I'm Marwan Mohammed, a sociologist for the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), a pure product of the French working-class suburbs; having failed at school, taken to the streets, and ended up in research after a detour through social work and community organizing. I founded several grassroots organizations in the Paris suburbs, such as C'noues (which became a futsal club that trained several top-level players, including my brother Abdessamad Mohammed, the French national team's all-time top scorer) and more recently NormalZup, an association that tackles educational inequalities at source. I'll be telling the whole story in a forthcoming book.
I wrote...
Islamophobia in France: The Construction of the "Muslim Problem"
This book provided me with the keys to understanding how the authorities' actions could bring racism to life. Arun Kundnani's book shows how the horrific attacks of September 11 gave rise to the construction of ideologies, opinions, theories, and public policies that regarded the domestic Muslim presence, whether immigrants or citizens, as a threat to the highest order, justifying programs of surveillance and repression that were discriminatory and infringed fundamental freedoms.
It's one thing for the country to protect itself from violent attacks; it's quite another to consider a mass of Muslims, especially the most visible ones, as a threat and a suspect population by associating religious practice with Islamism or radicalization. These two vague notions have helped to spread an Islamophobic culture of suspicion. Arun Kundnani's book sheds much-needed light on this turning point in contemporary history in various Western democracies.
"The new front in the War on Terror is the "homegrown enemy," domestic terrorists who have become the focus of sprawling counterterrorism structures of policing and surveillance in the United States and across Europe. Domestic surveillance has mushroomed - at least 100,000 Muslims in America have been secretly under scrutiny. British police compiled a secret suspect list of more than 8,000 al-Qaeda "sympathizers," and in another operation included almost 300 children fifteen and under among the potential extremists investigated. MI5 doubled in size in just five years. Based on several years of research and reportage, in locations as disparate as…
When I arrived in the USA, I particularly appreciated the great freedom granted to religions. Then I was invited by Sahar Aziz to a conference at Rutgers University. Her talk moderated my point of view. The book she published three years later changed my outlook.
In this book, Sahar Aziz chooses an original angle of analysis. She examines the paradox between an official commitment to religious freedom and repeated attacks on it when it comes to Muslims. Dr. Aziz shows that this is possible when Muslims go from being a religious minority to a racial group through the process of racialization that associates them with stereotypes and intangible cultural traits.
Religious discrimination then becomes possible under the guise of security and terrorism prevention measures, as long as the threat is strictly associated with religious faith and practice and not with political or geopolitical motivations. Moreover, according to Sahar Aziz, this disguised religious intolerance is not new; it has already flourished in the past, hindering religious freedom in a country that claims to be exemplary in this area.
Why does a country with religious liberty enmeshed in its legal and social structures produce such overt prejudice and discrimination against Muslims? Sahar Aziz's groundbreaking book demonstrates how race and religion intersect to create what she calls the Racial Muslim. Comparing discrimination against immigrant Muslims with the prejudicial treatment of Jews, Catholics, Mormons, and African American Muslims during the twentieth century, Aziz explores the gap between America's aspiration for and fulfillment of religious freedom. With America's demographics rapidly changing from a majority white Protestant nation to a multiracial, multireligious society, this book is an in dispensable read for understanding how…
Like most specialists in Islamophobia, I thought it was mainly a phenomenon that unfolded where Muslims were in the minority. So, for a long time, I ignored racism in Muslim-majority countries.
The book by Enes Bayraklı and Farid Hafez has had the merit of bringing together some astonishing contemporary studies. Many of these texts recall that the societies in question were colonial strongholds that bequeathed patterns of thought, forms of interiorization, and even “self-orientalization” that continue to irrigate representations, social practices, and sometimes public policies. Further reading!
In the last decade, Islamophobia in Western societies, where Muslims constitute the minority, has been studied extensively. However, Islamophobia is not restricted to the geography of the West, but rather constitutes a global phenomenon. It affects Muslim societies just as much, due to various historical, economic, political, cultural and social reasons.
Islamophobia in Muslim Majority Societies constitutes a first attempt to open a debate about the understudied phenomenon of Islamophobia in Muslim majority societies. An interdisciplinary study, it focuses on socio-political and historical aspects of Islamophobia in Muslim majority societies.
This volume will appeal to students, scholars and general readers…
As I'm keen for American readers to learn more about the French situation, I'd also like to suggest this book by Jim Wolfreys, which clearly shows that, unlike in countries where Islamophobia is primarily the result of right-wing and far-right ideologies, the French situation is more complex, as this form of racism often wears the respectable garb of defending the republic, feminism, secularism or tradition.
We owe this expression “respectable racism” to a French-Algerian sociologist and activist, Said Bouamama, whose struggles since the 1980s have been remarkable.
Why does Islamophobia dominate public debate in France? Islamophobia in France is rising, with Muslims subjected to unprecedented scrutiny of what they wear, eat and say. Championed by Marine Le Pen and drawing on the French colonial legacy, France's 'new secularism' gives racism a respectable veneer. Jim Wolfreys exposes the dynamic driving this intolerance: a society polarized by inequality, and the authoritarian neoliberalism of the French political mainstream. This officially sanctioned Islamophobia risks going unchallenged. It has divided the traditional anti-racist movement and undermined the left's opposition to bigotry. Wolfreys deftly unravels the problems facing those trying to confront today's…
There are many remedies for racism, including education, transmission, and prevention. So as not to limit myself to the human and social sciences, I suggest this children's novel by Ayaan Mohamud. It's an embodied account, a fictionalized testimony that we discover by following Hanan, the main character, who attends a prestigious school where she is subjected to a very routine form of Islamophobic ostracism.
She follows her mother's advice to stay the course and not overreact for a while. But after a tragedy, this position is no longer tenable and she makes her voice heard, in other words, she takes her place as a visible Muslim in American society in a different way.
This novel will delight young and old alike and is a good complement to the more scientific works cited in this list of recommendations. It was originally written for my children, so they wouldn't shut up.
"Will leave you feeling moved and inspired. A must read!" Cosmopolitan
A stunning debut about finding the strength to speak up against hate and fear, for fans of The Hate U Give and I Am Thunder.
People like me are devils before we are angels. Hanan has always been good and quiet. She accepts her role as her school's perfect Muslim poster girl. She ignores the racist bullies. A closed mouth is gold - it helps you get home in one piece. Then her friend is murdered and every Muslim is to blame. The world is angry at us again.…
I lived in New York for two years, and my experience as a Muslim was incomparable to what I experienced at home. Back home, French women or not, who wear a headscarf are not allowed to take part in official basketball, soccer, or fencing competitions. There could be no Ibtihaj Muhammad to make my country, France, shine. My book tries to understand why.
We explain when, how, and why a section of the elite converged to construct a “Muslim problem” in France. The weight of history is enormous in understanding the Islamophobic virulence surrounding the Muslim presence in France, a rejection whose manifestations and consequences are numerous for the victims of this racism.
I’m passionate about helping people see the incredible beauty of God’s unfolding plan of redemption and restoration that unfolds in the pages of the Bible. In the Old Testament, this plan is hidden in mystery and symbolism. But then in the New Testament, this great mystery is unveiled in all its glory, and the symbolism emerges from the shadows and steps into the light! For the past 15+ years, it has been my great honor to read the Bible with people for their very first time and help them watch this great mystery unfold. These books do that very same thing!
The Bible is the greatest mystery novel ever written. It begins in the Old Testament with seemingly random accounts of ancient people in far away places with strange customs. There’s the prophecy of a coming Hero who will conquer the villain and restore peace to the land. The mystery reaches its climax of anticipation as the Old Testament comes to a close and 400 years of silence ensues and the world longingly waits for its deliverer. Then, in a stable outside a small village in a conquered nation, a peasant woman gives birth to a baby boy. And the great…
The Essence: A Guided Journey of Discovery through the Bible
The Unfolding Story of God's Ultimate Plan of Restoration
The Bible is the greatest book ever written, and it's more than just a book-it's the very Word of God. It unveils the unfolding story of God's ultimate plan to restore mankind's relationship with Him. The answers to life's deepest questions are found within its pages. It reveals who we are, why we are here, who God is, and how we can know Him. However, for many people, the great riches of the Bible remain undiscovered and its exquisite beauty, unseen. The relevance of the peculiar accounts of ancient people in…