Arsalan Iftikhar - Fear of a Muslim Planet: Global Islamophobia in the New World Order

Copyright 2021 by Arsalan Iftikhar

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

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Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-6187-2

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-6363-0

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

To My Amma & My Ummah

Acknowledgments

B ismillahthe first word of the Holy Quran and this trisyllabic Arabic phrase which means In the Name of Godis how two billion Muslims seek Divine blessings for all of our lifes projects. Similarly, my favorite Malcolm X quote of all time is All praise is due to Allah Only the mistakes are mine, which also perfectly explains how I feel about my lifes work.

At the personal level, I would first like to thank my wonderful family (my wife, Noreen, my mother, Warda, my father, Tariq, my sister, Savera, and my brother, Altamash) for their love and support throughout our lives.

On the editorial side, I would like to thank Skyhorse Publishingespecially Tony Lyons, Mark Gompertz, and Caroline Russomannofor publishing my last two books. I would also like to thank Scott Kenemore and Farzana Gardee for their contributions and Mr. Zak Elyazgi from Daze Studios for his artistic consultations for TheMuslimPlanet.com

Finally, I absolutely must acknowledge every single one of the fifty-one individual victims of the March 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque massacre. While writing about their fifty-one life stories throughout this book, I literally sobbed numerous times while commemorating their legacies for posteritys sake and I hope to meet all fifty-one of them in heaven one day, inshallah (God willing).

Introduction

S omehow, I have to remind myself that it isnt personal.

This is the strange but unavoidable conclusion that looms back at me through the lens whenever I try to examine the fear and mistrust the worlds 1.7 billion Muslims arouse in so many populations today.

People are afraid of Muslims. Of that, they are absolutely certain. They will tell you this quite directly. They are convinced that Muslims are worth fearing for very good reasons, and that everyone else should be afraid of them too.

But which Muslims? Why? Why them and not others?

Here, the respondent hesitates and wavers (even though their resolve does not).

A remarkable thing has occurred in the past few decades. People have realized that to be afraid of Muslims, they do not have to be afraid of a specific person, ideology, or even a specific thing. It is enough for them to declare that Muslimsas a wholeare not to be trusted. Are to be feared. Specific examples are not necessary. Facts just get in the way.

It is not personal; it is a generalized fear. It is enough to simply be afraid.

You can get a sense of this phenomenon just by looking at anti-Muslim attitudes in my own country, the United States. (Im a person very driven by data, and youre going to see me cite statistics to back up my positions throughout this book )

For instance, according to a study by the Pew Research Center, over half of all Americans (62 percent) agree with the statement Islam is not a part of mainstream society, and nearly half agree that There is a natural conflict between Islam and democracy. A further 25 percent of respondents go even further, saying they agree that a majority of US Muslims are anti-American. (The percentage of respondents agreeing with these statements rises dramatically when you look at sub-groups like white Evangelicals, Republicans, and Americans with only a high school degree or less.)

And when President Donald Trumps Muslim Travel Ban went into effect in 2017, a Politico-Morning Consult poll found that 60 percent of Americans said they either strongly supported or somewhat supported the Muslim ban.

Thats a majority of the nation.

Simply put, Americans are afraid of Muslims.

They fear them. They mistrust them. They agree thatas a peopleMuslims are a scary bunch.

But who, precisely, is so terrifying?

Here, Americans have a tougher time. It is much easier to be clear about who they dont mean.

They dont, of course, mean Dave Chappelle, the funniest man alive. They dont mean Muhammad Ali, the greatest athlete of all time. They dont mean the legions of Muslim musicians whose creative work they enjoy so deeplyfrom Snoop Dogg to Ice Cube, from Art Blakey to DJ Khaled.

They dont mean all the lifesaving physicians who are Muslims. Over 5 percent of Americas doctors are now Muslim, and that number grows year after year. From celebrity MDs like Dr. Mehmet Oz to the hardworking doctors at their local community health centers during the 2020 COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, Muslim healthcare providers from coast to coast are busy curing Americans cancers, their acne breakouts, and everything in between. But Americans dont mean these Muslims.

Neither do Americans mean trusted media personalities like Fareed Zakaria or Oscar-winning actors like Mahershala Ali. They dont mean trendy fashion icons like supermodels Iman or Bella Hadid.

And they dont mean the Muslim job creators who have founded and/or helmed such all-American brands as Edible Arrangements, Ethan Allen, and the NFLs Jacksonville Jaguarsjust to name a few.

Most certainly, they do not mean the thousands of Muslims currently serving in Americas armed forces. They do not mean the Muslim veterans who have fought and died in all major American conflicts back to the Civil Warand possibly before. (Soldiers named Yusuf ben Ali and Bampett Muhamed fought in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Record of their religions does not exist, but it now seems likely to historians and scholars that they were followers of Islam.)

Which leaves us, again, with the question:

Who do they mean?

Rather than a specific person who has committed (or is likely to commit) a specific act, Americans seem to fear Muslims as a group because they present a dangerous potentiality.

There is a pervading sense that if left unchecked and unregulated, Muslims will do something. We dont know what it is, but were certain that its bad. Something we dont want. Something definitely un-American.

Yet despite our certainty, were unable to articulate the master plan or at least unable to agree upon it. According to those casting the aspersions, Muslims desire to destroy America, to take over America, or to impose the strictest form of theocracy on America. (This last one seems to strike a particular chord; at least seven US states have passed laws or ballot measures forbidding sharia law. Ironically, these measures have generally been introduced in sparsely-populated states with the smallest overall populations of Muslim residents, but thats beside the point.)