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Kate Dunkle
May 3, 2016
MC 324A
Lucas
Islamophobia in America
The word islamophobia conjures up multiple images in the minds of the American public. It is a
term that has been used quite often in American media and politics recently, but why? I believe that since
9/11, islamophobia has been on the rise within the United States, functioning through American media
and politics, and that islamophobia is causing damage to the American Islamic communities.
What is Islamophobia? Islamophobia has been described as the fear of the Islamic religion and as
“a new ideological formation that has taken full expression since the collapse of the soviet Union”
(Sheehi 2011, 31). Islamophobia affects the way that Americans perceive media, the United States creates
policies, and how the american public treats muslims within their communities. Actors that use
islamophobia in the media and in politics are “collectively responsible for the virulent dissemination of
anti­Muslim and anti­Arab stereotypes and beliefs, circulated in order to naturalize and justify US global,
economic, and political hegemony” (Sheehi 2011, 32). Since 9/11 there has been a shift in American to a
more outspoken Islamophobic persona, and it is being perpetuated by newscasters, public figures, and
politicians.
Islamophobia is not a new thing. It has been around for as long as the Islamic religion has been
around. In addition, Islamic communities within the United States are not new either. The Islamic
community began “long before the American Revolution and throughout the proceeding centuries;
Muslims were an integral part of America, first as African slaves, and then as small but growing
immigrant communities” (Thomas 2015, 12). The slave trade introduced Islam to America, in fact
“Historian Allan Austin estimates that, during the final 100 years of the slave trade, between 30,000 and

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40,000 Muslims were transported to North America as slaves” (Thomas 2015, 13). The majority of free
American’s at this time did not realize the presence of Islam in America and the entire religion seemed as
if it were a far off mystical idea. American policy makers did not make much notice of their Islamic
population until the late 1800’s when the United States had a surge of Middle Eastern immigrants. While
the majority of these immigrants were christian, there was a large Islamic minority. At this point in time,
there was a shift in policy towards Middle Eastern immigrants. One example of such policy that targeted
Muslims was enacted in 1891; “Congress barred polygamists or ‘persons who admit their belief in the
practice of polygamy’ from immigrating into the United States. This measure directly affected adherents
to Islam, which permits Muslim men to take as many as four wives” (Thomas 2015, 15). From that point
on, anti­muslim policies continued to be created in order to limit the population size of American
muslims, hinder their right to freedom of religion, and create a division between who was a ‘real
american’ and who was the ‘other.’
The study of the orient, or orientalism, is crucial to the concept of Islamophobia. Orientalism
began as a study of eastern cultures and languages, however “ orientalism, the philologically driven
discipline of the study of asian languages, no longer exists as such, orientalism as discursive practice
linking culture and power is more important than ever” (Burke 2008, 1). The idea that orientalism was
linked to power was first openly discussed with Edward Said’s book Orientalism. Said used Michel
Foucault’s ideas on post structuralism to try and understand the link between power and orientalism. His
book critiqued “European discourse on the Middle East....demonstrating that western discourse on the
Middle East was linked to power, trafficked in racist stereotypes, and continually reproduced itself”
(Burke 2008, 1). Many scholars disagree with Said, such as Ibn Warraq, an author who is very open about
being pro secular and anti­Islam, He stated in his book ​Defending the West ​ that Said only wants to create
a new other, the evil west. He believes that “ the history of the West shows an astonishing openness to
‘the Other’ that is exhibited by no other civilization in history. The civilization that is at least open to the

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‘the Other’ is Islam, which divides the world between believer and infidel” (Warraq 2007, 13). Ibn
Warraq’s statements can easily be refuted by pointing out the west’s involvement within the slave trade,
colonialism, the wiping out of mass civilizations such as many native american tribes, and the most recent
attempt at defeating the other, neo­imperialism. While he claims the west is open to being open to the
other, he is also one of the founders of American Congress for Truth! For America, also known as ACT!
For America, an organization that “ seeks to build chapters in cities throughout the united states in order
to ‘educate millions of citizens about our enemy’ militant Islam” (Sheehi 2011, 93). Ibn Warraq, like
many others who are against Said’s argument, are also biased against Islam in the first place. These
scholars continue to build off of each other to create an orientalist discourse that frames Islam as the other
and as a violent other that needs to be dealt with.
Islamophobia has had a presence within the United States media since the beginning of the United
States. Islamophobia arrived as the form of “popular European fiction [that] also carried anti­muslim
views back to the colonies” such as Paradise Lost by John Milton who “described Satan as an Ottoman
sultan” (Thomas 2015, 3). Islamophobia appeared in many fictitious works of American media including
“novels, biographies, autobiographies, first hand accounts of current events and lavish photographic
productions” (Terry 1985, 1). Within the popular written media, pre 9/11, “studies that purport to examine
the italian, african or mexican ‘mind’ [had] long been discredited, works that allegedly explain the totality
of Arabs and Muslims [were] still abound” (terry 1985, 9). Edward Said also believed that the media had
been over muddled with images of islamophobia. In his address during the Euro­Arab Dialogue Lectures
in 1987, he stated that “There is no other major cultural, linguistic or national group except the Arabs and
Muslims whose image is so almost entirely negative. To ask an educated American what the word ‘Islam’
connotes...is to trigger such unflattering concepts as terrorism, fundamentalism, hijacking, radicalism and
violence” (Said 1988, 36). Before September 11, 2001, American’s concern with the Middle East had a
large focus on helping Israel in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The media proved to be Islamophobic even

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then by using “‘key­words’ that foster certain amalgams, especially when pictures reinforce the power of
words. Thus, for example, when terrorism is mentioned, the Palestinian headgear known as kaffieh will be
shown, leading to an immediate association” (Klibi 1988, 21). These images continue to be spread, and
continue to influence the American public.
September 11, 2001 marked the shift in Islamophobia in America. Islamophobia has been present
in America since America’s founding, however “the terrorist attacks of 9/11 moved both terrorism and
Islamic extremism to the forefront of American fears about threats abroad, and most importantly, security
at home” (Thomas 2015, 31). September 11 became “the worst terrorist attack in American history” and
the American public demanded action in retaliation to the 3000 people killed (Thomas 2015, 31). 9/11
created the demand for stricter national security measures within America, and policy makers delivered.
Almost immediately after the attacks on 9/11, “Congress passed the Authorization for the Use of Military
Force, authorizing the president to us ‘all necessary and appropriate force against nations, organizations,
or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks” (Thomas 2015,
31). This policy allowed President George W. Bush to start wars with nonstate actors, and in retrospect,
was the beginning push for the snowballing War on Terror. This policy allowed for the President to
authorize a war in Afghanistan against al­Qaeda and the second Iraq War, both of which would be
America’s longest running wars. 9/11 brought America’s fears to the forefront and in consequence to that,
American media and policy began to reflect Americans’ fear of the ‘other’ or their islamophobia. 9/11
gave way to “American commentators, journalist, politicians and pundits to adopt new Islamophobic
discourses” all while “key political hacks paired up with rogue academics and pundits to resurrect,
reconstitute, and reinvest the most heinous of anti­muslim and anti­arab stereotypes under the pretense of
‘understanding’ the ‘arab mind’ and discovering ‘why they hate us’” (Sheehi 2011, 41).
Days after 9/11, President Bush made several attempts to try and quell american’s anti­muslim
attitudes. He met with Islamic leaders and spoke out against Islamophobia, stating “America counts

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millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our
country….They love America just as much as I do” (Thomas 2015, 91). He spoke of peace and
acceptance of all Americans, however the policies enacted under President Bush’s Freedom Agenda did
not reflect this peaceful attitude. One of the first muslim targeting operations after 9/11 was the
PENTTBOM investigation, otherwise known as the Pentagon­Twin Towers­Bombing investigation. Over
1200 US citizens and foreign nationals were arrested in the first two months of this investigation, yet “in
almost all cases, the apparent links between the detained individual and terrorism were vague, tenuous, or
nonexistent” (Thomas 2015, 36). Some of the accused were detained for months. The investigation did
not yield “significant counterterrorism benefits, and no terrorists were discovered” (Thomas 2015, 38).
Another policy that targeted Middle Easterners under the Bush presidency was the No Fly List, a list that
“contains the names of the individuals deemed a threat to civil aviation.” This list was created before
9/11, however “this pre­9/11 list held fewer than 20 names. By the end of 2004, the TSA’s No Fly List
and Automatic Selectee List held a combination of more than 20,000 names,” many of which were Arabic
sounding names which were held under more scrutiny than others(Thomas 2015, 44). In addition to the
No Fly List, the United States government began to target Islamic charities. They claimed to target
charities who were funding terrorist organizations, yet they closed 9 large charities and only “three of the
charities ever faced criminal prosecution for aiding terrorists,” (Thomas 2015, 48). The United States
government seized “a combined total of $20 million in assets” from these charities (Thomas 2015, 48).
In addition to creating the policies that targeted Muslims after 9/11, Bush’s presidency also
included him surrounding himself with orientalist scholars. One such scholar was Bernard Lewis, one of
Bush’s goto guys when he needed information about the Middle East. Lewis was known for his books
preaching muslim rage; “a convenient trope…[that] provides a totalizing explanation of Muslim
grievances in a sound bite, dismissing resentment towards the United States as an inherently visceral hate
of the West; an irrational reaction that stems from culturally determined shortcomings of their religion

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and society” (Sheehi 2011, 68).Lewis believed that American foreign policy towards the Middle East had
no effect towards Islamic extremism. Instead of accepting that Middle Easterners could be resentful
towards America for keeping oppressive regimes in power, neoimperalism, and the devastation of the
depleted Uranium radiation during the Iraq war. Lewis’s argument made Bush’s freedom agenda credible;
“Lewis provided the Bush White House with the civilizational discourse that could form the moral
foundation for the grandiose war on terror” (Sheehi 2011, 74). Without the backing from respected
scholars, the United States Government would not have had the credibility to go to war with a non­state
actor such as al Qaeda.
In addition, many United States politicians have been quoted using anti­islamic themes. In the
past two elections, many candidates have used islamophobic rhetoric in order to gain votes. For example,
Newt Gingrich, a contender for the 2012 republican presidential nomination, was quoted saying “Stealth
jihadis use political, cultural, societal, religious, intellectual tools; violent jihadis use violence. But, in
fact, they’re both engaged in jihad, and they’re both seeking to impose the same end­state, which is to
replace Western Civilization with radical imposition of Sharia” (Thomas 2015, 117). Gingrich does not
differentiate between fundamental Islam and the religion of Islam, therefore he simplifies the issue into
something he can understand; all Muslims want the same thing, whether they get it through stealth or
violence does not matter. This water­down and ignorant view may not seem like a big deal, however the
more that politicians use violent language to describe Muslims, the more “drastic increase in the violence
of US foreign policy” (Sheehi 2011, 30). When politicians use islamophobic rhetoric, it justifies
islamophobia for the American public. In 2011, a report by the South Asian Americans Leading Together
advocacy group was published “documenting 78 cases of bigoted political speech directed as Arabs and
South Asians during a three year period….more that 90 percent of these incidents….were motivated by
anti­Muslim sentiment” (Thomas 2015, 118). Government officials are supposed to represent the

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American people and protect them, yet for the Islamic American community, the US government had
failed.
Islamophobia has infiltrated American media as well. Popular media “representations, together
with religious and historical interpretations….form the basis for most Western concepts of the Middle
East” (Terry 1985, 7). More often than not, these media representations have a negative biased towards
the Middle East and Islam. Anti­Islamic activist use media to continue to perpetuate their ideas and
continued perpetuation can lead to getting policy passed or getting certain people elected. Media is used
as a tool in order to push forth an islamophobic ideology onto the American people. Most of the
information given out to the American people in popular media is skewed, biased or wrong, yet in 2010
“Americans leaned increasingly toward negative impressions of Islam, even though a large proportion of
the public lacked basic knowledge about the religion” (Thomas 2015, 91). Popular media keeps the public
informed about what radical islamists do while also demonizing all muslims, yet they do not educate the
American public to what Islam is. Out of “430,000 stories on primetime television news from 2007 to
2013….[had] 75 percent of news stories containing unfavorable portrayals of Islam or Muslims” (Thomas
2015, 99).
Islamophobia has caused harm to many Muslim american citizens. After 9/11, “hate crimes
targeting Muslims spiked 1700 percent...increasing from 28 incidents in 2000 to 481 incidents in 2001”
(Thomas 2015, 120). These crimes were made because of a bias towards muslims and included crimes
such as harassment, violent assaults, arson, and murder. In many of the anti­muslim murders after 9/11,
the victims were not even Islamic. Most americans believe that the american Islamic population has an
arab majority, however the United States has a very diverse Islamic population including citizens who
identify “as either white, black, Asian, Hispanic, mixed, or belonging to some other racial designation,
with no one racial category constituting a majority” (Thomas 2015, 138). Because of the images used in

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popular media of Muslim being Middle Eastern, the majority of the American public has only one image
of what an American muslim. This is harmful because it erases the identities of other American muslims,
and creates one general concept of Islam without considering the differences in cultural backgrounds,
languages, traditions or values within the different Islamic American communities.
One key concept needed to help perpetuate islamophobia is identity politics. Identity politics is an
international relations concept that shows the relationship between an actor's identity and their politics.
One way islamophobia is being perpetuated through identity politics is the new movement of “true
americans.” Identity politics allows for groups to create ‘others;’ in Islamophobes’ cases, they will create
an identity and insist “on the superiority of its….narrative to the exclusion of other narratives,
its….customs to the exclusion of other customs, its….feeling of belonging to the exclusion of the other”
(Bronner 2014, 24). Identity politics helps to create a justified division between the ‘true americans’ and
the other, which includes “muslims, sikhs, and other minority groups [that are mistaken for
muslims]...[and they] are more likely to encounter aggression inspired by biased attitudes” (Thomas 2015,
143). In order to create the other, identity politics is used once again in order to create the ‘Islamic”
identity. While in reality, the United States has one of the most racially diverse Islamic populations in the
world, for anti­islamic activists, American muslims “congeal into a single all encompassing and
overwhelming threat” (Bronner 2014, 27). This perceived version of American Islam takes on “meanings
within a construct of identity politics informed by local political and social contexts and conditions”
(Sheehi 2011, 36). This version of Islam is an Islam with no history; it is a violent ideology and religion
that hates America because of our freedoms. These accusations are perpetuated every day by scholars
such as Ibn Warraq who claims “the root cause of Islamic fundamentalism is Islam” instead of
considering “poverty, US foreign policy, Israel” or many other significant factors that had an impact on
Islamic fundamentalism (Warraq 2007, 274). This claim furthers the idea that Islam is static and violent
and Islamic fundamentalism has nothing to do with American intervention. Media also perpetuates

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Islamophobia by using fear of the other, for example, Right wing media personality Ann Coulter grouped
all Muslims together when she was quoted saying “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders,
and convert them to christianity” ( Sheehi 2011, 29). There are even large political organization
perpetuating Islamophobia, such as the Tea Party, who “legitimized forms of intolerance that many
believed had lost their appeal,” and “ applauded as a few lunatic pastors threatened to burn the Koran and
condemned Islam as a religion of the ‘gutter’” (Bronner 2011, 163­164).
Islamophobia in America is continually being perpetuated by individual actors, media, and the
United States government. Islamophobia gives an unrealistic view of islam as a static religion and of its
peoples as violent and anti­american. The idea of what a muslim should look like has been perpetuated as
someone who is darker skinned, possibly of middle eastern descent, who may be wearing a turban,
although their is no majority race within the American Islamic population. The climate of fear within
American stems from America’s ignorance of the Islamic religion and its inability to try and develop a
dialogue. Hate speech is spewed from our politicians, newscasters, and our neighbors. Islamophobia
justified two wars. It creates a climate of tension for Muslim Americans. Instead of being the freedom
loving country America claims to be, “the ‘problem’ arises…. when freedom is demanded by the
disenfranchised, the exploited, and the excluded” (Bronner 2014, 165). Islamophobia continues to justify
policies that target Muslims and limit their rights in America. The only way to combat Islamophobia is
with education. The continuation of spreading ignorant information is the only reason that Islamophobia
is still rising; anti­islamic activists are “primarily concerned with proving what [they] think [they] already
know” (Bronner 2014, 17). This means that they ignore the information that counters their argument, and
only include anecdotes or information that forwards their narrative that Islam is a violent religion and is
the same as Islamic fundamentalism.
Islamophobia is real problem with real consequences. Since 9/11, it has given rise to more
anti­muslim activism, policies that target Muslims, and harm towards american muslims. Islamophobia is

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justified by politicians, scholars, and media representatives. It helped to justify two wars. America claims
to be the land of the free, yet it continues to harm its own citizens because of a fearful and ignorant
ideology. The only way to combat islamophobia is through education. Without education on Islam, there
may not be a way to quell anti­muslim sentiments, and islamophobia will continue to rise and infiltrate
more of American’s lives.
Works Cited
Bronner, Stephen Eric. The Bigot. New Haven: Yale UP, 2014. Print.

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Burke, Edmund, III, and David Prochaska. "Introduction: Orientalism from Postcolonial Theory
to World Theory." Genealogies of Orientalism: History, Theory, Politics. Lincoln: U of Nebraska, 2008.
1­74. Print.
Klibi, Chedli. "Opening Address." Information and Misinformation in Euro­Arab Relations.
Comp. Eric Rouleau. Vol. 3. The Hague: Lutfia Rabbani Foundation, 1988. 19­24. Print. Euro­Arab
Dialogue Lectures.
Said, Edward W. "The Media and Cultural Identity: National Authority or Exilic Wandering?"
Information and Misinformation in Euro­Arab Relations. Comp. Eric Rouleau. Vol. 3. The Hague: Lutfia
Rabbani Foundation, 1988. 35­48. Print. Euro­Arab Dialogue Lectures.
Sheehi, Stephen. Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims. Atlanta: Clarity,
2011. Print.
Terry, Janice J. Mistaken Identity: Arab Stereotypes in Popular Writing. Washington DC:
American­Arab Affairs Council, 1985. Print.
Thomas, Jeffrey L. Scapegoating Islam: Intolerance, Security, and the American Muslim. Santa
Barbara, California: Praeger, 2015. Print.
Warraq, Ibn. Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism. Amherst:
Prometheus, 2007. Print.