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The Law of March 15, 2004, which prohibits the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in public schools, marks a philosophical and legal turning point, with the advent of a neo-secularism that challenges the equality of religions by targeting Muslims, in particular, and freedom by extending the duty of neutrality to citizens. Prohibitionists were active but in the minority in the 1990s. This reversal stems from repeated campaigns to demonize women wearing headscarves, targeting their presence in all spheres of social life: work, leisure, university, public space, and media. Their construction as a “problem” relies on the permanent association between religious signs and “Islamism” to sometimes make the link with terrorism. 

n 2021, senators pushed for more prohibitions as they amended the bill strengthening the “Republican principles” of France. These senators have also voted to ban the wearing of religious symbols by minors in public; to ban the “burkini,” a bathing suit covering the entire body, from public swimming areas; and to ban prayers in universities, except in chaplaincies. The Senate has also made it possible to ban private schools in the name of the “interests of France,” to refuse a residence permit to foreigners who reject the “principles of the Republic,” and even to prevent candidates deemed “communitarian” from running for office or receiving reimbursement for their campaign expenses.

The restriction of freedoms and the marginalization of Muslim women wearing a headscarf is only one aspect of this radicalization of Islamophobia in France. This fundamental movement is supported by a majority of the French media, and it finds many extensions in the functioning of cultural spaces. This hegemony of Islamophobic ideas and practices, to take up the Gramscian dichotomy, is supported as much by political society as by civil society. There are still spaces of resistance—actors, media, or institutions that oppose this groundswell. However, they are systematically attacked by the conservative press and by the government. 

The 1905 debates, rich in passion and reasoning, are replaced today by pragmatism and politicians substituting for public intellectuals. Jean Baubérot points out the factual errors and serious misinterpretations made by Minister Delegate for Citizenship Marlène Schiappa in her book, Laïcité, point! Shortened deliberation, substituting intellectuals with politicians, factual errors: it looks nothing short of the neoliberal age of France.

Ghettoization was undermining vivre ensemble, the expression that has become the key to laïcité and integration. The president explained, “we can have communities in the French Republic...these belongings should never be considered as subtractions from the Republic.” With separatism, he was referring to the abuse of religion for “building a project of separation from the Republic.” 

A focus on “public neutrality” as the principle of laïcité under challenge overshadows the fact that it is a process of privatization of state enterprises, which changes the boundaries of the public and gives rise to a “problem of neutrality.”

in public conversation in America today, “Islam” is a racial term. Being Muslim doesn’t just mean not being Christian or Jewish. It means not being white.

in the struggle to be classified as white, Middle Eastern Christians had an advantage: Jesus. In the 1915 case Dow v. United States, a Syrian Christian successfully argued that he was white because Jesus, the original Middle Eastern Christian, was too. In 1925, in United States v. Cartozian, the Court designated Armenians as white because, “[a]lthough the Armenian province is within the confines of the Turkish Empire, being in Asia Minor, the people thereof have always held themselves aloof from Turks, the Kurds, and allied peoples, principally, it might be said, on account of their [Christian] religion.” In the 1942 case In Re Ahmed Hassan, a Michigan Court said a petitioner from Yemen was not white because, “Apart from the dark skin of the Arabs, it is well known that they are a part of the Mohammedan world and that a wide gulf separates their culture from that of the predominately Christian peoples of Europe.”

Often, the politicians and pundits most eager to profile Muslims are the same folks who in the 1980s and 1990s defended the “racial profiling” of blacks. And listening to them, you sometimes get the sense that they think the process would work the same way: just look to see who the Muslims are. In 2011, for instance, Long Island Congressman Peter King suggested that when deciding who police should target as potential terror suspects, a “person’s religious background or ethnicity can be a factor.” But if the problem is Muslims—a billion person religion with adherents from Malaysia to Mauritania—what does “ethnicity” have to do with it?

Globalization’s ideal, however, has been turned upside down. From annual debates over whether Americans should celebrate Christopher Columbus, to new veil bans in Austria, lightning rod identity controversies have come to dominate the headlines for weeks or months at a time. After the technocratic moment of the 1990s and 2000s, politics is returning to its natural state: answering the fundamental question of who we are, not what sorts of policies we support.

both Islamists and the West’s conservative nationalists (whom we might term “Westernists”) place great importance on the communal dimension of human society. Both aim to privilege a certain set of beliefs and symbols at the local level, starting with the family, and both are inclined to prioritize the communities, regions, and nations in which they live. In this sense, both are also “supremacist” (we say this descriptively, not necessarily pejoratively). In our research studying Islamism across the Muslim world, we’ve written about how elevating Islamic law and morals in the public sphere forms a central motivation for its supporters. Though they view their aims as diametrically opposed, Islamists and Westernists mirror each other in their preoccupation—and even obsession—with collective identity and cultural integrity

Though often simplistically portrayed as racists (and many of them surely are), many nationalists see Islam and Muslims not merely a security threat, but as a civilizational one as well. In a quickly deleted tweet that shocked his audience in the brief time it was up, alt-right darling Mike Cernovich wrote: “I say this without regard to what I want or wish were true…Islam is the future. Muslims have a vision and will. That is destiny.”

France, more than any other European country, has struggled with a wave of Islamist violence that has led to the death of more than 230 people. One response to these attacks from the political right and the center-left has been a rhetorical hardening on Islam and its place in French society. But many French Muslims and other minority voices say this hardening has often stifled good-faith criticism of government policies

I was called a terrorist and repeatedly harassed by social media trolls, only to find out they’d been funded by the French government

several organizations were given money without having to demonstrate their previous work on radicalization or, for some of them, to demonstrate any work at all. And some of those organizations and their representatives had personal relationships with Schiappa. Then it appeared that some of the money doled out by the government was ultimately used in the 2022 presidential campaign to criticize opponents of Emmanuel Macron, which is not legal. The government’s money cannot be used in favor of a candidate during a campaign — it has to be neutral.

The rise of the strong female politician with regressive ideas about women’s rights seems to be a global phenomenon. In Egypt, the sisters of the Muslim Brotherhood share similarities with the extreme right wing of the Republican Party including relying on the supernatural advice of a “higher power” for their political involvement and an unabashed commitment to policies that limit or reverse women’s rights. Though these women have benefitted from the notion that women are equal, they work hard to differentiate themselves from feminists and attack them whenever possible

Funded by infusions of hundreds of millions of dollars over the years from conservative donors in the Gulf countries, al Garf and thousands of women like her have a powerful political ground game the Tea Partiers can only look upon with awe.

She understands that the majority of Egypt’s poor women already work outside the home and must at least travel alongside men, often supporting deadbeat husbands and children

Three examples of the policy direction of Anglo-American international development agencies, particularly DFID and USAID, highlight the new directions of ‘donor-driven Islam’ -  development assistance that introduces a creeping theocratization of formerly rights-based approaches to gender.

Ulama is a vague umbrella term for an imagined clergy which has no constitutional nor democratic legitimacy.

If anything, the widespread practice of contracting the assistance of local religious leaders for distributing contraception and for other gender-related projects has resulted in the empowerment of a traditionally discredited local clergy. In Baluchistan, in an interview with the author, development activists agreed that these amounted to “Rent-A-Maulvi” projects.

The motive of the attacks appeared to be efforts by the two Muslim leaders to combat the spread of radical Islam in the region. Tatarstan has long prided itself on the generally peaceful coexistence of moderate Muslims and Christians. But the region, about 500 miles east of Moscow, has been struggling to cope with the rise of radical Islam, which is espoused by rebel fighters in the Caucasus.

Mr. Putin said he hoped the women would not be punished too harshly but suggested that the Orthodox Church had already shown more compassion under the circumstances than could be expected from other religions, including Islam. “If they had gone to the Caucasus — you don’t have to go far,” he said, “and desecrated some Muslim shrine — we would not even have had time to put them under our protection.”

culture wars are even having an effect on the left. The Muslim Democrats Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have both openly supported LGBTQ causes, yet Omar and Tlaib’s most steadfast backer, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (arguably the largest and most influential Muslim organization in America), has recently shifted to the right on these causes. Previously supportive of LGBTQ rights, CAIR has expressed concern over proposed legislation strengthening these rights, stating that new amendments to the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act could “jeopardize religious freedom.” In the state of Michigan, CAIR is working with Catholic and Protestant groups challenging the amendments.

The alliances may seem improbable, but the foundations of these anti-LGBTQ and pro-traditional family movements are firm and likely not only to endure but also reshape the political landscape. In the West, the social conservatism of the traditional Muslim way of life offers a prototype for what a “woke-free” society might look like. For a sizable reactionary contingent, conservative Islam’s patriarchal structures and gender and family norms seem vastly preferable to the direction the West is heading, thanks to feminism, “cultural Marxism” and liberalism. In turn, conservative Muslims have been embracing expressions like “red pill” and “the matrix” to describe the rejection of liberalism and feminism, while expressing solidarity with the West’s manosphere. The misogyny, transphobia, antisemitism and anti-liberal sentiments of both cultures are thus being bolstered and are in turn supporting and influencing the political expression of the new radical right, represented by Trump, DeSantis and other populists. The new right may only be a splinter group, but with allies among extreme conservatives of all stripes, its power to potentially change societies and geopolitics is undeniable.

Invoking Sharia and casting it as a growing danger at odds with American principles has become a rallying cry for conservatives. It’s also quickly becoming an unlikely pet issue among 2012 presidential contenders: Potential candidates have almost unilaterally assailed the Islamic code, making it as much a staple of the campaign stump speech as economic reform, job creation and rising gas prices.

“Even immediately after Sept. 11, we didn’t see this kind of hatred mainstream in our society,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “There seems to be a coordinated effort to both marginalize American Muslims and demonize Islam.”

Bill sponsors interviewed by POLITICO could offer no examples of cases from their home states, instead pointing to a 2010 New Jersey case that used Sharia as a defense, though that decision was reversed by a higher court.

At this point I didn’t know any Muslims. My degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leeds changed everything.

“Mohamed Salah, a gift from Allah. Is the performance of Mohamed Salah igniting a conversation that combats Islamapobia within the media and political spheres?”

University gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of students from Saudi Arabia. I thought they were evil people who carried swords but they’re the nicest people I’ve met. The conceptions I had about Arab countries completely dissolved.

as Muslims become more familiar with American institutions, they become more aware of anti-Islamic discrimination and hostility in the U.S.

levels of religious fundamentalism can be found equally among Muslim and Christian adherents in the United States. Issues of out-group fears may be of less a concern however in the U.S. case due to the stronger socioeconomic position of American Muslims and more successful integration.

The UK government's Prevent counter-extremism strategy is stifling freedom of expression and "choking off" conversations about terrorism and related issues between teachers and students and some Muslim parents and their children, the country's terrorism legislation watchdog has warned.

some Muslim parents were fearful of having conversations about terrorism with their children because of concerns that their families could be referred to Prevent by “half-trained” teachers

teachers felt vulnerable, citing the case of a teacher in northern England who said she was referred to Prevent and suspended after telling a colleague that she was going to a fundraising dinner for Syria

Nobody expected Tunisia—“modern,” “secular,” and among the most “Westernized” of Arab nations—to throw off its nauseating government; in 2008’s Press Freedom Index, Tunisia ranked 164th out of 178 countries. Culturally, Tunisia appeared to have gone in all the right directions, so why had it politically failed? And why didn’t we expect it? It’s because of this mind-map: If an Arab/Muslim is culturally Western, he is naturally in favor of democracy; if culturally other, he is some kind of authoritarian.

We still can’t seem to get past this confusion of personal belief with political order, especially since Islam is such a visible religion, and our idea of religiosity assumes that what is visible cannot be uncoerced (and uncoercive)

How do we even determine religious reasons?

18 tumultuous days of nonstop media coverage

Reflecting on Bouazizi's death on his popular TV show, al-Shari'a wa-l-Hayat, Qaradawi affirmed that suicide was generally a major sin (kabira), but blamed the Tunisian state for Bouazizi's sin and prayed that God would absolve him of any blame for that sin. Qaradawi's sympathy for Bouazizi's otherwise sinful act was a reflection of Qaradawi's more general approach to the problem of religion and politics: that justice is a central demand of the Shari'a and that interpretations of the Shari'a that strengthen oppressors and tyrants cannot be deemed to be legitimate parts of the Shari'a.

Qaradawi's reputation for moral courage in the face of Arab dictators, however, suffered a significant blow as a result of his refusal to condemn the actions of the Bahraini and Saudi governments in violently suppressing the peaceful protests in Manama's Pearl Square. His attempts to distinguish the Bahraini protests on the ground that they were sectarian in character rather than national hardly seemed at the time plausible; in light of subsequent events, they are even less so.

Erdogan has said one of his goals is to forge a “pious generation” in predominantly Muslim Turkey “that will work for the construction of a new civilisation.” His recent speeches have emphasised Turkey’s Ottoman history and domestic achievements over Western ideas and influences. Reviving Imam Hatip, or Imam and Preacher, schools is part of Erdogan’s drive to put religion at the heart of national life after decades of secular dominance, and his old school is just one beneficiary of a government programme to pump billions of dollars into religious education.

spending on Imam Hatip upper schools for boys and girls aged 14 to 18 will double to 6.57 billion lira ($1.68 billion) in 2018

the 645,000 Imam Hatip students make up only 11 percent of the total upper school population, they receive 23 percent of funding

Almost no media outlet will report on the verdict of the trial which led to a single - yes, a single - conviction. Where are the journalists, media outlets, researchers, writers, intellectuals and commentators who wrote hundreds of columns, who were interviewed on television and radio, who have shown no repentance for their racist arguments on the basis of inaccurate allegations, for stoking the fire of fear against Islam, for further bolstering the deep-rooted xenophobia and weakening the character Islam in Europe and the Western world?

Sadly, the scandal that surrounded the “Cologne trial” is a sign of the times, unfairly showing the ease with which people belittle Islam as a homogeneous culture developed in its own bubble, passed down from ancestral times and unmalleable.It is treated as a religion and culture that carries values and standards inherited from the time it was created and incompatible with French society, to simply use the example of a country I know the best.

we are witnessing the construction, by the media and politicians, of a threatening Islam, one which is entirely monolithic

Three Arab countries have banned the Hollywood film "Noah" on religious grounds even before its worldwide premiere and several others are expected to follow suit

Islam frowns upon representing holy figures in art and depictions of the Prophet Mohammad in European and North American media have repeatedly sparked deadly protests in Islamic countries over the last decade, fanning cultural tensions with the West. "Censors for Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE (United Arab Emirates) officially confirmed this week that the film will not release in their countries," a representative of Paramount Pictures, which produced the $125 million film starring Oscar-winners Russell Crowe and Anthony Hopkins, told Reuters

the studio expected a similar ban in Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait

the first decisions of the government have shown the speed with which religious idealism has given way to practical realism. 

On February 4, Moucef Ben Salim, minister of higher education and member of Ennahda, accused an unnamed foreign country of “pumping large sums of money in to destabilize the country."

For Saudi companies or individuals to invest in Tunisia, the Saudi rulers must authorize those investments. For that to happen, the Tunisian leadership must realign itself with the political agenda of the Saudi rulers in order to secure this economic support. Hosting an anti-Assad meeting on Syria, as is scheduled for this Friday, is a step in that direction.