Islamophobia is defined as a dislike of or prejudices against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force, according to Google. There are numerous books on the topic that cast light on some interesting topics within the scope of Islamophobia. Check out my top 8 books on Islamophobia in the West!
1. The Muslims are Coming! By Arun Kundnani
War on terror has transformed into a “homegrown enemy”, with domestic terrorists who are believed to be Muslims. With the counterterrorism structures policing and creating a surveillance state in the United States and in European Nations. The United States has around 100,000 Muslims that are secretly surveilled. Even going as far as having police officers going undercover as Muslims, and trying to lead conversations in mosques to extremism. Causing Muslims not to go to the mosque because of not being able to trust their own fellow worshippers. Which actually hinders Muslims from counteracting extremism in their own communities, is Muhammad really into Wahhabism or is he an undercover cop? This book is based on many years of research and reportage showing how Islamophobia has changed the political landscape of the Western world and Muslim thought.
2. The Islamophobia Industry by Nathan Lean
Uncovering people who spread hate about Islam from Donald Trump to Steve Bannon and Newt Gingrich, to the Front National in France and websites like Breitbart. This novel reveals a world of conservative bloggers, right-wing talk show hosts, evangelical religious leaders, politicians, and “liberal” anti-Muslim campaigners such as Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins. The novel reveals scare tactics, traces their sources of funding and exposes the ideologies that drive their lucrative propaganda machine.
3. when Islam is not a religion by Asma t. Uddin
Many Islamophobes do not believe that Muslims are human enough for human rights and constitutional protection, both in America and Europe, is moving from the fringe to the mainstream, claiming Islam is not a religion. These talks affect all Americans because Uddin argues the loss of liberty for one group means the loss of liberties for all groups. Uddin looks at how faith is being secularized and politicized In the United States. Ultimately protecting anyone’s faith from Christian to Muslim gives us all equality. Proving that laws against “sharia” do in fact harm women who are seeking a divorce from abusive husbands.
4. Republic of Islamophobia by Jim Wolfreys
France is extremely Islamophobic, in that Islamophobia is on the rise with Muslims subjected to scrutiny on what they wear, eat, and say. Championed by Le Pen and drawing on French colonial legacy, the “new secularism” gives racism a respectable visage. The author exposes the different avenues that are steering the intolerance: a society polarized by inequality, and the authoritarian neoliberalism of the French political mainstream.
5. American Islamophobia by Khaled A. Beydoun
Beydoun captures how law, policy, and official state rhetoric have fueled Islamophobia in the United States. Charting its long and terrible history, from African slaves to laws prohibiting Muslim immigrants from becoming citizens to the “war on terror” that assigns blame on Islam. He argues that failing to frame Islamophobia as a bigotry system endorsed and embolden is dangerous.
6. Separate and Dominate by Christine Delphy
Delphy denounces the racist motivation in the veil ban of 2011 in France. Castigating humanitarian liberals for demanding the cultural assimilation of women they are wanting to “save”. Delphy shows how criminalizing Islam in the name of feminism is paradoxical. This novel is her manifesto, dismantling the claim that Afghanistan was invaded to save women and that homosexuals and immigrants should “reserve their self-expression for private settings”. Calling for a true universalism that sacrifices no one at the expense of others.
7. The Republic Unsettled by Mayanthi L. Fernando
Fernando explores how French Muslims embrace both Islam and secular-republican traditions to create a new France. The secularism of France regulates Islam, changing Islamic perspectives in the country, and what it means to be Muslim. The author traces how France’s policies and rendering Muslims illegitimate as a citizen and moral subjects.
8. Framing Muslims by Peter Morey and Amina Yaqin
The authors find the hidden ways in which stereotypes that depict Muslims are an inherently problematic presence in the West. Crucially showing that these stereotypes are not solely the province of crude minded individuals and their tabloid megaphones, but multiply as well from the lips of progressive elites as well that speak “for” the Muslims. Based on analyses of cultural representations in both the United States and the UK, they find the circulation of stereotypes about Muslims that sometimes globalizes local biases.