Islamophobia is far too contentious a phenomenon to conjure up a singular definition for it. After a critical survey of several definitions, one that I have found most pertinent is as follows: “Islamophobia is a contrived fear or prejudice fomented by the existing Eurocentric and Orientalist global power structure. It is directed at a perceived or real Muslim threat through the maintenance and extension of existing disparities in economic, political, social and cultural relations, while rationalising the necessity to deploy violence as a tool to achieve ‘civilisational rehab’ of the target communities (Muslim or otherwise).

” Islamophobia reintroduces and reaffirms a global racial structure through which resource distribution disparities are maintained and extended. Magazines like Charlie Hebdo act as conduit(s) to foment ire-inducing prejudice against the Muslims (by caricaturing the Prophet (peace be upon him)). Unequivocal support lent to CH by the French president in the name of free speech speaks volumes of antagonism the West has for the Muslim. If there emerges any reaction, then Muslims are demonised as intolerant people and Islamophobia is brazenly peddled.

The term Islamophobia entered the socio-political lexicon in 1920s but a few instances of its deployment in the first decade of the 20^th century have been detected. According to some sources, it was used in English as early as 1923, in an article published in the Journal of Theological Studies. Prior to that, however, the painter Alphonse Étienne Dinet and Algerian intellectual Sliman ben Ibrahim in their 1918 biography of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) were said to have coined the expression. Writing in French, they used the term islamophobie, they found in a thesis published by Alain Quellien in 1910 to describe a “a prejudice against Islam that is widespread among the peoples of Western civilisation.”

The expression did not immediately find wide currency in the realm of academia. It was in 1976 that it re-appeared in an article by Georges Chahati Anawati (1905-1994), an Egyptian Dominican scholar of Islam. However, Robin Richardson credited Edward Said for having used the word in English, when he wrote in 1985 about “the connection… between Islamophobia and anti-Semitism” and criticised writers who did not recognise that “hostility to Islam in the modern Christian West has historically gone hand in hand with anti-Semitism and has stemmed from the same source and been nourished at the same stream.”

When Islamophobia’s earliest manifestation is traced from the historical sources, one must then hearken back to the medieval ages when the Crusades were fought between the Christians and the Muslims over the city of Jerusalem. While going through the Western writers on that period of history, I was particularly intrigued to infer that the feelings of animosity towards Muslims were more pronounced in the Christian West than the Christian populace inhabiting Middle East and other eastern territories. That was the time when mocking epithets for Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) were coined and circulated. The event(s) associated with the Crusades and the way the Muslims injured the ego of the Christian West by putting them to rout, have stayed with them ever since. Next contact between the Muslims and the Christians transpired in quite different circumstances in the 18^th-19^th centuries when the Christian West was in ascendancy. The missionary proselytisation by Christian clergy in the colonies re-vivified the conflict between the two religions that had gone somewhat dormant. The tradition of Munazara(religious disputation) was revived and belittling each other in front of the audience became a frequent spectacle in all the major cities of India.

Arya Samaj a Hindu revivalist party which made Lahore its power base provided an added impetus to anti-Muslim propaganda. The incident of Ghazi Ilm ud Din stabbing a local publisher, Ram Pal, to death was the outcome of anti-Muslim feelings nursed at the behest of the British. Afterwards, Islamophobia remained in circulation, but became a topic of increasing sociological and political importance only in 1970s. According to Benn and Jawad, Islamophobia has increased since Ayatollah Khomeini‘s 1989 fatwa inciting Muslims to attempt to murder Salman Rushdie, and since the September 11attacks (in 2001), it has become one of the most preponderant discourses.

Anthropologist Steven Vertovec writes that the purported growth in Islamophobia may be associated with increased Muslim presence in society and their economic prosperity. He suggests a circular model, where increased hostility towards Islam and Muslims results in governmental countermeasures such as institutional guidelines and changes to legislation, which itself may fuel further Islamophobia due to increased accommodation for Muslims in public life. Vertovec concludes: “As the public sphere shifts to provide a more prominent place for Muslims, Islamophobic tendencies may amplify.”

Islamophobia is so deep-seated in the minds of the people that a majority of them readily believe that Muslims are terrorists. The Universities of Georgia and Alabama in the United States conducted a study comparing media coverage of “terrorist attacks” committed by Islamist militants with those of non-Muslims in the United States. They found that “terrorist attacks” by Islamist militants receive 357 percent more media attention than attacks committed by non-Muslims or whites. Terrorist attacks committed by non-Muslims received an average of 15 headlines, while those committed by Muslim extremists received 105 headlines. The study was based on the news reports covering terrorist attacks in the United States between 2005 and 2015. In 2009, journalist Mehdi Hasan in his article Know Your Enemy published in the New Statesman gave Western media a short shrift for over-reporting a few Islamist terrorist incidents but under-reporting the much larger number of planned non-Islamist terrorist attacks carried out “non-Irish white folks”. A 2012 study indicates that Muslims across different European countries, such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, experience the highest degree of Islamophobia in the media. The obituary in The Guardian for the Italian journalist and author of The Interview with History, Oriana Fallaci described her as “notorious for her Islamophobia”.

Ironically, spawning Islamophobia has become a business. The University of California-Berkeley and the Council on American–Islamic Relations reported that $206 million was given to 33 groups whose primary purpose was “to promote prejudice against, or hatred of, Islam and Muslims” in the United States between 2008 and 2013, with a total of 74 groups contributing to Islamophobia in the United States during that period. In 2005 Ziauddin Sardar made the pertinent point in his column in the New Statesman that Islamophobia was a widespread European phenomenon. He noted that each country had anti-Muslim political figures, citing Jean-Marie Le Pen in France; Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands; and Philippe van der Sande of Vlaams Blok, a Flemish nationalist party in Belgium.

Deepa Kumar writes that “Islamophobia is about politics rather than religion per se“ and says that “One of the consequences of the relentless attacks on Islam and Muslims by politicians and the media is that Islamophobic sentiment is on the rise.” Kumar confirms the assertions by Stephen Sheehi, who “conceptualises Islamophobia as an ideological formation within the context of the American empire. Doing so “allows us to remove it from the hands of ‘culture’ or from the myth of a single creator or progenitor, whether it be a person, organisation or community.” An ideological formation, in this telling, is a constellation of networks that produce, proliferate, benefit from, and traffic in Islamophobic discourses.” Michael Walzer in his article, Islam And The Left, observes that the leftists make no distinction between the historic religion and the zealots of this moment; they regard every Muslim immigrant in a Western country as a potential terrorist; and they fail to acknowledge the towering achievements of Muslim philosophers, poets, and artists over many centuries.

To conclude, I will say that Islamophobia is unlikely to be dissipated in foreseeable future. It is and will be a major irritant between the Muslims and the Christian West particularly in the socio-cultural realm.

The writer is Professor in the faculty of Liberal Arts at the

Beaconhouse National University, Lahore