Metodologia

Muslims in the last three decades (1980 – 2010) went through number of unpredictable challenges including the ‘Rushdie affair’ also known as the ‘The satanic verses controversy’ which refers to the intense and at times violent reaction of some Muslims towards Salman Rushdie’s published work, “The Satanic Verses”, which was first published in Britain in 1988. A

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major controversy ensued due to the book as some Muslims accused Rushdie of Blasphemy and mocking Islam. This inspired demonstrations in London resulting in a fatwa (Islamic Ruling) calling for Rushdie’s death by the Supreme Leader of Iran, on 14 February 1989 (Falkenhayner, 2014). The UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs (UKACIA) was established in response to the Rushdie Affair; the organization collected signatures for a petition to send off to the publisher and requested an extension of the blasphemy law. The UKACIA handled the Rushdie Affair with more grace than those who burnt the copies of the book in the street, threatening bookstores that sold out the book to even going as far to bomb two bookstores in New York (Bowen, 2014; Pipes, 1990).

From amongst the challenges to the Muslims is also the perceived actions of Al-Qaeda, this group is thought to be established between 1988 to 1989, the Al-Qaeda group can be seen as a challenge to the Muslim community as it challenges the integrity and peacefulness of Islam. Most notably in 2001, 19 militants said to be associated with al-Qaeda staged the September 11 attacks against the United States. Al-Qaeda was also linked, whether directly or indirectly, to more attacks in the six years following September 11 than it had been in the six years prior, including attacks in Jordan, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, Britain, Algeria, and elsewhere (Bowen, 2014).

Incidents directly linked to Britain include the 7 July 2005 London bombings (7/7 Bombings) whereby a series of coordinated suicide bomb attacks which took place in London to target the civilians using the public transport system. It is thought four British Islamist men detonated four bombs onboard London underground trains across the city and on a double-decker bus in Tavistock square. All these incidents contributed to the rise in Islamophobia and hate crimes

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against British Muslims as well as Muslim across the globe. The 7/7 bombing was one of Britain’s worst terrorist attack acts since the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 (Allen, 2014).

Since 2014 Muslims had to live with consequences of the rise of ISIS; an extremist terrorist organisation controlling territory in Iraq and Syria, the group also has territorial control and affiliates in many other parts of the world. This group has participated in many murderous activities around the world in the name of Islam that mainstream Muslims object against as it goes against the teaching of Islam (Sekulow, 2014, Al-Sudais, 2015).

All these incidents contributed to the rise in Islamophobia and hate crimes against British Muslims as well as Muslim across the globe. For example, on 17 June 2014 in Essex, a Saudi Arabian female student of the University of Essex was stabbed 16 times, 2 of which were fatal resulting in her death, it is believed the student was targeted for her Islamic dress (The Huffington Post UK, 2015; BBC News, 2015; Duggan, 2014).

Omar Ali, the president of Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) said that “This isn’t the first attack on a Muslim student and certainly is not the last on a member of the Muslim community in the UK. We will naturally wait for all evidence to become clear and articulate. However, if the attack turns out to be Islamophobic in nature because of her Muslim appearance, then it will correlate with the disturbing exponential increase in hate crimes against Muslims in the UK.” (The Huffington Post UK, 2015; The Times, 2015).

More recently in January 2015, France was left shocked after a massacre of 17 people in the French Capital, Paris. 12 people were killed at the office of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, by two French-born brothers who claimed to be avenging the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the Magazine Charlie Hebdo is known for its controversial cartoons

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ridiculing and mocking various religious groups and leaders including Islam and its prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). The situation amplified when another attacker shot a policewoman as well as opened fire on a Jewish supermarket killing 4 shoppers including one Muslim (Henley and Graham-Harrison, 2015).

Since these and other similar incidents, Islam has come under attack with some high profile individuals including media mogul Rupert Murdock demanding that all Muslims should be held responsible for the Paris attacks, “Maybe most Moslems are peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible” (The Guardian, 2015). At least 128 Islamophobic incidents have been reported since the murder of the 17-people killed during the Paris massacre including the murder of a Moroccan man who was brutally stabbed by his neighbor in his home 17 times in front of his wife. According to the French council report, the 128 anti-Muslim Islamphobic incidents were made up of 33 acts against mosques, and 95 threats reported to authorities. Since the incident, the family of Ahmed Merabet, the French Muslim police officer who was murdered outside the Charlie Hebdo office, have spoken out about the incident, “I address this to all the racists, the Islamophobes and the anti-Semites: you mustn’t mix up extremism with Muslims, the madmen have no colouror religion. Islam is a religion of peace, of love … my brother was a Muslim and he was killed by two terrorists, by false Muslims” (Henley and Graham-Harrison, 2015). Muslims from all over the world have condemned the attack as it goes against the teachings of Islam and the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him):

“So by mercy from Allah, [O Muhammad], you were lenient with them. And if you had been rude [in speech] and harsh in heart, they would have disbanded from about you. So, pardon them and ask forgiveness for them and consult them in the matter” The Qur’an[03:159].

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This incident has affected Muslims across the world with people questioning once again how peaceful Islam is. Commentators who do not have enough knowledge about the Islamic faith insist on highlighting the ‘dark side’ or pessimism of Islam by taking the religious text out of context or interpreting incidents as they understand it.

The media, can be seen as another challenge to the Muslim community, it can be argued that the Muslim community has been marginalized by the media because not many westerners learnt about Islam from its original sources, rather they learnt about Islam from sources such as negative media or from other sources which portray Islam as a threat to western lifestyle and values. Dervla Murphy said, “If you know nothing about people, you can believe anything”(Modood, 1992). Muslims are often perceived as being different; the media often play a role in reinforcing this sense of difference, due to the presentation of Muslims in all aspects of media including film, fiction and newspaper that present stereotypical and distorted views of Muslims and Islam in general (Ameli et al, 2007).

All these factors have contributed to Islam being portrayed in a negative light, with society questioning how peaceful the religion of Islam is when it is always portrayed by the media and elsewhere as causing mischief and trouble across the globe. Mainstream Muslims in Britain, therefore, are often left feeling marginalized from society as a result of these challenges making it difficult for some Muslims to integrate fully into a society which views them as a ‘threat’.