Islamophobia: What If the Fear Isn’t Irrational?

By an Anonymous Veteran

I have been thinking lately about the word Islamophobia. It is a powerful word, and nobody particularly wants it attached to them. In modern American conversation, the accusation can sometimes end a discussion almost immediately. Question some aspect of Islam, criticize a practice associated with Islamic law, or express concern about political Islam, and the label can appear before anyone has seriously considered what was actually said.

But I have a problem with the word, or at least with the way it is sometimes used. A phobia is generally understood to involve an irrational or greatly disproportionate fear. We don’t ordinarily describe a reasonable fear of something demonstrably dangerous as a phobia. Being afraid of stepping into moving traffic isn’t an irrational fear of automobiles. Being cautious around a rattlesnake isn’t an irrational fear when the rattlesnake is six feet away and rattling at you. The existence of a fear does not, by itself, establish that the fear is unreasonable.

So I have started asking myself an uncomfortable question: Am I Islamophobic?

If Islamophobia means that I am afraid of Muslims simply because they are Muslims, then no. I don’t fear a Muslim neighbor. I don’t object to Muslims serving in the military, holding public office, opening businesses, building mosques, raising families, or participating fully in American life. A Muslim American possesses precisely the same constitutional rights that I do, and I want those rights protected.

If a Muslim woman wants to wear a hijab because of her religious convictions, I believe this country should protect her right to wear it. But I believe just as strongly that my granddaughter should have the right not to wear one. That is where the distinction becomes important to me.

If Islamophobia includes being genuinely afraid of what could happen to the freedoms my granddaughter enjoys if the United States were ever governed according to a coercive interpretation of Islamic religious law, then perhaps I qualify. But before attaching a label to that fear, I think we should ask a more important question: Is the fear irrational?

The Difference Between Islam and Muslims

A person is not an ideology. That distinction should be obvious, but discussions about religion frequently blur it. Americans routinely criticize Christianity without claiming to hate Christians. We debate capitalism without necessarily hating business owners, and we criticize socialism without hating everyone who supports a social program. We argue about political philosophies, economic systems and religious doctrines because ideas have consequences.

Islam deserves neither less protection nor greater immunity from criticism than Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, atheism, socialism, capitalism or any other collection of ideas. Muslims deserve protection as people. Islam can be examined as a system of beliefs. When religious beliefs become the proposed basis for governmental authority or violence against those who believe differently, they not only can be examined; they must be.

That principle applies to Christianity as well. I am not interested in living under a Christian theocracy. I don’t want Congress determining whether I have correctly interpreted the Bible. I don’t want a federal Department of Christian Morality deciding whether my granddaughter’s clothing meets biblical standards. I don’t want someone arrested for converting from Christianity to Islam. I don’t want a Baptist president deciding Catholics aren’t sufficiently Christian, or a Catholic president deciding Protestants are heretics.

I want government out of those decisions, and that is one of the reasons I value the American constitutional system. The First Amendment doesn’t merely protect my ability to practice my religion. It also protects me from being compelled by government to practice yours. Those two forms of liberty are inseparable.

My Granddaughter

Political arguments become different when I stop thinking in abstractions and think about my granddaughter. Suppose she were living under a government that enforced a particularly restrictive interpretation of Islamic religious law. Would she be permitted to leave her hair uncovered? Could she wear shorts? Could she eat pork? Could she go to school beyond sixth grade and attend university? Could she keep a dog in her home despite religious attitudes toward dogs found in some Islamic traditions? Could she criticize the dominant religion? Could she fall in love with someone of another faith? Could she convert to Christianity? Could she choose any career field? Could she decide that she believed in no religion whatsoever?

All of those questions eventually reduce to one much more important question: Who gets to make those decisions?

If the answer is my granddaughter, we are talking about liberty. If the answer is the government, backed by police, courts and punishment, we are talking about coercion. That distinction matters far more to me than the particular religious rule being enforced.

Choice Changes Everything

There is nothing inherently oppressive about a hijab. A Muslim woman who believes that modesty requires covering her hair and freely chooses to do so is exercising religious liberty. In fact, I would defend her right to make that choice, except in situations where identity needs to be confirmed. If someone attempted to prevent her from wearing it merely because they disliked Islam, I would regard that as an infringement upon the same principle I am defending for my granddaughter.

Put a police officer beside that same woman, however, and tell her she will be arrested if she removes the hijab, and everything changes. The piece of cloth hasn’t changed. Consent has.

The principle works in the opposite direction as well. A government that prohibits a Muslim woman from wearing religious clothing can also infringe upon her liberty. My preferred government isn’t one that determines the correct amount of Islamic clothing for a woman to wear. My preferred government leaves the decision to her.

This distinction isn’t merely theoretical. Afghanistan under the Taliban provides a contemporary example of what can happen when an extreme religious interpretation acquires governmental enforcement power. Women and girls there have faced sweeping restrictions affecting clothing, movement, education, employment and participation in public life. Iran has also enforced compulsory Islamic dress requirements and punished women for violating them.

There are significant disagreements within Islam over what clothing the religion requires. Muslim women around the world dress very differently, and Islamic scholars themselves disagree about the requirements of female modesty. For that reason, simply saying that “Sharia requires women to wear burqas” would be inaccurate. But that disagreement actually reinforces my larger point. If Muslims themselves disagree about what Allah requires, why should government possess the authority to settle the theological question and enforce its answer against women who disagree?

Whether the government requires a burqa, niqab, hijab or something else is ultimately secondary. I object to government making the decision.

What Do We Mean by Punishment?

Any serious conversation about religious liberty also requires us to define punishment. Many religions impose consequences for violating religious rules. A Christian church can excommunicate someone. A congregation can remove a pastor. A religious organization can tell someone that his conduct is inconsistent with membership. Families and religious communities sometimes shun people who abandon their faith.

Those consequences can be extremely painful. Shunning can destroy family relationships and lifelong friendships. But we still need to distinguish religious and social consequences from governmental and physical punishment. If I leave a church and the church says I can no longer be a member, that is an exercise of religious freedom and freedom of association. If I leave a religion and the government puts me in prison, we have entered an entirely different category.

Likewise, if my family refuses to speak to me because I changed religions, I may regard their behavior as cruel, but the government ordinarily has no role in forcing them to maintain a relationship with me. If someone beats or kills me because I changed religions, however, we are no longer talking about shunning or religious association. We are talking about assault or murder. If the government itself punishes someone for abandoning a religion, the distinction becomes even clearer.

This gives me a simple test for religious liberty. Can I freely join your religion, can I freely leave it, and will the government protect my right to make either decision? If the answer to the second question is no, the freedom supposedly represented by the first question doesn’t mean very much.

The Right to Offend God

There is another uncomfortable American principle that I consider essential to liberty: you have the right to say something offensive about my God. I may dislike what you say. I may consider it ignorant, insulting or deliberately provocative. I can criticize you, refuse to associate with you, or tell you that I believe you are morally wrong. What I should not be able to do is have you imprisoned for saying it.

That principle protects Christians, Muslims, Jews and atheists alike. A government possessing the authority to imprison someone for insulting Muhammad possesses the same kind of authority that another government could use to imprison someone for insulting Jesus. Once government assumes responsibility for protecting God from criticism, someone in government must decide which God, which scripture and which interpretation deserves legal protection.

Blasphemy laws are not imaginary relics of the distant past. They continue to exist and be enforced in parts of the world. People have been arrested, prosecuted and punished for statements considered insulting to religion. Interestingly, such systems can also punish members of the dominant religion who interpret their own faith differently from those holding governmental power.

That is another reason religious authoritarianism should not be understood simply as one religion persecuting outsiders. It can also become a struggle within a religion over who possesses the authority to define orthodoxy. A Muslim whose interpretation of Islam differs from the government’s interpretation can become just as troublesome to a religious state as a Christian or atheist.

The central conflict, therefore, isn’t necessarily Muslim against non-Muslim. It is the conscience of the individual against the coercive power of the state.

What Is for Dinner?

Some examples seem almost trivial compared with imprisonment or execution, but they illustrate the same principle. Consider food. Muslims who refrain from eating pork because of their faith should be free to do so. Jewish Americans who keep kosher should be free to do so. Catholics can abstain from meat on particular days, and Hindus who abstain from beef can follow their religious convictions.

I don’t need to understand or agree with any of those rules because they aren’t my rules. If a Muslim restaurant owner doesn’t serve pork, I can eat somewhere else. If the United States government prohibits pork because Islamic religious law considers it forbidden, however, I have lost something considerably more important than bacon. I have lost the principle that another person’s religious prohibition does not automatically become my legal obligation.

The same principle applies to alcohol and countless other personal decisions. If your religion prohibits you from drinking alcohol, then don’t drink. If you want to persuade me that I shouldn’t drink either, make your case. The constitutional problem arises when religious doctrine becomes governmental authority and the police arrive to enforce that doctrine against me.

The issue isn’t really pork or alcohol. The issue is who possesses authority over individual choices. And aside from government, you personally don’t have the right to enforce your views on me.

And Yes, Even the Dog

Dogs provide another example where precision matters. Islamic teachings and traditions concerning dogs aren’t uniform, and Muslims have differing beliefs about dogs, their saliva, ritual purity, and whether or under what circumstances they should be kept in the home. Claiming simply that “Islam bans dogs” would therefore be inaccurate.

But the underlying question remains useful. Suppose my granddaughter wants a Labrador sleeping at the foot of her bed. Whose decision should that be? If she freely embraces a religion that discourages keeping dogs and decides to follow that teaching, that is her choice. If government agents tell her she cannot own that Labrador because their interpretation of religion considers it improper, that is something entirely different.

Again, I am not really arguing about dogs. I am arguing about government, and to a lesser degree, neighbors.

Honor and Murder

Honor killings require another important distinction because the term is frequently thrown into discussions about Islam without sufficient care. Honor killings are not exclusively Islamic. Honor-based violence has appeared in different cultures, regions and religious communities, and it would be inaccurate to claim that Islam invented the practice or that Muslims generally support it.

But acknowledging those facts does not mean the subject should be ignored. The governmental question is straightforward: does a woman receive exactly the same protection against violence regardless of the religious or cultural justification offered by the person who harms her?

“I killed her because she dishonored the family” should carry no greater legal legitimacy than “I killed her because I was angry.” Murder remains murder. There can be no religious discount and no cultural discount. If a father beats his adult daughter because she abandoned his religion, that is assault. If her brother murders her because she dated someone the family disapproved of, that is murder. The government doesn’t need to resolve the theology behind the act. It needs to protect the victim and enforce the law.

This is an area where cultural tolerance can become moral cowardice if taken too far. Respecting another person’s culture does not require accepting violence against another human being. American pluralism works only if everyone receives equal protection under the law.

“That’s Not Real Islam”

Whenever abuses committed under the banner of Islam are discussed, someone eventually responds that they do not represent “real Islam.” There may be considerable truth behind that objection in particular cases. Hundreds of millions of Muslims would reject extremist interpretations of their religion, and the Islamic world contains enormous theological diversity.

But saying “that’s not real Islam” doesn’t completely resolve the issue because it immediately raises another question: who determines what real Islam is? Sunni and Shia Muslims disagree about important theological questions. Islamic scholars disagree with one another. A Taliban cleric, an Iranian ayatollah, a reform-minded Muslim professor at an American university and a Muslim physician living in Tennessee may provide very different answers about what Islam requires.

Christianity has the same difficulty. Ask a Southern Baptist pastor, a Roman Catholic priest, a Pentecostal pastor and an Eastern Orthodox priest to define precisely what Christianity requires, and significant disagreements will emerge. Those disagreements provide another argument against religious government. Government should not have to determine which interpretation of God is correct.

The American solution is remarkably simple. Believe what you want. Worship as you choose. Persuade others if you can. Change religions if you wish. Reject religion altogether if that is where your conscience leads you. Government does not get to settle the theological argument.

Islam Is Not One Thing

Any serious discussion of this subject also has to acknowledge the enormous diversity within the Islamic world. Indonesia isn’t Iran. Iran isn’t Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia isn’t Albania. Albania isn’t Afghanistan. Muslim Americans themselves represent an extraordinary range of cultures, traditions and beliefs.

There are secular Muslims, culturally Muslim people, devout Muslims, reformist Muslims and conservative Muslims. There are Muslims who believe Sharia should play a substantial role in government and others who strongly favor secular constitutional government. There are also Muslims who have fled religious authoritarianism precisely because they don’t want to live under it.

Recognizing this diversity doesn’t weaken my argument. It strengthens it because my concern isn’t dependent upon believing that every Muslim secretly wants to establish an Islamic government in America. My concern is what a coercive religious system would mean if such a system ever acquired governmental authority here.

Those are entirely different propositions.

We Already Know What Religious Government Can Do

None of this is an argument unique to Islam. Europe spent centuries demonstrating what can happen when religious institutions and governments acquire coercive authority over one another. Catholics persecuted Protestants. Protestants persecuted Catholics. Christians persecuted other Christians over theological distinctions that probably seem incomprehensible to many Americans today. People were imprisoned, tortured and killed over religious disagreements.

America’s constitutional protection of religious liberty didn’t emerge because previous generations believed religion was unimportant. Quite the opposite. Religion was important enough that they understood the dangers associated with allowing government to control it or allowing one religious group to use government against another.

The First Amendment begins with two complementary ideas: government cannot establish religion, and government cannot prohibit its free exercise. Those concepts protect both sides of the relationship. My Muslim neighbor receives protection from a government that might otherwise impose my religious beliefs upon him, and I receive protection from a government that might impose his religious beliefs upon me.

That is an extraordinary arrangement, and I don’t think Americans always appreciate how extraordinary it is.

What Exactly Am I Afraid Of?

When I say that I fear living under an extreme form of Islamic government, the fear isn’t mysterious. I can describe exactly what concerns me. I don’t want my granddaughter being told by government how she must dress, whom she may marry, what foods she may eat, which religious ideas she may criticize, or whether she is permitted to change religions. I don’t want religious authorities possessing governmental power over her individual conscience. I don’t want police enforcing theology or courts deciding whether someone has sufficiently respected God.

More broadly, I am wary of any government possessing the authority to transform religious sin automatically into secular crime merely because the dominant religious authorities consider the behavior sinful. The historical and contemporary examples of governments enforcing religious dress codes, punishing blasphemy, restricting conversion and discriminating among citizens according to religion give me concrete reasons for that concern.

So when someone tells me that fearing religious government is irrational, I return to the original question: Which part of that fear is irrational?

Muslims Have a Stake in This Too

One of the mistakes we make when discussing this subject is assuming that Muslims and non-Muslims must occupy opposite sides of the argument. They don’t. An American Muslim can have exactly the same interest in maintaining constitutional religious liberty that I do, because religious government inevitably creates another problem: whose interpretation of the religion will the government enforce?

A Muslim might be perfectly comfortable with a government that agrees with his understanding of Islam. He might feel very differently if another Islamic movement acquired power and declared his interpretation heretical. The question would no longer be whether Muslims possessed governmental authority. It would become which Muslims possessed governmental authority.

A government powerful enough to enforce my religion against you is powerful enough to enforce someone else’s interpretation of my religion against me. That is why religious liberty has to operate in both directions.

I don’t merely tolerate my Muslim neighbor’s mosque. I want his right to attend it protected. I want his Quran protected. I want his children protected from being compelled to participate in Christian worship at a public school. I want his daughter protected if she freely chooses to wear a hijab. If someday that same daughter decides she no longer believes in Islam and removes it, I want her protected then too.

That is what religious liberty means to me.

The Word That Ends the Conversation

This brings me back to Islamophobia. There unquestionably are people who irrationally hate or fear Muslims. There are people who see a Muslim name and immediately assume terrorism. There are people who would deny Muslims equal rights simply because they are Muslims. I have no difficulty calling that bigotry and opposing it.

But if Islamophobia becomes a term used to prevent examination of Islamic doctrine, Islamic political movements, or governments operating under particular interpretations of Islamic law, then the word begins performing a very different function. Instead of protecting people from prejudice, it can become a means of protecting ideas from criticism.

Ideas don’t have civil rights. People do.

Islam doesn’t possess a constitutional right not to be criticized. Neither does Christianity. Nor do atheism, conservatism, liberalism, capitalism or socialism. Every one of those systems of thought can be examined, criticized, challenged and defended. We should be especially willing to examine an ideology when someone proposes using its principles to govern people who don’t share it.

Maybe I Am Islamophobic

So am I Islamophobic? The answer depends almost entirely upon what the word is intended to mean. If it means that I hate Muslims, then no. If it means that I want Muslims to be denied the right to worship, build mosques or participate fully in American society, then no. If it means that I believe my religion deserves constitutional privileges that Islam does not, the answer is again no.

But if Islamophobia means that I am genuinely afraid of living under a government that could compel my granddaughter to obey somebody else’s interpretation of Islamic religious law, then yes, I am afraid of that. I am also afraid of living under a Christian government that could compel a Muslim granddaughter to obey mine. I also don’t want Muslims in this country who actively work to overthrow our form of government or train adherents to do so.

Perhaps the important question, then, isn’t whether fear exists. Perhaps we have become so accustomed to attaching labels to difficult subjects that we sometimes forget to ask whether the thing being feared has actually happened. In this case, many of the individual things I fear have happened somewhere. Governments have compelled women to follow religious dress requirements. People have been imprisoned for blasphemy. People have faced severe consequences for abandoning religions. Religious minorities have been restricted, and governments have criminalized conduct because religious authorities considered it sinful.

I don’t want that government here. I don’t say that because I hate Muslims, because I fear the Muslim family living down the street, or because I believe my religion deserves privileges that theirs doesn’t. I say it because I believe my granddaughter owns her conscience, her faith and her decisions.

If she someday chooses to cover her hair because she sincerely embraces Islam, I want America to protect her right to do it. If she chooses to walk outside with her hair blowing in the wind, I want America to protect that too. The government should not care which decision she makes.

That isn’t Islamophobia. That’s liberty.

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As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.