a hijab. Since 2016, Noor Alexandria Abukaram has played three high school sports while wearing a hijab. ==Hate crimes==

By 2014, Islamophobic hate crimes remained five times higher than before the 9/11 attacks. In 2015, this spiked to levels not seen since 2001. There is evidence which proves that the 2015 spike was linked to the then candidate and later President Donald Trump, "researchers found strong statistical correlations between the number of Islam-related tweets made by Trump in a single week and the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes that took place in the days and weeks that followed." Generally, a hate crime involves two elements that distinguish it from other illegal acts. Namely, the crime must be a criminal offense that is backed by a biased motivation. This biased motivation is usually revealed when an individual commits an attack against another individual because of some immutable personal characteristic—such as —that is protected by law. Hate crimes vary from assault, murder, damage to property, work place discrimination and housing discrimination. Hates crimes often go unreported, resulting in government reports that underrepresent the extent of the problem. The 2015 Chapel Hill shooting is an example of a high-profile Islamophobic hate crime. Craig Stephen Hicks murdered three Muslim college students in North Carolina. Hicks pleaded guilty to shooting Deah Barakat, as well as sisters Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha. He also confessed to shooting both of the women in the head after they were initially wounded. Hicks was sentenced to three consecutive life terms without parole. Chapel Hill Police chief Chris Blue, after initially calling the murders a "parking dispute" later acknowledged, "The man who committed these murders undoubtedly did so with a hateful heart, and the murders represented the taking of three promising lives by someone who clearly chose not to see the humanity and the goodness in them." The Chapel Hill case also illustrates the difficulty in hate crimes data. At the time "...under North Carolina law, hate crime statutes only apply to misdemeanour charges, making it inapplicable to Hicks's felony case." The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro in Tennessee was reportedly shot at and construction equipment was also set on fire while lawsuits which challenged Islam's status as a religion were being filed. Islamophobic hate crimes impact people who are perceived as Muslim by attackers. For example, on September 15, 2001, the first victim of a 9/11 backlash murder was Balbir Singh Sodhi, an adherent of the Sikh faith. As the FBI reports, "Hate crimes against Muslims rose 1617% from 2000 to 2001". Also, the Pew Research Center reports that despite the passage of time and despite the growing size of the Muslim population of the United States, "discrimination against this community has not waned". The congressional testimony which was delivered by the Southern Poverty Law Centre in 2011 illustrated that "Mosques were burned or destroyed and death threats and harassment followed many Muslims in the weeks following the attacks". In the first half of 2024, anti-Muslim incidents rose about 70% amid the Gaza attack. According to Hatem Bazian, a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and leader of the college's Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project, the result of asking questions related to the insecurity of Muslims was that "almost 80% said they feel at least somewhat worried about the safety of their family in the U.S." The Quba Islamic Institute in Houston, Texas, was set alight at 5am on February 13, 2015. Some media reports described it as an Islamophobic attack. In September 2016, a man set a mosque on fire in Ft. Pierce, Florida out of fear of "another Manhattan World Trade Centre attack or Boston Bombing." In January 2017, Burglary and attempted arson were committed at a restaurant. Racist and derogatory comments, including the word "terrorist," were written on the walls of the restaurant and directed at the restaurant's owners, who are Sikhs. Police called the incident a hate crime. In March 2019, A man set fire to a mosque in Escondido, causing minor damage to the building. Police discovered graffiti on the mosque's driveway which referenced the Christchurch mosque shootings shooter, leading them to consider the fire a terrorist attack. Assault Zohreh Assemi, an Iranian American Muslim owner of a nail salon in Locust Valley, New York, was robbed, beaten, and called a "terrorist" in September 2007 in what authorities call a bias crime. Assemi was kicked, sliced with a boxcutter, and one of her hands was smashed with a hammer. The perpetrators, who forcibly removed $2,000 from the salon and scrawled anti-Muslim slurs on the mirrors, also told Assemi to "get out of town" and they also stated that her kind was not "welcome" in the area. The attack followed two weeks of phone calls in which she was called a "terrorist" and told to "get out of town," according to statements which were made by her friends and family members. ==Individuals and organizations==

In 2011, the Center for American Progress published a report titled Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobic Network in America, which asserted that an elite, wealthy group of conservative foundations and donors were the engine behind the continuation of Islamophobia in law, private spheres, and general public sentiment. According to ACT's website, the organization views itself as the gatekeeper of national security for American borders, with over 750,000 members and 12,000 volunteer activists. They state that their activities are geared towards educating citizens and elected officials to impact public policy and guard America against terrorism. In 2011 the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2011 described him as one of a core group of ten anti-Islam hardliners in the United States. Robert Spencer is listed as a misinformation expert. Other political players like Sue Myrick, a congresswoman from North Carolina, rely on the network of the experts who view Islam as inherently violent. Commenting on Greenwald's response to Harris, Jerome Taylor, writing in The Independent, has stated, "Like Chomsky, who has also been a vocal critic of New Atheism, he [Greenwald] blames writers like Harris for using their particularly anti-Islamic brand of rational non-belief to justify American foreign policies over the last decade." Two educators at universities in Utah have claimed that these American atheist activists invoke Samuel Huntington's 'clash of civilizations' theory to explain the current political contestation, and that this forms part of a trend toward "Islamophobia [...] in the study of Muslim societies". ==Commentary==

The study of Islamophobia involves historians, scholars and educators who are writing about institutional violence against American Muslims and the incitement of violence against foreign Muslims. In his book Orientalism, Edward Said stated that the West is taught about the East through a Westernized lens and he also stated that most of the East's history is written in Europe by European historians, instead of specialized scholars of Eastern history. When it is applied, Orientalism serves as a vehicle in which demeaning representations of the East are used in order to assert the cultural and political superiority of the West over the inferior culture of the Muslims. ==References==