Islam as Feared Other: Perception and Reaction

Abstract

Perceptions of Islam are often dominated by misrepresentation and distorted image, which arises largely from misunderstanding and ignorance, manifest in at least three modalities or kinds: (1) that of simple or innocent lack of knowledge; (2) a ‘blind’ ignorance born of some form of cognitive barrier; and (3) the culpable ignorance of a deliberate refusal to acknowledge, learn of, and consider the reality as presented by evidence. This yields a false understanding of Islam shaped by long-standing bias and fuelled by contemporary media representation. Perceptions about the political agenda of Muslims, whether accurate or not, tend to fuel anxieties about Islam and so contribute to Islamophobia. Furthermore, this ignorance-based perception aids and abets the phenomenon identified as reactive co-radicalisation. The reaction to the perception of Islam leads to a form of extremism in its own right, such as evidenced by the Swiss ban on the building of minarets, and the Norwegian massacre carried out by Anders Behring Breivik. This paradoxically fuels the Islamist rhetoric that stokes the fires of Islamist extremism. Yet, despite the notion of identifying with a universalised umma, for the most part Muslims construe their Islamic identity in respect to the particularities of race, culture, location and up-bringing—much like any other religious person.

This chapter is a revised and updated version of a paper previously published by Douglas Pratt in 2011 as Islamophobia: Ignorance, imagination, identity and interaction, Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 22(4): 379–389. DOI:10.1080/09596410.2011.606185. © University of Birmingham, reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd, www.tandfonline.com on behalf of University of Birmingham.