This book investigates the contested phenomena of Islamophobia, exploring the dichotomous relationship that exists between Islamophobia as a political concept and Islamophobia as a ‘real’ and tangible discriminatory phenomenon. In doing so, this book improves understanding about Islamophobia through arguing how this dichotomous contestation serves a number of functions. To do so, Allen radically reframes and reconfigures existing notions and understandings of Islamophobia. It does so in two ways. First, through presenting empirical data gathered from more than 100 victims of Islamophobic hate crime to categorically evidence that Islamophobia is indeed real and tangible. Second, through unrivalled ‘insider’ experience gained as an independent adviser on Islamophobia and associated issues to various political, community and third sector stakeholders. Challenging existing scholarly conceptions of Islamophobia, this book also challenges politicians and policymakers to do more.

Zusammenfassung: Against a backdrop of continually growing global Islamophobia, this handbook provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary overview of the key issues, theories, debates, and developments in gendered Islamophobia, unpacking how Western, Orientalist constructions of Muslim men and women affect the lived experiences of Muslim men and women; impact social, legal, and criminological policies, practices, and discourse; and give rise to resistance against gendered Islamophobia. Drawing on theories from philosophy, sociology, gender studies, psychology and criminology, sections examine the interdisciplinary theoretical dimensions of gendered Islamophobia; illustrate the dynamics of gendered Islamophobia through the use of case examples in the UK, Europe, North America, Australasia, the Middle East, and South Asia. This handbook will be valuable reading for scholars, researchers, and policymakers around the globe in Gender Studies, Sociology, Criminology, Politics, and Law, who focus on the intersections of gender and Islamopobia, and the impact on Muslim men and women respectively. Amina Easat-Daas is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at De Montfort University, UK. Recent publications include her monograph Muslim Women's Political Participation in France and Belgium (2020, Palgrave Macmillan) and the co-edited collection Countering Islamophobia in Europe (2019, Palgrave Macmillan). Her wider research interests include the study of Islam and Muslimness in France and Belgium, gendered Islamophobia and the use of the arts in countering Islamophobia in Europe. Irene Zempi is Associate Professor of Criminology at Nottingham Trent University, UK. She has published widely on issues of hate crime, researcher positionality and ethnography. She is the co-editor of the books Hate Crime in Football (2023, with Imran Awan) Misogyny as Hate Crime (2021, with Jo Smith) and Routledge International Handbook of Islamophobia (2019, with Imran Awan). Irene is also the co-author of the books Student Textbook of Islamophobia (2019, with Imran Awan), Islamophobia: Lived Experiences of Online and Offline Victimisation (2016, with Imran Awan) and Islamophobia, Victimisation and the Veil (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, with Neil Chakraborti). Irene is Chair of the British Society of Criminology Hate Crime Network, Lead of the NTU Hate Crime Research Group and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

This book, the first to explore the politics of definitions from an interdisciplinary perspective, encourages readers to reconsider the value and limits of definitions in confronting antisemitism and Islamophobia. In recent years, definitions of antisemitism and Islamophobia have become central to the struggle to combat the hostility, harassment and discrimination experienced by Jews and Muslims. Yet these definitions have also provoked fierce controversy: critics have questioned whether they are fit for purpose, or have criticised them as unwelcome attempts to restrict freedom of expression. In this edited collection, historians, social scientists and philosophers reflect on definitions of antisemitism and Islamophobia in both the past and the present. Its contributors investigate the different historical contexts which have shaped definitions and examine their different political purposes and meanings, as well as addressing contemporary debates, and identifying ways for us to move beyond our current impasse. This book therefore provides a broad and new perspective from which to comprehend present day minority politics.

Thinking through anti, post, and decolonial theories, this book examines, analyses, and conceptualises 'visibly Muslim' Lebanese women's lived experiences of discrimination, assault, wounding, and erasure. Based on in-depth research alongside over 100 Sunni and Shia participant between 2017 and 2019 it situates these experiences at the intersection of the local and the global and argues for their conceptualisation as a form of structural and lived anti-Muslim racism. In doing this, it discusses the convergences and divergences of anti-Muslim racism in Lebanon with anti-Muslim racism in other parts of both the global north and the global south. It examines the production of this racialisation as well as its workings across spheres of public, private, work, and state – including an analysis of internalised self-hate. It further explores various forms of resistance and negotiation and the contemporary possibilities and impossibilities of working beyond the epistemic framework of Eurocentric modernity. As the first in-depth and extensive study of anti-Muslim racism within Muslim-majority and Arab-majority spaces, it offers an urgent and timely redress to multiple gaps and biases in the study of the Muslim-majority and Arab-majority worlds as well as racialisation broadly and Islamophobia specifically.

For centuries, since the Roman Empire's adoption of Christianity, the continent of Europe has been perceived as something of a Christian fortress. Today, the increase in the number of Muslims living in Europe and the prominence of Islamic belief pose questions not only for Europe's religious traditions but also for its constitutional make up. This book examines these challenges within the legal and political framework of Europe. The volume's contributors range from academics at leading universities to former judges and politicians. Its 19 chapters focus on constitutional challenges, human rights with a focus on religious freedom, and securitisation and Islamophobia, while adopting supranational and comparative approaches. This book will appeal not merely to academics and law students in the UK and the EU, but to anyone involved in diplomacy and international relations, including political scientists, lobbyists and members of NGOs. It explores these contested relationships to open up new spaces in how we think about religious freedom and co-existence in Europe and the crucial role that Islam has had, and continues to have, in its development.

Embrassant le défi de la compréhension de l'islam en contexte autour de l'altérité et des normes, l'ouvrage est original à trois égards. Tout d'abord, par son approche trans-historique, où passés et présents sont intimement inter-reliés, éclairant des phénomènes contemporains à travers leurs enracinement et genèse historiques et en mettant en évidence des phénomènes passés dans la perspective, voire la prospective, d'enjeux contemporains. Ensuite, par son approche trans-religieuse et trans-civilisationnelle (en l'occurrence islamo-chrétienne) dans plusieurs chapitres, pour aborder l'islam, dans ses rapports avec les minorités et en tant que minorité lui-même en contexte européen, et, de manière comparée, avec le christianisme: une approche permettant par « expérience-miroir » de contextualiser l'islam, souvent prisonnier de prismes essentialisants. Enfin, l'ouvrage apporte, dans une perspective pluri- et inter-disciplinaire, un état des lieux de l'apport des diverses disciplines qui l'embrassent, à la pointe des connaissances des sciences humaines et sociales de 21e siècle.

This book explains the increasing incidences and normalisation of Islamophobia, by analysing the role of signifiers of free speech, censorship, and fatwa during the Satanic Verses affair in problematising the figure of the Muslim. Ismail Patel develops the notion of Islamophobia not as a continuation of the antagonistic relation from the British Empire but as a postcolonial reformulation of the figure of the Muslim. The book views Islamophobia studies as a paradigm, engages in the debate of Islamophobia as a global phenomenon, investigates the contestation over its definition and challenges the view of Islamophobia as a reserve of the far-right. It assesses the debate around the concept of identity and shows how the colonised figure of the Muslim provided significance in constructing British imperial identity. Providing a decolonial, counter-Islamophobia approach that challenges Britishness’ exclusionary white symbolic content, the book calls for a liberating idea of Britishness that promotes a post-racist rather than a post-race society. Theoretically rich in analysis, this book will contribute to discussions of identity formation, Britishness, Islamophobia and counter-Islamophobia. It will be of use to students and researchers across history, politics, sociology, cultural studies, literary studies, and anthropology.

Counting Religion in Britain, 1970-2020, the fourth volume in the author's chronological history of British secularization, sheds significant new light on the nature, scale, and timing of religious change in Britain during the past half-century, with particular reference to quantitative sources. Adopting a key performance indicators approach, twenty-one facets of personal religious belonging, behaving, and believing are examined, offering a much wider range of lenses through which the health of religion can be viewed and appraised than most contemporary scholarship. Summative analysis of these indicators, by means of a secularization dashboard, leads to a reaffirmation of the validity of secularization (in its descriptive sense) as the dominant narrative and direction of travel since 1970, while acknowledging that it is an incomplete process and without endorsing all aspects of the paradigmatic expression of secularization as a by-product of modernization.

This book examines how victimisation can occur across the online-offline continuum while emphasising the need for a holistic approach to understanding and addressing contemporary harms, this book covers various themes of victimisation in the digital age linked to the interconnectedness and blurred boundaries between online and offline experiences. The different book chapters a critical examination of how digital advancements have paved the way for new forms of victimisation, the book underlines the crucial role of criminology in confronting these issues and shaping policy. It covers a variety of themes, from the nuances of cybercrime and the repercussions of modern technologies on intimate partner violence and sexual abuse, to hate crimes against marginalised groups, extremism, and information disorder. Central to these areas is the online-offline continuum approach, which encapsulates the blending of the digital and physical realms, challenging the conventional dichotomy in which they are often considered. Through its extensive exploration of diverse subjects, this book provides a thorough overview of different victimisation types, deepening our comprehension of the intricate challenges in online and offline spaces. It is a critical resource, blending theoretical insights, methodological rigour, and practical strategies to comprehensively dissect victimisation in the digital era, Victimisation in the Digital Age will appeal to students, scholars, and practitioners with an interest in criminology, victimology, sociology, and communication studies.