Islamophobia: what the word means, and why discrimination against religious people is bad

To begin with: what does Islamophobia mean?

The meaning of the word ‘Islamophobia’ is really very unclear and confusing: literally, one would think it means “fear of Islam” and thus would be used to describe people who fear or dislike Islam, but in practice it is more often used to mean fear of and/or prejudice against Muslims, which is therefore its common meaning, and the one that will be used in this article when talking about it. I don’t like the word — I think its face meaning is very confusing — but it seems to have to stuck somewhat.

The distinction between “prejudice against a religion” and “prejudice against followers of that religion” is extremely important. Prejudice and contempt of Islam itself is fine and in fact very valid; prejudice against Muslims, however, is completely unacceptable both on moral and practical grounds.

This article is written to explain why this is, and some of the fallacious logic that leads people to be prejudiced against Muslims. Much of what is written here is applicable to most religions (in particular, Christianity).

The important conclusion is that criticism is fine, but discrimination and prejudice are not.

Why is there a difference?

Initially, it might seem odd to think that there is a difference between e.g “prejudice against Islam” and “prejudice against Muslims” — if a Muslim believes in Islam, one might think they would be deserving of equal criticism or prejudice. This is absolutely false; let us examine some of the primary reasons why.

Many Muslims do not interpret the Quran literally or in a hardline manner

The Quran, like some other religious texts (the Bible for instance), has quite a lot of barbaric and immoral verses within it, in contrast and contradiction to their more benevolent verses. That isn’t a point to be contested, but to demonstrate that there is good reason to be prejudiced against, or have contempt for, Islam as a religion, just as there is to be prejudiced against Christianity.

However, that the Quran — and Islam — contain such verses, does not mean that every Muslim follows those particular verses as they are written. For example, take the rather infamous Sword Verse, which refers to “slaying pagans where [you] find them” — this verse is a perfect example of the difference between prejudice vs. a religion and prejudice vs. those who follow it.

This verse, when interpreted to mean “any pagans”, is one of many things that enables hardline Muslims to justify killings and terrorism to each other, but at the same time: most reasonable, moderate Muslims do not interpret the verse this way. While it isn’t possible to state with certainty the true intended meaning of this verse, it is commonly interpreted as referring to a specific band of pagans who existed in Muhammad’s time, and not as a blanket statement regarding any possible ‘pagans’.

“According to several mainstream Islamic scholars, the verse relates to a specific event in Islamic history — namely that Arabian pagans made and broke a covenant with Arabic Muslims.

They cite the verses immediately preceding and following 9:5, 9:4 and 9:6, and emphasize: Only those pagans who broke the covenant were subject to violent repercussions so that any pagans who honored the covenant or repented their betrayal were to be spared.”

The fact that this verse exists in Islam, and that Muslims refuse to change the Quran to clarify it, can be argued to make Muslims (though mostly only those in positions of religious authority) complicit in its misuse for malicious purposes. I do not use the term ‘complicit’ here to mean such people should be condemned or discriminated against — at least not those believers who have no power to influence their religion, which is the vast majority — but the fact that their religions enable malice is something many religious people, of many faiths, refuse to acknowledge or turn a blind eye to.

However, there is still no logical argument for saying that all Muslims interpret this verse in such a manner. Once again, this isn’t unique to Islam — Christians can be said to be complicit in allowing malicious interpretations of the Bible as well.

Therefore, the mere fact that somebody practices Islam is not a reason to be prejudiced against them, though depending on how they practice it, it could be a reason to criticise them. There are for example highly moral Muslims who support causes like LGBT rights, such as the excellent Ilhan Omar.

Few muslims choose to be muslims

Most Muslims, like other religious believers, don’t become followers of Islam as adults after reasoning about it or reading the Quran. They are brought up with their religion and taught it from birth as the fundamental facts of life that are forbidden to be argued with. This childhood indoctrination is difficult to shake off, irrespective of what religion or knowledge is being pushed onto the child in question.

This isn’t unique to Islam; Christianity has been especially guilty of this, particularly in the past (numerous wars in European history — many caused by Christianity — diminished Christianity’s influence in much of west and central Europe, and as such this problem is less prevalent there now due to more secular societies and laws, but it is still very much a problem in America.)

From the “religion and children” article on Wikipedia, Richard Dawkins states this:

Dawkins states that he is angered by the labels “Muslim child” or “Catholic child”. He asks how a young child can be considered intellectually mature enough to have such independent views on the cosmos and humanity’s place within it. By contrast, Dawkins points out, no reasonable person would speak of a “Marxist child” or a “Tory child.” He suggests there is little controversy over such labeling because of the “weirdly privileged status of religion”.

The point of stating that few Muslims choose to be Muslims is to point out that, much like with other things people don’t choose — gender, race, sexual orientation — it is both illogical and immoral to be prejudiced against a person for being part of a religion they did not choose to be in, and are unlikely to be able to get out of, whether due to legal restrictions, fear or simply childhood indoctrination. Those Muslims who did choose to be Muslims will often fall into the previous section of this article.

For those Muslims who do question their faith, many nations of majority Muslim faith do not allow renouncing Islam at all — many carry the death penalty for this. Many Christians died in the past for being the wrong type of Christian, for speaking against the Catholic Church, and more.

Conclusion

The conclusion here is that “knowing a person is of a particular religion” is not grounds for discriminating against that person.

There is, depending on the situation and context, plenty of reason to criticise a religious person’s views, and there is an understandable and valid concern that religious views poison society’s laws (right now, the US is on the verge of banning abortion, for instance — due entirely to Christian beliefs on the matter, and that’s on top of many barbaric US laws based solely on Christian beliefs already). However, not only would this make a poor reason to discriminate against someone of a religion without knowing how they follow their religion, it would also be highly counterproductive and would simply cause that person to become more fervent in their religion. Criticising the views of such people is fine — discriminating against them is not.

Removing the negative influences of religion can be achieved by improving education systems, but not by discrimination.