muslim social experiment uk

Hard Evidence: how British do British Muslims feel?

Senior lecturer, University of Bristol

Disclosure statement

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number RES-163-25-0009).

University of Bristol provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.

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The prime minister, David Cameron, has launched a number of measures aimed at improving integration among Muslims – in particular, Muslim women – in the UK. Polls show that around 70% of people don’t think Muslims are well integrated into British society and concern that Muslim people living in Britain do not feel British has long been part of broader discussions around extremism .

So, now seems like a good time to take a closer look at how British Muslims actually feel about their place in society and to explore the link between segregation and extremism in greater depth. Along with Professor James Nazroo, I conducted research into these issues using nationally representative data , collected in 2008/09 from almost 5,000 people with different ethnic and religious backgrounds, as a part of the Home Office Citizenship Survey . We found that these ideas about British Muslims are not backed up by evidence.

Crunching the numbers

In this survey, respondents from a range of religious and ethnic backgrounds were asked about whether they felt they belong in Britain. The questions capture three different senses of belonging. Participants were asked about the extent to which they agreed with the following statement:

I personally feel a part of Britain.

You can see the participants’ responses in the graph below. It’s clear that almost everyone in the religious and ethnic groups examined feels a sense of personal belonging to Britain. And those who didn’t were as likely to be Christian as Muslim.

The respondents were also asked:

How strongly do you belong to Britain?

More than 80% of people in each of these groups said that they strongly belong to Britain, with the narrow exception being Asian Christians. This suggests that feelings of alienation are not as widespread within the Muslim population as many in the wider community appear to believe. And it indicates that – where it does exist – alienation is not unique to British Muslims, but also extends to other ethnic and religious groups.

Furthermore, our participants were asked the extent to which they agreed with this statement:

*** It is possible to fully belong to Britain and maintain a separate cultural or religious identity.***

As the graph below demonstrates, with the exception of Caribbean Christians, at least 75% of people in each group perceived no incompatibility between fully belonging to Britain and maintaining other cultural or religious identities.

From these initial responses, it was clear that respondents in Muslim groups were just as likely as other groups to respond positively to the statements about belonging. But we also considered it important to take other factors into account. So we explored whether there was any evidence of an association between the respondents’ sense of belonging and their age, gender, economic activity, place of birth and risk of racist victimisation.

We calculated and compared the likelihood of reporting a very strong sense of belonging to Britain, feeling part of Britain, or strongly agreeing that “it is possible to fully belong to Britain and maintain a separate cultural or religious identity”, for each of these other factors.

We found an association between a sense of belonging and four of the five factors: age, gender, place of birth and risk of racist victimisation.

A source of frustration

Let’s start with age. On the whole, younger people were significantly less likely to feel British than their older counterparts. At first, this seems to align with the well-worn idea that young people – and particularly young Muslims – face a greater risk of radicalisation . It would also seem to contradict another finding in this study: that those born in the UK are more likely to feel a sense of belonging to Britain.

The higher risk of radicalisation is generally seen to stem from young people’s frustration and confusion about the apparent incompatibility of the British and Muslim cultures they simultaneously inhabit. Yet 73% of respondents aged 25 or younger agreed that it is possible to fully belong to Britain, while maintaining a separate cultural or religious identity. And Muslims (and other non-Christians) were less likely to perceive such an incompatibility than Caribbean Christians.

Indeed, complementary research suggests that much of the frustration among young British Muslims comes from a sense that their rights as British citizens to fair treatment and freedom of expression are not being respected. This frustration is not about being Muslim. Rather, it is about a lack of respect for their Britishness.

Don’t blame the victims

Those who perceived themselves as at risk of victimisation were also less likely to personally feel part of Britain, or strongly belonging to Britain. Whether or not people have a sense of belonging to Britain is likely to depend on whether they feel accepted by British society.

Negative attitudes toward Muslims are commonly presented by government ministers , the media and others . Worse, negativity towards Muslims has also been expressed in the form of verbal abuse, physical violence and other forms of social and economic exclusion, to which Muslims in Britain are increasingly and disproportionately exposed . This will directly affect their sense of acceptance, and in turn their sense of belonging within British society. Yet discussions of the “Muslim problem” generally ignore the role that the attitudes and actions of wider society may play in its creation.

Indeed, the weaker sense of Britishness among women in this study may be in direct response to the particular ways in which Muslim women are targeted. Muslim women are often used as a symbol of the supposed dysfunction inherent in Islam . They are also singled out in government anti-radicalisation agendas and dress restrictions .

Most recently, Cameron’s campaign has been criticised as taking a “lazy and misguided” approach to Muslim women. Conservative peer Baroness Warsi commented that linking English proficiency with the continuation of spousal visas was “a very unusual way of empowering and emboldening women”.

This research suggests that concerns about Muslim loyalty to Britain are misplaced. It also suggests that, as a society, we should think more carefully about how we engage with our fellow Britons. A proportion of the ethnic and religious minority population in Britain does run the risk of experiencing a sense of alienation, but this is unlikely to be addressed by improving language skills. Instead, it requires a more concerted effort to reduce the processes which isolate these members of our society. Questioning the loyalty of already loyal citizens runs a direct risk of making the “Muslim problem” much worse than it actually is.

• Ethnic minorities
• Hard Evidence
• Muslim women
• Segregation
• British Muslims

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‘Facts’ in a graphic about UK Muslims are mostly wrong

What was claimed.

The mayors of London, Birmingham, Leeds, Blackburn, Sheffield, Oxford, Luton, Oldham and Rochdale are Muslim.

Our verdict

All have had Muslim mayors at various points in the past, but at the moment only some of the mayors of these places are Muslim.

There are over 3,000 mosques in Britain.

There isn’t an official count but the number seems more likely to be between 1,200 and 2,000.

There are 130 Muslim Sharia courts and over 50 Muslim Sharia councils in Britain.

Sharia councils are sometimes called sharia courts. The Home Office said in 2018 that there were an estimated 30 to 85 Sharia councils in England and Wales but there is no official count.

There are Muslim-only no-go areas in the UK.

The police have said this isn’t true. The law applies throughout the UK.

78% of Muslim women and 63% of Muslim men don’t work and receive free benefits or housing.

These numbers are exaggerated. In 2021/22, an estimated 44% of Muslims were either unemployed or economically inactive in Great Britain. We don’t know how many receive benefits. Old census data from 2011 shows 27% of Muslim households in England and Wales lived in social housing.

All UK schools are only serving halal meat.

This is false. Schools can provide both halal and non-halal food.

There are four million Muslims out of the 66 million in the population, which amounts to 16% of the population.

There are probably around four million Muslims in the UK, and the national population is now closer to 67.1 million, but this still means Muslims only make up about 6% of the total.

A post on Facebook making a number of claims about Muslims in the UK has gone viral again . Almost all of the claims are wrong, unevidenced or unlikely to be true given the information we have.

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Muslim mayors

The post claims that the mayors of London, Birmingham, Leeds, Blackburn, Sheffield, Oxford, Luton, Oldham and Rochdale are all Muslim. This is almost certainly not true now, although they have all had Muslim mayors at some point in the past .

The religions of mayors is not a matter of public record, so we’re not sure how the author of this post could know that all those listed are Muslims.

The current Mayor of Leeds, Bob Gettings, was reportedly christened as a child, and the Mayor of Sheffield, Sioned-Mair Richards says she has been a church warden on her LinkedIn page as does a 2015 YouTube video .

In England and Wales, there are two types of mayor: those who are directly elected , for example in London and Greater Manchester, and civic or lord mayors who carry out ceremonial duties or chair the council, but are not responsible for running local services like directly elected mayors.

London currently has a directly elected mayor who is Muslim—Sadiq Khan. A few of the other places listed appear to have Muslim mayors at the moment, but not all. 

Mosque numbers

The post claims there are over 3,000 mosques.

The Office for National Statistics does not count how many mosques (or other places of worship) there are in the UK.

In 2018, in answer to a question in the Lords, the government said it estimated that there were “1500 mosques and prayer halls in England”. 

In 2020, the Muslim Council of Britain said in written evidence to the Lords Public Services committee on the subject of lessons from the coronavirus pandemic, that there are “about 1,200 mosques” in Britain.

The organisation Muslims in Britain keeps a database of mosques, of which it says 1,850 are “masjids/mosques, prayer rooms and shared places such as hired halls and chaplaincies”. We also reported this figure in 2017 . 

That page does say there are 3,277 “locations” listed in total but that this includes “75 very uncertain, 50 multi-faith, and about 400 now defunct addresses”.

Sharia courts and councils

The post claims there are over 130 “Sharia Courts” and over 50 “Sharia Councils”.

Sharia councils, also known as courts, are usually a group of local religious scholars who advise on issues of Islamic marriage and divorce, in accordance with Muslim religious rules. They are not formal courts of law and have “no legal status and no legal binding authority under civil law” according to a 2018 Home Office review .

The same review estimated that there were between 30 and 85 such councils in England and Wales and none in Scotland.

‘Muslims-only no-go areas’

The post claims there are “Muslims-Only No-Go Areas Across The UK”.

In 2015, Fox News broadcast claims from a journalist and guest that parts of France, Britain and other places in Europe were “no-go zones” for non-Muslims. The channel later apologised saying there was “no credible information to support the assertion that there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion”. 

In 2017, we wrote about alleged “no-go areas” in the context of claims made by the Hungarian government and former US President Donald Trump about parts of London that the police supposedly either couldn’t control or were afraid to enter. The Metropolitan Police denied this at the time. 

There are no areas of the UK that UK law doesn’t cover or where police cannot do their work, except perhaps diplomatic premises . While diplomatic premises can’t be entered without the consent of the Ambassador or Head of Mission, any offences committed there “are triable under the ordinary principles of English law, subject to the principles of diplomatic immunity for those who have it.”

Despite this, polling by YouGov from July 2021 used in a 2022 Birmingham University report found that just over a quarter of the British public surveyed agreed that “there are areas in Britain that operate under Sharia law where non-Muslims are not able to enter”.

Benefits and housing

The post claims: “Muslim women…78% don’t work and are on free benefits/housing. Muslim men…63% don’t work and are on free benefits/housing.”

Muslim women in particular did have a high rate of economic inactivity according to the latest data break-down by gender from 2018 , but the numbers in the post are exaggerated and we don’t have data on benefits claimants by religion.

In the year to June 2022 , in Great Britain, it was estimated that just under 6% of Muslims over 16 were unemployed and 38% economically inactive ( meaning they are not in employment, haven’t been seeking work in the last four weeks and are not able to work in the next two weeks). This can include those studying, retired, and looking after families or homes. 

Altogether, that means just under 44% arguably “don’t work”. So it is impossible that the rate for both men and women would be higher—especially if you only counted people who also received benefits or living in social housing.

We can find no data that breaks down benefit claimants by religion. As we wrote previously, in England and Wales 27% of Muslim households (where the “household reference person” is Muslim) lived in social housing, according to the latest available data from the 2011 census, compared to 18% of all households. Social housing doesn’t mean that it is free housing .

The post also says: “Muslim families… 6-8 children planning to go on free benefits/housing”.

As we wrote previously , 2011 census data showed that the average household with dependent children had 1.8 of them, while the average Muslim household had 2.3. Around 60% of Muslim families with dependent children had three or more . The Office for National Statistics doesn’t hold data on birth rates by religion .

Halal food in schools

The post says: “And now all UK schools are only serving halal meat!”

Although some schools may provide only halal meat in their food, this is not true of all of them. In answer to a parliamentary question in 2019 , then-parliamentary under-secretary for education Lord Agnew said: “Schools may consider providing both halal and non-halal food each day, or ensuring that dishes are clearly labelled to allow pupils to select the appropriate choice.” 

We can find no evidence that this has changed since 2019. And some school menus contain pork , which is not halal . 

Schools in the UK have no obligation to only serve halal food. The government’s rules on school meals do not specify anything on providing food that abides by religious dietary restrictions. 

It may be true that some schools with higher population of Muslim students will serve only halal meat to avoid having to buy two different types. In 2015, Islington council removed pork from primary school lunch menus reportedly due to the dietary requirements of Muslim and Jewish pupils.

Muslim population

The post ends by saying: “All this achieved by just 4 million Muslims out of the 66 million population!”

A caption on the post also says: “a minority of only 16% have achieved all this”. 

Most recent data from the 2021 Census shows that there were about 3.9 million Muslims in England and Wales out of a population of 59.6 million .

In Northern Ireland, of the 1.9 million usual residents, 10,870 were Muslim in the 2021 Census. Scotland’s census was delayed to 2022 so data on religion has not yet been released but the 2011 census found that 76,737 people were Muslim. Altogether it therefore seems likely that there are about 4 million Muslims in the UK in total.

The UK population was estimated to be 66 million in 2017 , but the latest ONS estimate from 2020 is 67.1 million .

This suggests that Muslims make up roughly 6%—not 16%—of the UK population.

Religion is an optional question on the England and Wales , Scottish , Northern Ireland censuses, so there is some uncertainty about the figures.

This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content— here . For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as partly false because several of the claims are incorrect or unevidenced.

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A Muslim history of the UK

How one woman is creating space for an often untold alternative British history.

Sadiya Ahmed has been busy during Britain’s latest COVID-19 lockdown. She has produced a podcast, created a heritage photography competition, and is working on setting up a Muslim History module to run alongside the national curriculum.

It is all part of this former tutor’s aim to ensure British Muslim history takes its rightful place within mainstream British history.

“Muslims aren’t just on the margins of British society, but are part of British society,” she says.

She wants to place their stories alongside the already documented “mainstream” British history in archives, museums and academia.

“It gives our communities an authenticated representation and claim to British history, as ‘our history’, one we are evidently part of.”

It is a mission many historians say is long overdue.

There is “a popular [mis]perception that Muslims in Britain are an alien presence, people who have arrived here only recently. In other words, they lack roots, and because of that they lack ties and emotional bonds with this country”, explains historian Humayun Ansari.

“Rootedness”, Ansari says, is a “human need”.

“It is the sense of ‘rootedness’ that establishes emotional ties between people and place. Archival silences have a demoralising effect and are damaging to self-esteem.”

Sunder Katwala, the director of British Future, an independent think-tank focused on equality, diversity and human rights, is optimistic. He believes a new generation of historians, and history that is more accessible through online sources and social media, is creating space for everyone’s history to be told.

“I think we are seeing a broadening of the stories that are being told and heard,” he says.

“British history is the story of how we, the British, came to be us. It can only fully do that job by becoming more inclusive.”

He mentions the recognition given to the 400,000 Muslims in the Indian armies that fought for Britain in the first world war, more than a century ago.

“This used to be a largely unknown and untold story,” says Katwala, “but there has been rapidly increasing public awareness of the Black and Asian contribution to the world wars, which had a much higher profile during the First World War centenary than it had before.”

‘Our histories will be lost’

Ahmed set up the Everyday Muslim Heritage and Archive Initiative ( EMHAI ) in 2013 to document the history of British Muslims.

“Future generations need to understand that Muslims have historic roots in Britain that actually go back centuries,” she says.

The first Indian restaurant in London was established by a Muslim surgeon in 1810, and the first purpose-built mosque was opened in 1889.

“I feel each generation thinks that they’re ‘the first’ because our history is largely undocumented, but we aren’t aware of the all the accomplishments of the past … Without that knowledge, we’re kind of stuck in a perpetual cycle, which grounds our identity as migrants or immigrants, and not citizens, and therefore not seen as equal to someone who’s from a white British heritage.”

Britain’s more than 3.3 million-strong Muslim community is heterogeneous. The largest part of the religious group originates from South Asia, but there are also Arab and African communities, Muslims from Southeast Asia, the Balkans and Turkey, as well as those who have converted or are the descendants of converts, all with histories waiting to be told.

EMHAI aims to tell these stories and create space in history for a group Ahmed says has largely been “absent from places such as museums and archives”. She believes it is one of the reasons Muslims and other diasporic communities, “do not visit or engage in these spaces”.

“If we don’t visit museums and archives, we won’t feel like we belong here. Not belonging is alienating.

“If we don’t take ownership and document these stories, our histories will be lost. As if that history never existed.”

Post-war migration

Like the post-second world war migration from the West Indies to the United Kingdom, many South Asians came to plug Britain’s labour shortages, with migrants from Commonwealth nations often working in transport or factories.

But, says Ahmed, while “the stories of unskilled labourers from South Asia that came to work in factories is a true portrayal” she is keen to emphasise that “it’s not the only perspective”.

Ansari, who is a professor of the History of Islam and Culture at London’s Royal Holloway University, explains that: “In the early 1960s, the government sponsored [a series of] films – Calling all Muslims! – enthusiastically inviting Muslims to come to work in British industries or to study in British universities.”

Ahmed says there were “very educated people that came here with PhDs, and they were more educated than some people here, but they weren’t getting the jobs that they were qualified for”.

Some early migrants were lawyers, teachers and doctors. There were also zoologists and biologists. “They’re not the stereotypical professions that you’d say, ‘oh, Muslims only do x, y, and z’. The stories give you a wider picture of who the Muslim community really are,” Ahmed reflects.

‘Transient guardians of our history’

Ahmed, the oldest of nine children, was born in Walthamstow in east London, to an Asian-Kenyan mother and a Pakistani father from Wazirabad, which is “affectionately known as the Sheffield of Pakistan because of its stainless-steel industry”, she explains.

Her motivation “to do something” to document and share Britain’s tapestry of heritage has always been there, she says.

“It came from the convergence of my parents’ stories from my childhood of their lives growing up in Pakistan and Kenya, their early lives, and experience of making a home in Britain.”

Growing up in an intergenerational household of siblings, “some of whom are around 15 to 20 years younger than me”, made her realise “we are all but, transient guardians of our history”.

Through building these intergenerational connections, of shared photographs and the stories behind them, conversations were started which may never otherwise have happened. Ahmed discovered that, unless probed, many people chose not to share the details of their early life in the UK, the struggles and the sacrifices.

“I don’t think it was necessarily a sense of shame or a lack of pride, but something that just isn’t spoken about. Everyone is so busy with their day to day chores and responsibilities, histories might only be shared in passing, but not in-depth or documented,” she says.

Oral history projects, like Ahmed’s, allow younger generations to better understand some of the “complex choices” early migrants faced.

One example is the creation of prayer spaces and mosques. The post-war generation may have “arrived from Muslim majority countries, creating a community that developed from nothing”, Ahmed says, “but it didn’t mean that they were Islamic scholars, architects or designers”.

That came later, through the next generation of Muslims, who, among other things, questioned the limited space for women’s prayer areas that were created by the first wave of Muslim migration, and have redesigned mosques of today with inclusivity.

The birth of an archive

Ahmed’s ultimate goal is to create a museum or “museum-style” learning space, but she realised there was a more immediate need to create something “more tangible” that has “historical significance”.

And so EMHAI was born.

“Archives are what a legacy is built on, and these are what my community were missing. I soon realised that the archives are our legacy.”

So far, Ahmed has recorded 112 oral histories, a series of recorded interviews that document and collect memories and personal commentaries of historical significance.

“When we started, it was difficult, it would take weeks and months to get people to agree to an interview. And to explain to them what it would entail and why we’re doing this.”

Ahmed started by interviewing friends and family, and then the project grew through word of mouth and social media, which has meant she can “connect to a wider audience”.

Before the COVID pandemic, Ahmed or one of her 10 volunteers – who are all trained in interview techniques – would usually speak to the contributors in the comfort of their own home.

“We have a whole process. It’s not just walk into someone’s house, do an interview and walk out again. It’s something that you have to have emotional involvement in, you have to be emotionally present,” she explains.

Some interview set-ups can take weeks or months. “There was one time where we were trying to get a photograph from someone. And just to get that photograph, it took us 18 months.”

A template is used to ensure everyone is asked a similar set of questions, with room for individual stories. Each interview takes just more than an hour.

Recurring themes include “everyday” subjects like fashion, work, education, racism, food and faith.

“… It’s about being a person who happens to be Muslim,” she says. “It’s about setting that person, their experience in the context of British history, showing how we live our lives.”

One of those interviewed was 50-year-old Rakin Fetuga, one half of the hip-hop group Mecca2Medina. He says the only part Islam played in his childhood home in London’s Notting Hill during the 1970s, was a picture of Mecca on his living room wall. For him, being Nigerian and British came first; being Muslim came later.

Fetuga believes parents must teach their children history at home rather than relying solely on schools. He cites the stories of Marcus Garvey , Malcolm X and Harriet Tubman , but he also says the history of being African in 1970s’ Britain must also be taught.

“We need to teach our children that when we came here in the 70s on the doors it said ‘no Blacks, no Irish, no dogs’. They need to understand the history because the children growing up today in the classroom, you say something, they’re like ‘That’s racist’. I say to them, ‘Excuse me, you don’t even know what racist is’.”

EMHAI has created three archives including the first British collection of stories and memories of the Black, African and Afro-Caribbean (BAAC) Muslim community in London.

Launched in 2017, Ahmed wanted to “reflect the diversity of the Muslim community” in Britain, and says Black British Muslims are often overlooked within the Muslim community. “The diversity of what Black Muslim means needs to be understood and taught.”

She hopes to create more focussed projects on different communities, like the Somali and Nigerian communities, but does not have the funding for it at the moment.

Ahmed’s work has inspired others to collect and curate their own histories.

“That’s what I really wanted Everyday Muslim to be, to inspire others to do this,” she explains. “Because it’s not just one person’s job, one organisation’s job, it’s definitely a community responsibility. And it’s taken some time to get to a point where people are beginning to realise the value of their stories.”

Not expecting to stay

The EMHAI archives are a collection of video or audio oral history interviews, transcripts, photographs, documents and ephemera and are partially catalogued and archived in locations across the UK, including Bishopsgate Institute and Vestry House Museum.

We Weren’t Expecting to Stay , is another of its collections. This one documents the lives of Britain’s largest Muslim group – south Asians from 1950 to 2015.

Many early migrants believed their time in Britain would be short-lived, with ideals to save money and return “home”. But with more job opportunities and better salaries in the UK, single men soon brought their families to join them.

“Their families joined them and their children were born in the UK, making this their ‘home’. They started to feel more settled and integrated here. They valued the justice system, meritocracy, and equality that the UK offered them,” says Sundas Ali, the co-author of Identity, Belonging & Citizenship in Urban Britain and lecturer in Politics and Sociology at the Oxford University.

In We Weren’t Expecting to Stay, colourful photo galleries capture moments – from births and children’s parties to young men dressed in their finest posing beside famous London landmarks.

Halal chickens and Jewish butchers

Food is a common theme that weaves through the archives, with many mentioning the difficult quest to find halal meat in 1960s’ Britain.

One interviewee remembers receiving parcels of it sent to his west London home from Bradford where there was a more established Muslim community. Another recalls a kind Jewish butcher in east London who allowed Muslims space to slaughter chickens on Sundays.

“Through hearing the stories from the project, I appreciate how we can take everyday decisions or actions for granted, such as buying halal meat,” says Ahmed.

“It also made me realise that if such basic experiences are unknown, then there is a disconnect between generations that results in a loss of connection to their culture and heritage.”

With love, from Walthamstow

Another contributor, Nazeea Elahi, 46, tells how her father’s encounter with a London cabbie led to her family settling in Walthamstow.

Fazal Elahi was 36 when he arrived in London from Pakistan, leaving behind his wife and four children aged below 10.

“[My father] had no fixed address to go to [when he arrived at Heathrow in 1963], all he knew was that he had a cousin living somewhere in Bradford. Having no idea where Bradford was in relation to London, my father went to a taxi driver at [Heathrow] airport and requested to be taken to Bradford.

“The taxi driver laughed and said it was too far and to give him an address in London instead. My father replied that he didn’t know anyone in London.

“He asked the driver if he knew a house in London where Pakistani people were living, if so could he drop him there. The taxi driver took him to a house near Queens Road, Walthamstow. That was how my family ended up living in Walthamstow instead of Bradford.”

Mariya bint Rehan, 34, whose parents came from Pakistan’s Punjab region, offers a sensory description of her own childhood memories of her father’s corner shop. She remembers “a lukewarm strawberry Yazoo straight off the cash and carry floor at the end of a gruelling wait, the sweet smell of cardboard which flooded the shop and the lost taste of a Snickers bar from the 90s”.

Rehan, a writer and illustrator, says the corner shop allowed her father to buy their first family home in Wood Green, and send his four children to university, forging professions in publishing, law and philanthropy.

After selling his corner shop he went on to own several small businesses including a small property company. While her mother taught English in female prisons and now owns her own haberdashery in north London.

Open all hours corner shops like the one Rehan’s father ran were often used as comedy material for racist “jokes”. But Rehan says she wants to redefine the stereotype, telling EMHAI: “I … want to reclaim the reductive stereotype of the ‘Indian’ corner shop, and its subsequent reinterpretation as noble, ingratiating support characters in someone else’s story.

“I want to replace it with my dad and his resolve in creating a better life for my siblings and I. I’m pleased to say my spine now unfurls in pride over the memories of being the daughter of a remarkable corner shop owner.”

But racist jokes were not all people of Rehan’s father’s generation – and earlier arrivals – had to worry about.

‘Throwing matches’ at women’s hair

Ansari describes how there was an “anti-immigrant sentiment that started to spread among layers of white society, as did racism towards minority ethnic communities, reaching a crescendo in Enoch Powell’s ‘River of Blood’ speech in 1968 in reaction to the arrival of South Asians from East Africa”.

“Residentially concentrated and segregated, South Asian Muslim communities suffered the full force of racism. They were blamed for not integrating into British norms and values,” he adds.

In the 1950s and 60s, Muslims in Britain were largely identified in ethnic rather than religious terms – as Pakistanis, Arabs, Yemenis and Somalis. They experienced systematic marginalisation and rejection in employment, housing and education primarily on grounds of their ethnic heritage, Ansari explains.

This led to “skinhead ‘P***-bashing’ but also violent attacks on mosques. In the changing context of the following decades, the focus of racism shifted and it is arguable that the foundations of today’s Islamophobia were being laid in those decades”.

Navid Akhtar, 54, the founder of Alchemiya , a Muslim content streaming service and a contributor to the archive, recalls his own experiences with racism growing up in 1970s’ Britain.

“To be called a P*** or to be even to be spat on, things like that, you just took it in your stride after a while, you found ways around.

“I can literally remember people spitting on my mother and as well as feeling the emotions of just confusion and anger there was always relief because at the same time hearing that there were people who, because they knew women had oil in their hair, they were literally throwing matches onto their heads.”

Akhtar’s account offers a glimpse into intergenerational conversations that took place as each generation sought to make its own way and formed alternative identities to those who came before.

“My parents were Pakistani [from Kashmir], that was their main identity, they brought that here [to the UK],” says Akhtar, who was born in Paddington where he spent the first few years of his life.

“I often found myself saying to my father you can’t grow Pakistani mangoes in Northern Europe, which is what you’re trying to do.”

Busses, beer and boiled eggs

Others recall less harrowing experiences.

Ghulam Haider, 87, arrived on a scholarship in 1957 to pursue his MSc in engineering at Imperial College in London. He returned to Gujranwala in Pakistan’s Punjab province after graduation and worked for Pakistan Petroleum before returning to the UK in 1962 to continue his career in civil engineering, building roads and bridges.

He remembers staying at a hotel in London’s Russell Square when he first arrived, and receiving an alternative education from his English mentor at the time. “He showed me how to ride a bus … He also took me to a pub and said ‘you don’t have to order beer … you can order orange juice’.”

On learning that Haider did not eat bacon, he advised him to “stick to boiled eggs”.

“And that’s what I did,” Haider recalls. “For a long time, everywhere I used to just order boiled eggs.”

Haider has lived a comfortable life in the UK, but his was far from the experience of many.

Fatimah Amer, a historical researcher focusing on social and minority histories in the UK, says her father, who had graduated top of his class at Cairo University and worked in different government departments, moved to London from Egypt in 1970 “in the hope of pursuing his studies”.

But “soon the burden of rent and bills took its toll” so he started looking for a job.

“At a time when prejudice and discrimination was still rife his qualifications and experience meant nothing in the UK and he resorted to searching for employment amidst the small Egyptian community,” Amer explains.

He found work in the catering industry, initially in the first-class restaurant carriage on British Rail – where he met Amer’s mother – and later in five-star hotels on London’s Park Lane.

“In the midst of trying to build a life here in England my father says he never stopped dreaming of one day going back into education, the reason he came to England in the first place,” she says.

“In 1993, he received the master’s degree he had come to England for, 23 years after he first arrived.”

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Young Muslims in the UK face enormous social mobility barriers

Report finds that young Muslims are less likely to succeed in the labour market than any other faith group.

Young Muslims living in the UK face an enormous social mobility challenge and are being held back from reaching their full potential at every stage of their lives, a report by the Social Mobility Commission ( SMC ) has found.

The report uncovers significant barriers to improved social mobility for young Muslims from school through university and into the workplace - with many reporting experience of Islamophobia, discrimination and racism.

Previous analysis by the Social Mobility Commission, an independent advisory body, found that young people from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds are more likely than ever to succeed in education and go on to university than other groups - particularly girls.

Despite their successes, however, this did not translate into the labour market and Muslims experience the greatest economic disadvantages of any faith group in UK society.

Based on in-depth focus groups and interviews conducted by a team of academics led by Sheffield Hallam University, the new research explores the attitudes and reasons behind this broken ‘social mobility promise’ by examining young Muslims’ perceptions and experiences of growing up and seeking work in Britain.

Within the economically active population (age 16 to 74 years) only 1 in 5 (19.8%) of the Muslim population is in full-time employment, compared to more than 1 in 3 (34.9%) of the overall population (in England and Wales).

Muslim women in the UK are more likely than all other women to be economically inactive with 18% of Muslim women aged 16 to 74 recorded as “looking after home and family” compared with 6% in the overall population.

Only 6% of Muslims are in ‘higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations’ compared to 10% of the overall population. They also have slightly lower levels of qualifications, with approximately a quarter of Muslims over the age of 16 having ‘level 4 and above’ (degree-level and above) qualifications (The Muslim Council of Britain, 2015).

Moreover, nearly half of the Muslim population (46%) live in the 10% of the most deprived local authority districts. This has implications for access to resources, school attainment, progression to higher education and the availability of jobs, including those at postgraduate or managerial levels. These inequalities vary by region, with the Midlands experiencing the largest margin of inequality and the South the smallest.

The body of the report’s findings, however, is based on the views of young Muslims themselves expressed through structured and in-depth focus groups.

Participants expressed a strong sense of work ethic, high resilience and a desire to succeed in school and beyond. But many felt they must work ‘ten times as hard’ as non-Muslims just to get the same opportunities due to cultural differences and various forms of discrimination.

The young Muslims who were interviewed reported that teachers often had stereotypical or low expectations of them. They argued there are insufficient Muslim teachers or other role models in schools and they are given insufficient or inadequate individual tailored support, guidance and encouragement at school. The services available to them were not enough to fill a parental gap particularly if parents were educated in a different system, were less able to support them in their studies or lacked the capital, knowledge or access to social networks to help their children make informed choices.

Some said they avoided asking for help for fear they will be targets for bullying and or harassment. This then impacted on confidence which they said resulted in some young Muslims ‘giving up’.

In higher education, young Muslims are more likely to drop out early or to gain fewer ‘good degrees’ (1st or 2:1s) than their non-Muslim peers. Interviewees felt their choices were more constrained because of inequitable access to high status universities (often because of geography), discrimination at the point of entry or self-limiting choices for fear of being in a minority.

The research finds that young Muslims feel their transition into the labour market is then hampered by discrimination in the recruitment process. Some interviewees reported that discrimination could take place due to applicants with ethnic-sounding names being less likely to get interviews with some employers.

Once in work, young Muslims in the focus groups said that racism, discrimination and lack of cultural awareness in the workplace had impacted on their career development and progression. Some reported feeling obliged to defend their faith with workplace colleagues in the face of negative discourses in the media.

Muslim women in the focus groups also felt that wearing the headscarf at work was an additional visual marker of difference that was perceived and experienced as leading to further discrimination.

The research suggested that many of these issues were worse for women. The report finds that within some communities, young Muslims felt that parents held high but different expectations for boys and girls concerning their educational and employment outcomes, with boys seen to be afforded more freedom. There was also an explicit recognition that within some communities, women are encouraged to focus on marriage and motherhood rather than gain employment. In particular, it was acknowledged that more traditional views of girls’ roles were sometimes reinforced by teachers within private Islamic schools.

Overall the research suggests that young Muslims feel a real challenge in maintaining their identity while seeking to succeed in Britain. They felt worried about being different and unsure about whether getting on was compatible with their identity as Muslims. Some responded by asserting their Muslim identity, although in some cases this constrained the career choices they made. Others felt there was a pressure to hide their Muslim identity and so avoid the issue that way.

The Rt Hon Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility Commission, said:

The British social mobility promise is that hard work will be rewarded. Unfortunately, for many young Muslims in Britain today this promise is being broken. This report paints a disturbing picture of the challenges they face to making greater social progress. Young Muslims themselves identify cultural barriers in their communities and discrimination in the education system and labour market as some of the principal obstacles that stand in their way. Young Muslim women face a specific challenge to maintain their identity while seeking to succeed in modern Britain. These are complex issues and it is vital they are the subject of mature consideration and debate. It is particularly important to hear from young people from the Muslim community and respond positively to them. There are no easy or straightforward solutions to the issues they have raised. But a truly inclusive society depends on creating a level playing field of opportunity for all, regardless of gender, ethnicity or background. That will require renewed action by government and communities, just as it will by educators and employers.

Professor Jacqueline Stevenson, from Sheffield Hallam University, who led the research, said:

Muslims are excluded, discriminated against, or failed, at all stages of their transition from education to employment. Taken together, these contributory factors have profound implications for social mobility. Young Muslims in the UK come from a wide range of backgrounds and life situations. Muslims from low socio-economic backgrounds lack sufficient resources and support to enable them to reach their potential. This is exacerbated by their parents’ experiences of higher levels of underemployment and unemployment, particularly where their qualifications were not recognised in the UK.

The report makes several key recommendations. These include:

• mentoring and other support programmes for young (school aged) Muslims should be established to include sessions or provision for parents to ensure they are provided with support and information about post-16 choices
• the Department for Education should put in place a careers strategy that promotes informed and inclusive choices by pupils, free from stereotypical assumptions. These should be piloted in areas with high rates of unemployment for people from Muslim communities and include routes for involving parents in understanding these choices
• teacher training should include sophisticated and practical diversity training with a focus on religious diversity
• business bodies should promote greater awareness and take-up of good unconscious bias, diversity, religious literacy and cultural competence training by employers

Notes for editors

• The Social Mobility Commission is an advisory, non-departmental public body established under the Life Chances Act 2010 as modified by the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 . It has a duty to assess progress in improving social mobility in the United Kingdom and to promote social mobility in England. It currently consists of 4 commissioners and is supported by a small secretariat.
• The commission board currently comprises: * Alan Milburn (Chair) * Baroness Gillian Shephard (Deputy Chair) * Paul Gregg, Professor of Economic and Social Policy, University of Bath * David Johnston, Chief Executive of the Social Mobility Foundation
• The functions of the commission include: * monitoring progress on improving social mobility * providing published advice to ministers on matters relating to social mobility * undertaking social mobility advocacy
• The ‘Social mobility challenges faced by young Muslims’ report is available on the Social Mobility Commission website.
• Case studies and interviews are available on request.
• Note on the methodology: a total of 58 Muslims between the ages of 18 to 35 took part in the focus groups; a three-stage Delphi study was used to draw out perceptions in relation to key causes of low social mobility and a one-day summit event was held to present the draft findings to 43 stakeholder participants.
• Data on ‘higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations’ is sourced from Nomis/Office for National Statistics, 2013.

Social Mobility Commission Communications Team

Email [email protected]

Mobile 073848 70965

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How would YOU react? Muslim 'abused' while praying in the street during social experiment

Two friends set up a social experiment to see how members of the public would react if they saw a muslim being abused on the street while praying., social experiment shows public reaction to muslim abused in uk street.

Video blogger Fahim Miah enlisted the help of a friend who was verbally abusive towards him as he prayed outside busy public places in Cardiff.

As Miah sets up his prayer mat, his friend Kennedy Click questions passersby about his actions while a secret camera films from a distance.

“Excuse me, guys, excuse me. Do you know this kid? What’s he doing?” says Click as challenges two men standing close to Miah as he prays.

One man responds: “I’d imagine he’s praying.”

We were really happy to see the people in Cardiff sticking up for us Fahim Miah

As the altercation becomes more vocal other members of the public begin to react.

A woman out of the shot of the camera can be heard saying “Leave him alone,” as Click asks the growing crowd if Miah is a terrorist.

As people stand up against the abuser, two Muslim women walk past, one shaking her head in disgust at the situation. 

They then change their focus to a new area, which appears to be a green outside of a shopping centre.

While Miah prays, Click approaches two more people as they sit close by seemingly unaware of the YouTuber behind them.

Once again he questions them about his friend’s action as the secret camera films.

Click escalates the situation by trying to approach Miah, but a girl intervenes, stepping between the pair as the YouTuber continues to pray.

He then tries to bring another lady into the conflict but she refuses: “Do not bring me into your argument!” 

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Click then walks off into the shopping centre as the unnamed girl stands by Miah to ensure the abuser doesn’t return.

The video of the social experiment since being posted on YouTube has already attracted over 350,000 views, with Miah pleased with the results.

He told Wales Online: "Obviously, looking at the media these days you’re expecting people to be afraid of Muslims because we have become a sort of stereotype in their eyes and I wanted to show that society could come together and be one.

“Looking at Wales, It’s just a beautiful place and no one really discriminates against us, regardless of their religion.

“Of course, there was that element of whether people would join in with the abuse but the whole point of the experiment was to find out what they chose to do and people supported us.

“We were really happy to see the people in Cardiff sticking up for us and we weren’t expecting it.”

Of the four incidents filmed in the full video, only one failed to display people intervening with the abuse. 

Filmed outside Cardiff Castle by a bus stop, a group of people failed to stand up for Miah as Click riffled through his possessions before stealing his bag.

Related articles

• WATCH: Woman chokes man on the street - and the public's response may shock you
• Did this social experiment of a man and his 'child bride' go too far?
• Woman flaunts bottom in TINY shorts for experiment: Would YOU look?

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Racialization of public discourse: portrayal of Islam and Muslims

Muhammad kamran sufi, musarat yasmin.

• Author information
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Corresponding author. [email protected]

Received 2022 Apr 20; Revised 2022 Oct 13; Accepted 2022 Nov 30; Collection date 2022 Dec.

This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Many developed countries like the USA, UK, Canada and European countries have diverse communities, including Muslim community outreach, as a result of immigration turning the world into a global village for all religions. Persecuting any one religion can lead to unrest and damage the calm of the society at large. This study critically examines the trends and research findings on Islamophobic discourse from 2001 to 2022 by investigating how linguistic strategies have been employed to present Muslims and Islam, the racialization of Muslims, the sense of identity crisis, and the way Muslims encounter and resist Islamophobia. An empirical study is also conducted to analyze the media discourse on recent incidents in Canada and New Zealand. For this purpose, 56 research articles are retrieved from the databases of four publishers: Taylor & Francis, Sage Publication, Pluto Journals, and Science Direct. A systematic review methodology and content analysis of the elected articles reveals that qualitative methodology was used in most articles and the UK and the US are the focal countries where most of the Islamophobia studies are carried out. Interviews and print media are found to be the preferred data samples for Islamophobia research. The most common theme in the articles is how anti-Muslim ideology was constructed by painting negative images of Muslims and Islam and subsequently presenting them as 'others.' The multiple effects of Islamophobia was paid considerable attention by the researchers of the reviewed articles. Themes receiving less attention are Islamophobia for political gain, identity crises, and the racialization of Muslims, whereas the factors behind Islamophobia received scant attention. The development of Islamophobia as a topic within the field of critical discourse analysis has been understudied. A critical discourse analysis of two recent incidents in Canada (2021) and New Zealand (2019) shows how various linguistic strategies are employed to construct negative images of Muslims and Islam.

Keywords: Islamophobia studies, Islamophobic discourse, Critical discourse analysis, Identity crisis, Global peace

Islamophobia studies; Islamophobic discourse; Critical discourse analysis; Identity crisis; Global peace.

1. Introduction

The modern world equipped with the advanced communication means of electronic media has become a ‘global village’ where all countries are tightly linked with each other. “A revolution in information, communications, transport and weapon technology has reduced the transaction costs of interaction over space and linked the world to the point where it has shrunk or even collapsed distance” ( Porter, 2015 ). The global village's powerbase is the atomic bomb, reducing the likelihood of global war because of the widespead presence of atomic deterrents. At the same time, according to Porter (ibid), the global village is a more dangerous place where even superpowers like America and its allies live in terror in the wake of the 9/11 attacks (2001), 7/7 London bombing (2005), Paris attacks (2015) etc. Porter (ibid) asserts that fear persists in this small fragile world with the unprecedented condition of vulnerability and “aggressors can apply violence over large spaces” ( Porter, 2015 ). Inequality reinforced by globalization and religious dissonance may also lead the world to become less peaceful and more dangerous.

The essence of all religions is peace and harmony, but the hardline religious scholars whether Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jew, Buddhist spread hatred against other religions and impose their orthodox views to claim supremacy. Thus, religiously legitimized extremist movements in the name of Judaism (Jewish Zionists), Christianity (Christian Violent Fundamentalism, Christian Identity), Islam (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Al Qaeda), Buddhism (Bodu Bala Sena), Hinduism (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) etc. under the supervision of hardline religious scholars can instigate violence against other religions to fulfil their political objectives, threatening world peace ( Cesari, 2015 ).

Islamophobia has been existent in the western countries from the time when Muslim and European Christians confronted each other during the Crusades in Asia Minor in 11th century ( Bordbar et al., 2020 ). However, since the 9/11 attacks (2001), Islamophobia has intensified and become a serious problem. The mass media has the power to influence minds ( Yasmin et al., 2018 , 2019 ) worsened the situation by portraying undesirable, stereotypical, one-sided images of Muslims and Islam, so shaping public opinion against Muslims and Islam and causing fear, anxiety, and unrest among the common people, subsequently developing prejudice, racism, and conflict in society, leading to an unhealthy environment and disturbed peace in many European countries. Strabac and Listhaug (2008) analyzed negative attitudes in 13 European countries and found that Muslims faced negative attitudes significantly more than other migrant groups. Muslims and their religion, Islam, have been the constant target of hatred and prejudice in the west, which may be linked to the increase in Islamophobic hate crimes and violent acts against Muslims. Islamophobic attacks in one nation disrupt the peace of the whole world, especially the diverse communities with their globalized nature. It is time for the social scientists and policymakers of non-Muslim nations to investigate the dynamics of Islamophobia and its harmful effects to save their societies. They can play a positive role – with the assistance of the media – to reduce conflicts in communities based on religion and help bring harmony across the globe.

The development of Islamophobia studies in the field of critical discourse analysis is under investigated. There is a need to review the available literature and find out how Islamic discourse has been manipulated to construct anti-Muslim narratives, used to otherize and racialize Muslims, exploited for political gain, the effect on Muslim identity, and how Muslims resist Islamophobia. The current study focuses on the trends and findings of Islamophobic discourse studies to observe their growth within the boundaries of linguistics. The paper also presents a critical discourse analysis of two recent incidents in Canada (2021) and New Zealand (2019) to show how various linguistic strategies were employed to portray Muslims and Islam. The following three research questions were formed:

What are the trends and findings from some discourse studies on Islamophobia?

How does the discourse about Islam construct anti-Muslim narratives to otherize and racialize Muslims?

What linguistic strategies have been employed to portray Muslims and Islam in the media reports on Islamophobic incidents?

Islamophobia is hatred of Islam and Muslims. The Oxford English Dictionary defines Islamophobia as an “intense dislike or fear of Islam.” ( Dictionary, 1989 ). According to Runnymede Trust's report ( 1997 ), it is “a shorthand way of referring to dread or hatred of Islam—and, therefore, the fear or dislike of all or most Muslims.” In 2017, the Runnymede Trust Institute gave a comprehensive and more extended definition of Islamophobia by associating it with racism as follows:

“any distinction, exclusion, or restriction towards, or preference against, Muslims (or those perceived to be Muslims) that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.” ( Elahi and Khan, 2017 ).

In general, the discrimination and exploitation of Muslims in all spheres of life are considered to constitute Islamophobia.

Richardson (2012) traces out the history of Islamophobia and mentions that the term Islamophobia was derived from the French word ‘Islamophobie’, which Alain Quellien first used in 1910 to criticize the behaviour of French colonial administrators towards Muslim subjects. He further says that in English, Edward Said pioneered the use of Islamophobia in his article in 1985 to create a “connection … between Islamophobia and antisemitism” and criticized the writers who did not recognize “hostility to Islam in modern Christian West” as equal to antisemitism ( Richardson, 2012 ). After the tragic event of 9/11, Islamophobia increased. However, the twentieth century showed minimal research work on Islamophobia compared to the first two decades of the twenty-first century. For example, from 1901 to 2000, the search for articles on the selected topics from the databases of four publishers, Taylor & Francis, Sage Publication, Pluto Journals, and Science Direct, yielded only 43, as illustrated in Figure 1 . On the other hand, these same databases showed 7601 articles between 2001 and 2020, suggesting that 9/11 incident in 2001 became pivotal in increasing Islamophobia and attracting the attention of academic researchers.

Number of articles yielded by search terms in 1901–2000 and 2001–2020.

2. Methodology

Following the guidelines and criteria set forth by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses ( Page et al., 2021 ), the researchers systematically conducted, on January 12, 2021, a review of the previous studies on Islamophobic discourse and the representation of Muslims and Islam to discover which studies needed to be investigated further. A systematic review is different from a literature review because it is a detailed and comprehensive plan of study to summarize the evidence surrounding particular questions ( Tawfik et al., 2019 ) by following a precise procedure covering multiple databases ( Robinson and Lowe, 2015 ). The databases of four publishers, Taylor & Francis, Sage Publication, Pluto Journals, and Science Direct, were selected to search for key terms: Islamophobia, Islamophobic discourse, critical analysis of Islamophobic discourse, its impacts, Islamophobic discourse othering Muslims, Islamophobic discourse and counter-narrative, and deconstruction of Islamophobic discourse. From the results returned, only research articles were considered in this study. Pluto Journals articles are on the JSTOR database from where Pluto Journals articles were taken.

2.1. The selection criteria were further narrowed down to (the criteria are illustrated in Figure 2 , below)

Diagram of Systematic review process (adapted from PRISMA, 2021; Page et al., 2021 ).

Articles based on discourse analysis (DA) or critical discourse analysis (CDA) of Islamophobic text.

Articles based on at least one of the following themes: Islamophobia, Islamophobia and Muslims, Islamophobia and Counter-Narrative, Deconstruction of Islamophobic Discourse.

Other themes like gendered Islamophobia or legal Islamophobia or institutional Islamophobia were excluded from this research because of time and space restrictions.

The search terms from the databases of the four publishers yielded 7601 articles. Duplicate copies were removed (as illustrated in Figure 2 ) and following the publisher criteria, a further 596 articles were removed, leaving 1923 articles for screening for eligibility. After reading the titles and keywords carefully, 1720 articles were excluded because they were not related to Islamophobia, hence the sample size was reduced to 203. A careful examination of the abstracts further reduced the number of articles to 58, while after reading each of the full-length articles, six more were excluded since they did not fulfill selection criteria A and B, reducing the number of articles to 52. As the study progressed into 2022, four more articles, fulfilling the selection criteria, from 2021 and 2022 were added. Hence, the articles selected for review in this study are 56, as mentioned in Table 1 along with their distribution across publishers.

Total number of selected articles to be reviewed.

2.2. Codification

The selected articles were coded as TF (Taylor and Francis), S (Sage Publication), P (Pluto Journals) and SD (Science Direct). A number is attached to each article according to the selection order in which they appeared in the databases, such as TF1, TF2, TF3, and so on.

2.3. Data analysis

Content analysis was employed to compare, contrast and categorize data following Ahmed and Matthes' (2017) proposed two-step analysis procedure, which provides the basis for quantitative analysis (dealing with RQ1) and qualitative analysis (dealing with RQ2). Content analysis is defined as “a family of research techniques for making systematic, credible, or valid and replicable inferences from texts and other forms of communication” ( Drisko and Maschi, 2016 ). An initial table in Microsoft word was developed to record the analysis results incorporating the subcategories of the research questions (RQ1 & RQ2) from careful reading of each article - the title of the article, name (s) of the author(s) and journal in which the article was published, the objective and focus of the article, sample type, approach/strategy of inquiry, research methods, data collection tools, findings, publisher's name, year of publication, and place of research. The first research question (RQ1) and its subcategories deal with explicitly mentioned quantitative-based descriptive information concerning the trends in Islamophobic discourse studies. The second research question (RQ2) and its subcategories are related to the findings of Islamophobic discourse studies, including qualitative-based thematic information derived from reading the reviewed articles in detail. For the third research question (RQ3) following on from Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) ( Halliday et al., 2014 ), ‘nominal groups’ and ‘transitivity’ are taken into account for linguistic analysis under Van Dijk's Socio-Cognitive approach ( 2008 , 2009 ).

3. Findings

3.1. trends in islamophobic discourse studies.

The subcategory response to RQ1 include trends in Islamophobic discourse studies identified from the distributions of the reviewed articles by years, research methods used, countries in which the studies were conducted, methods of discourse analysis, linguistic or non-linguistic analysis, and sample types.

3.1.1. Distribution of the reviewed articles by years

The data showing the distribution of the reviewed articles by year is presented in Figure 3 . Although a considerable number of research articles on Islam and Muslims were published in the first decade of the 21 st century, no article was found that fulfilled the selection criteria. In 2011, there was only one publication. There was a trend of gradual increase to 2015 with 6 publications, but a drop in the publication of relevant articles in 2016 and 2017, but an increase in 2019 and 2020. 2021 and 2022 each had 2 publications. A systematic analysis showed a gradual rise in researcher interest suggesting indirectly, a rise in Islamophobic events that could threaten global peace.

Frequency distribution of the reviewed articles by years.

3.1.2. Research methods used in previous research

The most adopted research method was the qualitative method, more than 6 times higher in number than the mixed method. The quantitative method was used only in two articles, as shown in Figure 4 . The results showed that the qualitative method was considered ideal for an in-depth study and analyzing discursive practices. A rising interest in mixed methods shows that researchers also felt inclined to strengthen their studies by utilizing more than one methods.

Research methods used in the articles reviewed.

3.1.3. Countries of the reviewed articles

The analysis revealed that most of the studies on Islamophobia were conducted and published in the United Kingdom and the United States, as presented in Figure 5 . The subject was less explored in other European countries. France, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Austria had one study each out of the 56 articles. In China there was also one publication in the selected study area. Australia and Canada and Russia had 3, 3, and 2 publications, respectively. On the other hand, some significant work came from India with 4 studies. The results suggest, there may be a higher incidence of Islamophobia in US and UK leading to a higher awareness of the problem, which thus attracted the attention of researchers.

Countries of the articles reviewed.

3.1.4. Methods of discourse analysis adopted

As shown in Figure 6 , 31 of the reviewed articles, were based on sociological rather than linguistic methods. There was little linguistic analysis of the data in the reviewed articles. Of the 56 studies with linguistic analysis, CDA was the most favored method used.

Methods of discourse analysis adopted in reviewed articles.

These finding suggest there is great scope for language researchers – applied linguists to study the language used by the victims of Islamophobia, the perpetratos – including the media, and government official statements - to discover what lies behind their utterances.

3.1.5. Types of samples used

As presented in Figure 7 , 19 of the examined articles relied on interviews, and 12 on news reports/articles. 7 speeches/presentations were taken as samples. Two categories of samples, websites/blogs/web series/Facebook and discussion/debates/statements, were each used 5 times and observation samples 3 times. The selection of case studies/scenarios, TV Programs and Survey as sample types had 2 occurrences. Seven types of samples, the discourse of social actors, historical context, manifestos, letters to newspapers, questionnaires, tweets and documentaries, each category had one example. Overall, interviews and newspapers were the preferred sources of samples for researchers.

Sample Types used in reviewed articles.

3.2. Major themes in Islamophobic discourse studies

After a careful reading of the articles, seven major themes emerged as the findings in response to RQ2, illustrated in Table 2 . The emerging theme of anti-Muslim ideology/narratives by portraying Muslims as others had the highest occurrence of 23 times. In contrast, the least interesting themes for the researchers were the factors behind Islamophobia (3), Islamophobia and identity crisis (5), and Islamophobia for political gain (5). The second most common theme was related to the effects of Islamophobia, which was found for 13 times. The themes of encountering/resisting Islamophobia occorred 8 times and Islamophobia as racism for 7 times in the reviewed articles.

Main Themes on Islamophobia in research articles.

3.2.1. Emerging anti-Muslim ideology or narrative by portraying Muslims as others

Out of the 56 selected articles, 23 were related to the theme of emerging anti-Muslim ideology, focusing on investigating the negative representation of Islam and Muslims. Muslims were portrayed as a potential threat to the West, discriminated against and constructed as ‘others’ through certain discursive strategies such as self-other schemata, radical labeling, language games (Wittgenstein's DA methodology), word choices (metaphors, pronouns and other lexical choices), rhetorical devices, logic and argument, modality, idioms, clichés.

Following the self-other schema, Donald Trump presented Muslims in negative terms through radical labelling in his policy speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee ( Khan et al., 2020 ). He described Muslims as the cause of suffering and destruction and projected himself as a hero and the savior of America. Mohiuddin (2019) claimed that the essentialism of Muslim culture prevents Muslims from being assimilated to Eurocentric culture. Without removing their differences they were “constructed as the West's antagonistic other”. This suggests the West wants Muslims to adapt to the cultural frame created by the West. Following on Norman Fairclough's (1995) critical discourse analysis theory, Ragozina (2020) analyzed linguistically the modality of ‘want’ and ‘can’ to unravel the way the image of Muslims was constructed in Russian national newspapers. Muslims were portrayed “as an alien culture excluded from Russian social and political space” ( Ragozina, 2020 ). There, sharia law was present as in opposition to the law of state and disruptive of social harmony. Waikar (2018a) analyzed Trump's speeches and interviews and found that through claiming hegemonic neoliberalism of Islam and Muslims, Trump's goal was to “otherize” Islam and Muslims and to perpetuate this assigned status. He concluded that through narratives against Islam and Muslims, Trump tried to associate terrorism with radical Islam as a potential threat to the American security. Furthermore, Islam and Muslims were misrepresented in French newspapers as pointed out by Ait Abdeslam (2019) . Islam was presented as a radical religion and the attitudes and beliefs of Muslims were considered incompatible with French culture. France aimed to control and moderate Islam to domesticate it and make it compatible with French culture. In another study, it was argued that the representation of Muslims and Irish communities in the British press constructed them ‘suspect’ ( Nickels et al., 2012 ). Moreover, Kassimeris and Jackson (2012) critically analyzed correspondents' letters about building ‘Dudley Mosque’ published in UK newspapers, which revealed that Muslims were perceived as threat to the national and local culture of UK. Thus, they were inherently regarded as ‘others’. Similarly, Ali (2014) claimed that Muslim students were constructed in public discourse “as pre-modern figures” and “as an embodied physical threat.” ( Ali, 2014 ). Bangstad and Helland (2019) demonstrated that Storhaug's writings on Islam and Muslims were made up of rhetorical devices to incite fear of Muslims by making them akin to Nazis. Another researcher analyzed media releases, press statements, press conferences, media interviews, media articles, and television programs as the backdrop to the ‘Sydney Siege’ and found that “Muslims are placed precariously at the national margin.” The ‘good ones’ were to be included and the ‘bad ones’ were to be excluded ( Colic-Peisker et al., 2016 ). Al-Azami (2021) analyzed the language used in right-wing British newspapers - The Sun, The Daily Mail , and The Daily Telegraph - and found that Muslims and Islam were stigmatized, either overtly or covertly, and associated with terrorism.

Khan et al. (2021) critically analyzed the selected Islamophobic tweets of Trump, the former president of the USA, and found that Trump used language rhetorically to exclude people of different ethnic identities, especially Muslims, to appeal to rightwing voters and that creating “us” vs. “them” was the way to make “America Great Again”. Burke and Diba (2020) investigated the English Defence League's Facebook page that showed positive images of Jews in order to demonize Muslims as the ‘new Nazis’. Along with Islamic extremists, ordinary, everyday Muslims were also targeted. In another article, Sharifi et al. (2017) critically analyzed CNN's talk show, Global Public Square (GPS), and found that CNN was biased and stereotyped Muslims at all levels. Muslims were associated with “terrorism, injustice, backwardness, insecurity and alienation” ( Sharifi et al., 2017 ). Another research articlehighlighted Muslims' experience with and responses to Islamophobia online and in face-to-face encounters in the US, and it was found that every Muslim internet user in the US had experienced hyper differential public encounters ( Eckert et al., 2021 ). Moosavi (2015a) examined the speeches of British Cabinet ministers of the Labour Government (2001–2007) revealing that mainstream politicians of Labour Government stigmatized Islam and Muslims and did nothing to diminish Islamophobia. The findings showed, Moosavi claimed, that Muslims were considered outsiders and not respected as citizens, rather they were blamed as troublemakers and taken as opposed to Britishness.

Another analysis of the podcasts, interviews and speeches of Narendra Modi by Waikar (2018b) identified a subtle form of Islamophobia in narratives whereby Muslims were presented as subordinate to Hindus. Sumra (2020) investigated the Indian media and found Islam and Muslims were presented in a hostile manner as “socially backward, non-dynamic, responsible for wrong doings” ( Sumra, 2020 ). Siyech and Narain (2018) due to slaughtering cows in India, – (Hindu ethics considers all animal life sacred, especially zebu cows and most Indians are vegetarian) Muslims were constructed others by extremist Hindu organizations such as RSS, VHP and BD to justify violence against them. An article by Acim (2019) found that Muslims were viewed as potential threats in United States and Europe. They were “the green menace” and they had replaced the “red menace” of communism ( Acim, 2019 ).

Kunst et al. (2013) developed the Perceived Islamophobia Scale (PIS) to highlight the psychological stress Muslim minorities have faced in Europe found that Pakistanis perceived less Islamophobia in Britain compared to Turks and Arabs in Germany. Moreover, Maghrebis in France faced the highest level of Islamophobia of all Muslim minority groups in the study ( Kunst et al., 2013 ). Törnberg and Törnberg (2016) critically analyzed the corpus of the Swedish internet forum, Flashback, and found that Muslims were presented as a homogenous outgroup involved in conflict, violence and extremism. They also discovered that the internet amplified the polarizing effects of Islamophobia. A recent study conducted by Navarro-Granados & Llorent-Bedmar (2022) in Spain found that the Muslim community felt discriminated against and unjustly treated.

3.2.2. Islamophobia as racism

Although the word ‘racism’ was not included in the search terms in the databases, in the articles selected, the theme of racism against Islam and Muslims along with other themes appeared in six articles. The Runnymede Trust defines Islamophobia as follows: “Islamophobia is anti-Muslim racism,” ( Elahi and Khan, 2017 ). Islamophobic web pages “create a seemingly mainstream political position by framing racist standpoints as a defence of Western values and freedom of speech” ( Ekman, 2015 ). Brown and Saeed (2015) explored racialization of Muslim women studying in UK universities in general public sphere and found wearing the veil was viewed as a threat to the liberal tradition of British values. Muslim Women were racialized by wearing radical Muslim signs such as the veil.

Garner and Selod (2015) investigated the racialization of Muslims through Islamophobia and asserted that racism was fluid and not restricted to time and place. “Regardless of physical appearance, country of origin and economic situation”, all Muslims were perceived as a homogenous group, as a single race and demonized in Islamophobic discourse. Another researcher dealt with the racialization of Muslim converts in Britain. Muslim converts faced subtle Islamophobia as such their religious conversion was taken as racial conversion. Their religious conversion made them ‘others’ even though they had been the part of the white majority earlier ( Moosavi, 2015b ). Cheng (2015) investigated Swiss federal parliamentary debates and found a difference between Islamophobia and Muslimophobia. Unfounded hostility against Islam was Islamophobia whereas unfounded hostility against Muslims was Muslimophobia. In this context, while negative sentiments referring to Muslims were racist, while anti Islam sentiments could only be racist if Islam was used as metonymy for Muslims. Abbas (2020) pointed out that othering Muslims by a virulent strain of Islamophobia was a reinvention of racism.

3.2.3. Islamophobia and identity crisis

The theme of identity crisis appeared in four articles. In general Muslims minority communities in Europe suffered from identity crisis when they were made ‘others’ through Islamophobic discourse, making them vulnerable in the Western society without the right to develop their own identities. The west wanted Islam and Muslims to adopt in a modified version according to Eurocentric ideology ( Mohiuddin, 2019 ). Muslim students in US experienced loss of identity, as they were made to feel unable to “use rational logic, participate in liberal democratic society, or engage in a dialog to express disagreement” ( Ali, 2014 ). Lynch (2013) highlighted the aftermath of 7/7 and subsequent related attacks, caused young Muslims in Britain to increasingly incorporate British identity at the loss of their own identity.

Abu-Ras et al. (2013) explored the effects of 9/11 on the memories and sense of identity of American Muslim physicians (AMPs) and found that AMPs initially experienced negative feelings about their identity when facing prejudice in US, but it helped them to develop their religious identity and they took adaptive measures.

3.2.4. Effects of Islamophobia

As Islamophobia is a negative reaction, it has negative effects for both Muslims and non-Muslims. It can disrupt the peace of a community. It projects fear, anxiety, hatred and violence. Recent research suggests that fear created by counter-jihadist bloggers resulted in violence against Muslim minorities in Europe ( Ekman, 2015 ). Bouma (2011) explored the strong anti-Muslim undercurrent of Islamophobia in Australia that affected the peaceful and productive cooperation among people belonging to different religions, making the way to world peace. Akbarzadeh observed the effects of Islamophobia on the Australian Muslim community and discovered that it weakened the bond between Muslim Youth and Australian society and disturbed the health of the environment ( 2016 ). Alizai (2020) investigated negative impacts of Islamophobia on Muslim students in Canadian universities. She found out that Muslim students suffered from the adverse effects of Islamophobia becoming isolated, ever conscious of surveillance, concerned about safety issues and facing unexpected violence. Moreover, Nickels et al. (2012) revealed the construction of a ‘suspect community’ through Islamophobia in the British media encouraged the violation of civil liberties by the state security apparatus.

An auto-ethnography inquiry conducted in UK, found that victims of Islamophobia suffered from “depression, sadness, fear, anxiety, suspicion, anger, helplessness and isolation” ( Zempi and Awan, 2017 ). They had to bear physical, emotional and psychological impacts. In addition, Shaw (2012) critically analyzed the newspapers' coverage of the 7/7 London attacks and found that marginalization of Islam and Muslims in the media had negative implications for intercultural communication. It also affected peace journalism and human rights journalism. In their research article on the impact of Islamophobic hate crimes, Walters et al. (2020) discovered that Muslim victims of hate crimes developed a greater sense of ‘shared suffering’ with other group members compared to LGBT victims. Hate crimes gave rise “to anger-based emotions and anxiety-related emotions” ( Walters et al., 2020 ). Another article found that the use of the term ‘radical Islam’ was associated with terrorism in the US media and increased a general fear of Islam and Muslims among people ( Hoewe and Bowe, 2021 ). Furthermore, Pilkington and Acik (2020) found that lack of individual recognition and inequality of young Muslims created social activism among them. Lan and Navera's (2022) study in China revealed that social media discourse and government discourse frame Islam as incompatible with mainstream culture and the patriotism demanded for assimilation into the main culture.

Democratic processes in the Muslim world were suppressed because of Islamophobia in the US and Europe, according to Kaminski (2014) . Another study showed that the continuous negative representation of Muslims in the media put pressure on them “to present themselves in non-threatenisng and welcoming ways to others” ( Pihlaja and Thompson, 2017 ). Muslims felt discriminated against and confused about how to response in meaningful ways.

3.2.5. Encountering/resisting Islamophobia

Islamophobia is the suppression and exploitation of Muslims. Being minority communities in the West, they are in a weak position. However, there are attempts to encounter Islamophobia and resist it. In eight articles out of the 56 identified articles, the theme of encountering/resisting Islamophobia appeared. Navarro-Granados and Llorent-Bedmar (2022) investigating in Spain, found Muslims had lower academic qualifications, and feelings of not belonging to Spain or their country of origin or that of their parents, meant they gave more importance to Islam in their lives. Wheatley (2019) pointed out that Bassim, a Muslim student in United States, resisted Islamophobia by writing poetry in English as a subtle way of releasing religious emotions through poetry and combating Islamophobia. Moreover, Smith (2020) highlighted the role of non-Muslim social workers cooperating with Muslims in Canada. It was suggested that the principles of “critical reflective, person-centered, and social justice practices” adopted by non-Muslim social workers could help Muslims who felt the impact of Islamophobia. Another research article by Lathion (2015) on strategies to resist Islamophobia in Europe suggested a disturbing religious situation could be managed by a secular legal framework, but that repressive policies were unworkable for stopping acts of violence. Muslims need their self-confidence restored so that they can easily criticize and dismiss statements threatening them. Hammad (2020) in article investigated how “Guess Who's Muslim” used humor as a satirical technique to challenge Islamophobia. “Guess Who's Muslim” was a web series played on YouTube channel, West Dawn Media , to counteract Islamophobia. Hammad (2020) believed that the internet was an alternative media forum where Muslims could represent themselves. However, he was of the view that humor can be a subtle with more than one interpretation. People might understand humor according to their own background knowledge and cultural practices. It was also possible that the humor created to challenge Islamophobia might reinforce the very stereotypes regarding Islam and Muslims.

Anderson (2015) focused on the need for a ‘peace journalism’ approach to counteract Islamophobia and that standards for reporting issues relating to Islam and Muslims could curtail Islamophobia. Further, the self-representation of ‘mainstream Muslim leaders’ could provide an opportunity for Muslims to “negotiate and perform politics of belonging and inclusion in United States” and resist Islamophobia according to McGinty (2012) . Beshara (2019) claimed that Muslims in United States used epistemic and ontic methods to resist Islamophobia and believed that these methods of resistance were the ‘actual liberation’.

3.2.6. Islamophobia for political gain

Islamophobia is a political term exploited by populist political parties for political objectives. Politicians used Islamophobic discourse to polarize the electorate and gain a victory. They also used it to hide their own follies and mistakes and blame Muslims for all their problems. Kaya and Tecmen (2019) found that European populist parties, Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany, Front National (FN) in France, Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands, Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy, and Golden Dawn (GD) in (Greece), exploited fear of Islam as a political tool to motivate their supporters and to project themselves. The researchers maintained that the ruling political groups in Europe constructed Islamophobia as an ideology to cover up their own failure and gain control over social, economic, political and legal forces.

Stein and Salime (2015) analyzed anti-Muslim pseudo-documentaries and found these videos of fear created political polarization and right wing parties used them as a political weapon. These videos were also used to justify US interventions in the name of War on Terror. Abbas (2020) claimed the rise of Islamophobia by the UK political media had the objective of diverting people's attention from grave issues such as inequality, poverty and uneven economic conditions. A research article by Trein (2018) analyzed the debates on Islam in Germany and found that the rationale behind Islamophobia was to “establish political and religious subjectivities” and to ensure the “governability of Muslims” ( Trein, 2018 ). Hafez (2019) compared the rise of antisemitism in 1876–1934 and Islamophobia today and found that Islamophobia served the political objectives of the rightwing populist FPO against the Social Democrats in Austria.

3.2.7. Factors behind Islamophobia

Only 3 of the 56 reviewed articles included the factors behind Islamophobia. Ogan et al. (2014) found that in Europe and US, political conservatism was the main reason behind negative attitudes to Muslims and Islam. Shukri (2019) found that in Indonesia, Islamophobia was caused by rising Islamist extremism in that country. MacDonald (2015) demonstrated that misinformation about Islam was one of the crucial factors for the development of Islamophobic views.

4. Discussion

This study is a systematic review through content analysis of the trends and findings in 56 academic studies on Islamophobia retrieved from the databases of four publishers, Taylor & Francis, Sage Publication, Pluto Journals, and Science Direct. The analysis revealed that the start of the twenty first century showed a considerable rise in the number of academic studies on Islamophobia. Perhaps the tragic incident of 9/11 in 2001 and later terrorist attacks openly associated with Muslims prompted reactions in the media and attracted the attention of academics. Another reason for Islamophobia might be pressure from the economic recession 2007–2009 in Western countries, which might have considered Muslim immigrants a burden to their economy. The second decade of the twenty first century saw the incorporation of discourse analysis (DA) and critical discourse analysis (CDA) in Islamophobia studies suggesting linguists started to take interest in Islamophobic discourse. However, most articles that used DA or CDA methods for data analysis did not follow a specific DA or CDA model, possibly due to early stages of DA and CDA in Islamophobia studies. There is still a need to analyze Islamophobic discourse rigorously and critically in different contexts. Linguistic analysis of the data used in few of the articles identified for analysis, again, without following a prescribed model, perhaps because Islamophobic discourse has only recently been subject to linguistic analysis. Only in two studies Wittgenstein's approach of language games was exploited. The analysis further revealed that the most commonly used research method in the reviewed articles was qualitative. The reason might be the subject, Islamophobia studies, mostly involve negative discourse, attitudes and behaviors against Muslims and Islam, where the data is text/discourse not numerical. In the examined articles, the UK and the US carried out the majority (as illustrated in Figure 5 ) of the Islamophobia studies possibly because Islamophobia increased as a reaction to the collapse of US World Trade Centre in 9/11 attack and the UK 7/7 London attacks. These two countries were at the center of the production of anti-Muslim narratives, Islamophobia studies were conducted there. France was also directly hit by the 2015 Paris attacks but quite surprisingly, there was only one study carried out in France in the selected articles. The analysis revealed that interviews were the most common form of data source adopted by researchers, possibly because interviews provide in-depth insights into the interviewees concerning their experiences, attitudes, beliefs and opinions. Newspaper data was the second most popular data source because of its easy access.

The findings from the articles showed researchers were more interested in the way anti-Muslim ideology and narratives were constructed through the discursive representation of Muslims and Islam targeting Muslims representing them as external ‘others’, which made their views racially based. Although there were three studies on the Islamophobic discourse of Donald Trump's (former US President) anti-Muslim ideology, they lacked rigorous linguistic analysis. Moreover, in another study of Narendra Modi's (Indian Prime Minister) narratives against Muslims and Islam, there was no linguistic analysis. Other political heads like Emmanuel Macron (French President) and Boris Johnson (UK Prime Minister) used Islamophobic discourse. The attitudes of political heads of powerful countries as revealed in their speeches and narratives are significant because of their they large scale influence. Therefore, there should be comparative research of the Islamophobic narratives of the political heads of these countries.

In addition, the researchers in the selected articles were interested in the effects of Islamophobia, discovered to be a threat to a healthy and peaceful society. There were devastating effects on the Muslims in Muslim minority countries, who felt isolated and in constant danger of being victims of Islamophobia and experienced identity crises or were directly or indirectly hit by psychological trauma. There was only one study on Islamophobia in a Muslim majority country, Indonesia. Islamophobia studies in Muslim majority countries were understudied. It might be presumed that Muslims being in Muslim majority country would not be affected by Islamophobia. However, there could be a variant form of Islamophobia in Muslim majority countries, which need investigation. Furthermore, to combat Islamophobia, a few studies of the efforts of Muslims living in non-Muslim societies were carried out. The role of Muslims from Muslim countries and Muslim organizations in combatting Islamophobia was absent from the research. Curtailing the impact of any bad happening requires investigating its causes like a diagnostic process. The factors behind Islamophobia why it happens was not covered in the research articles.

Research into the representation of Muslims as victims and their perpetrators in media is lacking. The following section provides critical analysis of media reporting on the representation of Muslim victims and their perpetrators.

4.1. Case studies: Canada Shooting (2021) and Christchurch Mosque Shooting (2019)

Islamophobia has become a significant problem for most non-Muslim countries and has caused horrific events from vandalism to the killing of Muslims such as the recent Muslim family murder in Canada in 2021 and Christchurch mosque shooting in New Zealand in 2019. The reporting of these incidents in Canada's most popular newspaper, the Globe and Mail ( Solutions, 2020 ), and New Zealand's most popular newspaper, the New Zealand Herald ( Newspapers, 2019 ) is critically analyzed here to explore the way Muslim victims and their assailants are represented. For this purpose, ‘nominal groups’ and ‘transitivity’ from Systemic Functional Grammar ( Halliday et al., 2014 ), are the frames for linguistic analysis within Van Dijk's Socio-Cognitive approach ( 2008 , 2009 ). Only one news story from each newspaper has been selected for analysis because of time and space restriction. ‘According to Van Dijk (2001) , critical discourse analysis (CDA) has a micro and a macro level. The micro level deals with the textual analysis of language use, discourse, verbal interaction and communication, while the macro level is concerned with socio-cultural practices like prejudice, discrimination, dominance, inequality, and the production and resistance of power from ideological and societal motivation. CDA bridges the gap between micro level analysis and macro level analysis with a cognitive interface.

4.1.1. Critical analysis of Muslim family murder in Canada in 2021

In the aftermath of an attack on a Muslim family in London, the Ontario killing of four members and seriously injuring one, the news story, on June 8, 2021 in the Globe and Mail ( Denette, 2021 ), did not contain a single word in the ‘nominal groups’ to represent the victim family's religious background, Islam, except in the headline, which follows as: “Attack on Muslim family in London, Ont.: What we know so far about the killings and suspect”.

In linguistic analysis of a nominal group ‘four family members’, ‘members’ is the head noun modified by a numeral ‘four’ and a classifier adjective ‘family’. Instead of ‘four family members’, there could be ‘four Muslim family members’ or ‘four members of a Muslim family’ to give a proper coverage to the incident as the investigating police officer, Waight, reported the “victims were targeted because of their Islamic faith” ( Yancey-Bragg, 2021 ) and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it a ‘terrorist attack’. Twice the victims were described as a ‘Pakistani-Canadian family’ in which the ‘Pakistani-Canadian’ classifier indicates they were immigrants not pure Canadians. A nominal group, ‘a fifth’, who was not modified by any epithet, classifier or qualifier was an innocent and unfortunate boy of 9, became the recipient unearned suffering from an Islamophobic attacker, lost his whole family and was lying injured in hospital. Other nominal groups used for the victim family were: ‘four members of the Afzaal family spanning three generations’, ‘five family members’, ‘husband and wife Salman Afzaal 46 and Madiha 44’, ‘their daughter Yumna Salman 15’, ‘Mr. Afzaal's mother 74′, ‘the survivor’, and ‘the couple's nine year old son’. There is no mentioning of Islam or Muslims in these nominal groups which implies the disassociation of victims from their religion, Islam, might be the newspaper's effort to reduce the impact of Islamophobia. In addition, more space was used to describe the victim family compared to the perpetrator who was referred to by possible explanatory nominal groups such as: ‘a man’, ‘the suspect’, ‘the driver’, ‘the man’, ‘the truck driver’, ‘Nathaniel 20’. Only once was a classifier ‘truck’ used with ‘driver’ for perpetrator and the naming words used for him were also neutral. From this, it seems that the newspaper made little effort to expose the identity of the killer. Words like killer, murderer, terrorist , or Islamophobic attacker were not associated with him neither were his religion and color highlighted.

Analyzing transitivity in the excerpt: “Four family members who were out for a walk are dead, and a fifth in the hospital after a man drove into them deliberately” reveals, the following points. The relational clause ‘are dead’ is attributed to the carrier ‘four family members’ through an intensive process of transitivity and ‘a fifth’, another carrier's attribute is marked by circumstantial process of transitivity ‘in the hospital’ referring to his location. To reduce the force of agency and the cause of death, the agent of their dead is described anonymously later, using the indefinite article ‘a’, as ‘a man drove into them’ and instead of noun, the deictic ‘them’ was used as the goal, to refer to the for victim family. This suggests that the newspaper representation of the perpetrator was vague, perhaps deliberately so, possibly for legal reasons associated with the criminal justice system or not publicize the Muslim connection for fear of and Islamophobic issues or fallout.

4.1.2. Critical analysis of Christchurch Mosque Shooting in New Zealand in 2019

The Christchurch mosque shooting in 2019 is one of the worst examples of Islamophobic attack, when 49 Muslims were killed and 80 others injured by a single attacker with a gun in a live streamed video. The news story was published in the New Zealand Herald ( Herald, 2019 ) on March 16, 2019, one day after the incident. The ‘nominal groups’ used to represent the Muslim victims in the selected news story lacked any reference to Islam and Muslims as follows: “A gunman involved in the shootings, which left at least 49 people dead, livestreamed the attack in a chilling 17 min video”. In the nominal group ‘49 people’, ‘49’ is numeral used for the head noun ‘people’ a common noun without reference or connotation linking it to Islam or Muslim. In the nominal group ‘worshipper at the Al Noor Mosque’, ‘Al Noor Mosque’ as the qualifier used for ‘worshipper’ is implicit Islamic reference compared to Islam or Muslims. On the other hand, the perpetrator was described nominally as ‘a gunman’ and ‘the gunman’ classifier or qualifier words like killer, murderer or terrorist were not associated with him. Analyzing transitivity in the excerpt: “A gunman involved in the shootings, which left at least 49 people dead, live streamed the attack in a chilling 17 min video”, reveals that ‘49 people’ were not described as the direct goal of the actor gunman, but of the shooting. The deictic ‘which’ is used for an embedded clause as in ‘shooting, which left at least 49 people dead’, a language strategy to suppress the agency of the actor/agent.

Thus, it appears that ‘the Globe and Mail’ and ‘the New Zealand Herald’ used language strategies to avoid presenting attacks on Muslims as Islamophobic and hesitated to use words like Islamic or Muslim to refer to the victims. Moreover, both tried to hide the religious and ethnic identity of the perpetrators, used ‘soft’ references to them and suppressed their agency, suggesting that elements of western media are biased in representing anti-Muslim perpetrators and have not recognized Islamophobia and Islamophobic violence/terrorism yet. Unless or until Islamophobia is recognized by the general public through the media, better policies cannot be developed to curb it and to ensure peace in society the media can and should have a positive role to play.

5. Conclusion

This paper reviewed research articles concerning the rise in the alarming issue of Islamophobia. It reviews the association of Islamophobia with distancing or othering, racism, identity crises and political agendas. It further reviews the previous research on the factors in and effects of Islamophobia and resisting discourses and critically analysed the media reporting of two Islamophobic incidents and reveals that the religious identities of Muslim victims' were deliberately hidden whereas the Islamophibic attackers’ agency and identity were not revealed. This is an important study because it provides an essential guide for researchers of Islamophobia studies and (critical) discourse analysts. It points out the research gaps and opens the door for researchers to consider new themes to incorporate into Islamophobia studies. Finally, based on the trends and findings, the study offers the following suggestions:

Studies on critical analysis of Islamophobic discourse should be carried out rigorously with specific CDA approaches such as the ‘socio-cognitive approach’ ( Van Dijk, 1993 , 2008 ), ‘ Fairclough's (1995) text oriented form of discourse analysis (TODA)’ ( Jørgensen and Phillips, 2002 ), the ‘discourse-historical approach’ ( Wodak, 2001 ), ‘social semiotic framework for critical discourse analysis’ ( Van Leeuwen, 2005 ) etc.

The deconstruction of Islamophobic discourse was not used in any of the reviewed articles. Research on the deconstruction of Islamophobic discourse would be useful for encountering and resisting Islamophobia.

The overall analysis of the reviewed articles found linguistic orientation in the Islamophobia studies was weak. There should be critical studies of Islamophobic discourse enriched with linguistic analysis following a specific procedure such as Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) presented by Halliday et al. (2014) in his book, An Introduction to Functional Grammar.

Studies of Islamophobia in Muslim countries were almost non-existent. Only one article out of 52 was found covering a Muslim country, Indonesia where one group of Muslims suffered from Islamophobia from another group of Muslims. Thus, Islamophobia studies should be conducted in countries where Muslims are the majority to observe the ‘insider’ reflections of Islamophobia.

Comparative research should be conducted to critically analyze the Islamophobic discourse of the political heads of countries.

Factors behind Islamophobia should also be studied further.

In the reviewed articles, there were a few indications of the West's desire to mold Islam and Muslims according to Western values. This phenomenon is called the domestication of Islam and Muslims in the West, which requires a comprehensive research.

Victimization of Muslims in the name of liberal democratic ideals and human rights is a topic, which should also receive the attention of the researchers.

Forms of Islamophobia may differ from country to country and place to place. In the selected articles, one study compared the forms of Islamophobia and its practices in UK, Germany and France and distinguished different kinds of Islamophobia. It is suggested that more comparative studies could discover the nuances of Islamophobia in different countries.

OIC, one of the biggest international organizations of Muslims can play a vital role in combatting and resisting Islamophobia. Comprehensive research is required to assess the role of OIC and other international organizations in curbing Islamophobia.

The Role of powerful Muslim countries and their leaders should also be researched to counter Islamophobia

Research should also be conducted in how Islamophobia and Islamophobic discourse could affect international relations.

Declarations

Author contribution statement.

Musarat Yasmin:Conceived and designed the experiments; Analyzed and interpreted the data; Wrote the paper.

Muhammad Kamran: Conceived and designed the experiments; Performed the experiments; Analyzed and interpreted the data; Contributed reagents, materials, analysis tools or data; Wrote the paper.

Funding statement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Data availability statement

No data was used for the research described in the article.

Declaration of interest's statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

No additional information is available for this paper.

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'Burkini ban' social experiment shows 'UK policeman' confronting Muslim woman - but how do Brits react?

After a 'policeman' places his hand on the head of a burkini-wearing woman, a crowd begins to form. however it is not until a people gather that it becomes notable that only black and asian women are coming to her defence..

• 17:35, 28 Aug 2016
• Updated 18:25, 28 Aug 2016

France's controversial burkini ban has made headlines constantly over the last week after police were seen making a woman remove her outfit.

But what would you do if it was happening in front of you?

Three actors decided to put it to the test, with one posing as a bather and the second as a policeman - all while the third recorded it on secret cameras.

And although at first many ignore the scene, the end results are surprising - with only black and Asian women stepping in to help out.

At the beginning of the clip, actress Amina can be seen sat on a towel on Southend-on-Sea beach in Essex, but she is soon approached by 'policeman', Light.

Light, the second actor, instructs the woman to "stand up" before adding "take it off, take the outfit off, you are not allowed to wear this at the beach, you look like a terrorist."

However, it isn't until the verbal argument becomes physical and the officer reaches for the top of the burkini, that members of the public get involved.

Two furious women approach the actors and begin to shout at Light in the video which was uploaded by Trollstation to YouTube .

One shouts: "You can't do that. It's religious. She is a person, you cannot discriminate her against her religion."

In under a minute more than 20 people are surrounding the pair and shouting at the 'policeman'.

However it soon becomes apparent that only black and Asian women have stepped up to confront the man.

Just two minutes in, the actor calls off the experiment and explains to the crowd that the scene was "part of a social experiment".

When asked by cameraman Maz why he stopped the scene so soon, Light explained that he was "worried and people's reactions were getting on top of him".

Speaking at the end of clip, one woman said: "My heart is still beating. I was so angry, I think I'm so going to cry."

Another said: "I was mad. I was so mad."

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Our couples move out and return home separately, as they prepare for Vow Renewals. But what will they decide when it comes to that life-changing decision?

Can experts Mel Schilling, Paul C Brunson and Charlene Douglas help hopeful singletons find their perfect match - on their wedding days?

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The brides and grooms enjoy one last night of freedom, and our first two couples get wed

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Our first couples embark on their honeymoons, where one groom is a little too honest...

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Two more couples get wed but will one bride's traditional values dampen her wedding night?

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The last four singles meet their matches. Will an overcurious bride be too much to handle?

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Our last newly-weds jet off on their honeymoons. But does love blossom for all?

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