What Will It Take To Stop Hatred Towards Muslims?

My faith tradition, Islam, has always taught me to speak up for justice, condemn hate, and value our shared humanity. For this reason, I have spent almost my entire career working for causes that advance social justice.

In the post-9/11 era, I chose to work for a Muslim civil rights organization. As a spokesperson for the organization, I became a target of hate groups and received hate emails and threatening messages. During the Trump Administration, I staunchly opposed the Muslim Ban and worked to reunify immigrant families, and faced backlash throughout. And now, as thousands of Muslims get killed overseas, I’m working to dismantle the forces of Muslim hatred here at home, and am once again experiencing opposition.

I’m holding out hope for a better tomorrow. But with every major period of hatred towards Muslims, my hope shakes. Despite decades of advocacy, most policymakers, leaders, and influencers are still fearful to speak in support of Muslims – or worse, they embrace blatant discrimination.

It’s mind-boggling that it is controversial to condemn hate against Muslims. The fact that we can’t even do that—the absolute bare minimum—reveals just how dangerous it is to be a Muslim in America and how far away we are from true acceptance.

While Muslim Americans are being violently attacked nationwide, some people believe that it is not the right time to combat Islamophobia.

Muslims in America face hatred in all aspects of their lives: School, work, banks, airports, houses of worship, interactions with law enforcement, polling locations, social media, and more. Muslims are among the most likely of all minority groups to be subject to hate incidents, according to research conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) between 2016 and 2022. It’s mentally and physically grueling.

Muslim civil rights organizations are also reporting that there has been an exponential increase in hate crimes and bias incidents against Muslims, especially Palestinians, since October 7th. And blood has been shed. A landlord in Illinois who was radicalized by elected leaders and the media killed his 6-year-old Palestinian tenant Wadea Al-Fayoume. Weeks later, three Palestinian students - Tahseen Ali Ahmad, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Hisham Awartani – were shot in Vermont.

I recently drafted a resolution to condemn and combat Islamophobia along with my co-author Sami Shaban, a Palestinian American. I introduced the resolution to the Princeton community, where I have lived for almost two decades. I thought the process would be simple. After all, why would there be backlash to a statement that simply condemns hate against Muslims?

I was taken aback when the resolution faced opposition. A community leader felt that given the events of October 7th, it was not the right time to pass such a resolution without an equivalent for antisemitism. They also felt that there had not been sufficient condemnation of the attacks of October 7th.

It was painful, gut-wrenching opposition. Allies, including an LGBTQ+ community leader, and I explained that Princeton had already passed a resolution to condemn and combat antisemitism some time ago—and that the Islamophobia resolution was actually modeled after it. I also felt the need to state that as a Muslim, I am against all violence and that violence is never a solution, especially to a political problem.

After much negotiation, the community leader eventually supported the resolution. And in December, Princeton Mayor and Council elected leaders—who supported the resolution throughout wholeheartedly—unanimously passed it.

This experience was just a microcosm of what’s happening all over the country. While Muslim Americans are being violently attacked nationwide, some people believe that it is not the right time to combat Islamophobia. And, just as in this situation, many national leaders are seizing the opportunity to pit Jewish and Muslim communities against each other. That’s deeply troubling.

As a Muslim, I am against all violence and that violence is never a solution, especially to a political problem.

Muslim and Jewish communities are natural allies. Muslims love Moses as a prophet of God, and the Torah is one of our holy books. And right now, both of our communities are experiencing unbearable pain and hatred here at home. It is important, in our support of one another's communities, to recognize that while we must acknowledge and combat the hatred against both groups, we must not be conditional in that support.

The event was also a painful reminder that despite my decades-long work to advance justice for all marginalized communities, for some people, I will always be seen as a terrorist sympathizer. While every religion has its share of terrorists – those who claim to commit horrible acts falsely in the name of their religion – I don’t know that any other community has to constantly defend itself. It is exhausting for Muslim Americans to constantly state, “I condemn terrorism,” and to be held responsible for any acts of terrorism committed around the world by terrorists claiming to be Muslims. In fact, to demand and expect such condemnations of us is a perpetuation of Islamophobia and is harmful to the Muslim community because we continue to only be seen through the lens of terrorism. This is very traumatizing for the Muslim American community.

Muslims are loving, peaceful people. Our holy book, the Quran, explicitly states that taking a life is the same as killing all of humanity, and saving a life is the same as saving all of humanity. As we gear up to introduce this resolution nationwide, I hope that our leaders will acknowledge the plight of Muslim people and treat us with the respect and dignity we deserve.