Media Language on Islam and Muslims: Terminologies and Their Effects 3031374614, 9783031374616

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Media Language on Islam and Muslims Terminologies and Their Effects Edited by Salman Al-Azami

Media Language on Islam and Muslims “The media is one of the principal sites for the manifestation of Islamophobia and source for the circulation of Islamophobia. Yet, despite the fact that the study of Islamophobia is virtually a sub-disciplinary area of research, the media is relatively understudied. This systematic study of some key Islamophobic themes and discourse in our media is therefore much to be welcomed.” —Tariq Modood, Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy, Founding Director, Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, University of Bristol, UK “This edited collection provides an important reminder of the necessity for a continued focus and analysis of the way the media represents Islam in the contemporary context. Co-produced with media analysts, and following engagement with media practitioners, it is distinctive in its detailed analysis of specific and frequently- used terminology, associated with Muslims, that has become loaded with negative ideological meanings. Revealing the politics of power in media and political discourse, the book aims not only to critique and contest these standardised tropes, but have a real-world impact through knowledge transfer. As well as highlighting the problematic use of media language therefore, it also responds with informed and specific recommendations.” —Elizabeth Poole, Professor of Media and Communications, School of Humanities, Keele University “This book examines important issues which have needed to be addressed. It will help journalists understand the arguments as to how language can and should be used fairly and accurately when related to Islam and Muslims. You can use language constructively or destructively, and undoubtedly Muslims in the past have suffered greatly from the latter. The media has a crucial role to play in ensuring the Muslim faith and community is portrayed fairly and accurately. One of my priorities is to ensure that is the case. We must all strive to live in harmony together with an understanding of each other’s religion and culture, and the manner in which we use language can and I believe will bring positive change for us all.” —Gary Jones, Editor-in-Chief, Daily and Sunday Express “As Journalists we know more than most the power of language in shaping perception and shifting opinions. As such we have a huge responsibility to

think about the language which has been used around the reporting of Islam - where we have fallen short and where we should be doing better. This book is an essential guide to how we improve accuracy and our choice of language to ensure better reporting of Islam for all our readers.” —Alison Phillips, Editor, Daily Mirror “Words used in the media have a real impact on ordinary Muslims. This book is the first of its kind to academically tackle some of the most controversial words head-on, explain their usage and mis-usage, and help chart a path towards a better representation of Islam and Muslims. I believe it will make a real difference.” —Zara Mohammed, Secretary General, The Muslim Council of Britain

Salman Al-Azami Editor

Media Language on Islam and Muslims Terminologies and Their Effects

Editor Salman Al-Azami School of Humanities Liverpool Hope University Liverpool, UK

ISBN 978-3-031-37461-6 ISBN 978-3-031-37462-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To the victims of Islamophobia around the world

Foreword

The problem of poor and often downright distorted and Islamophobic coverage of Islam and Muslims in the media is nothing new. By now, there have been many commendable books and articles that document the extent of the challenge, and some of the disturbing consequences. But this important new collection is unique in several ways, and it is an honour to be invited to write a short Foreword to commend what follows. The origins of this book lie in collaboration between the leading representative body for Muslims in Britain—the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and its ‘Centre for Media Monitoring’—and academics of international repute who specialise in the study of Islam and Muslims and their portrayal in the media. This kind of partnership reflects the increasing agency and effectiveness of Muslim organisations in Britain, and their importance in engaging and shaping the civil society in which media organisations are embedded. The alliance of informed and experienced activists with academics who approach the topic of media representation of Islam from a range of disciplinary perspectives has resulted in a truly 360-degree view of a complex topic.

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But this practitioner-academic partnership is also calling the journalism profession to account in a new and powerful way. The consequences of negative reporting are made crystal clear. The inaccurate or misleading vocabulary used in a news report, or the framing of a story in a deliberately distorting and negative way can not only lead to an immediate increase in hate crimes, but also contribute to cumulative and ongoing public misunderstanding of Islam and Muslims. Challenging journalists to higher standards of reporting doesn’t limit their scope to discuss sensitive or controversial subjects related to Islam but does require them to check sources and choose their words wisely…not least because poor reporting often reveals their own ignorance of Islam in the first place. Having read this book, which any serious journalist of current affairs will want to do, there will be no excuse for lazy use of Islamic terms and concepts. The second part of the book offers authoritative and accessible explanation of key terms such as ‘jihad’, or ‘shari‘ah’ which reveals the beauty of their meaning—when properly understood that is. The publication of this book gives me hope that there are better times ahead when it comes to reporting of Islam. Its publication coincides with evidence that Muslims in Britain are actively re-shaping media discourse and public understanding of Islam in positive ways, and on their own terms. For example, via the Aziz Foundation, there are academic scholarships available for Muslims who are eager to change media narratives by entering the journalism profession, thereby affecting change from within. At the time of writing during Ramadan 2023, there has been a proliferation of ‘good news’ stories in a wide range of mainstream media about ‘open iftar’ (fast-breaking) events in football stadiums, mosques, theatres, and other public venues. These provide a powerful counternarrative to the usual diet of ‘terrorism’, ‘radicalisation’ and ‘extremism’. The entrepreneurialism and diversity within British Muslim communities can be found in a wide range of creative and media industries, enabling new opportunities to shift away from some of the tired media stereotypes of old. There are new and better stories to tell which are simply more reflective of what is actually happening in Muslim communities. Of course, this is not to say that all is rosy in the garden, but the reproduction of the assumption that presents Muslims as ‘the problem’ rather than people who ‘have problems’ because of their circumstances

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(such as poverty) will no longer do…and nor will the over-amplification of the ‘Muslimness’ of criminals—as if their religion is somehow an important and intrinsic aspect of their crime (which it very rarely is). All this matters considering the 2021 Census findings, and the significance of Islam and Muslim communities for the future flourishing of British society. By using the best academic qualitative and quantitative research evidence to illustrate why the use of particular words, or the nuancing of particular phrases really does matter, and placing this alongside clear guidance for journalists, there is now little excuse for continued simplistic misrepresentation of Islam and Muslim communities in the media. This book has put down a marker in the ground and is calling time on poor journalistic practice. For the first time in British history, the shopping streets of central London were illuminated with decorations during Ramadan 2023. In a powerful material way, these festive lights reflected the centrality of Islam in British society, and the fact that Muslims are inscribing their faith into the streetscapes of their localities and communities in new and dynamic ways. Journalists will want to bring clarity, insight, integrity, and accuracy to their reporting of these important developments. This timely publication will give them precisely what they need to do justice to their profession, and the communities about which they are writing. Sophie Gilliat-Ray Professor of Religious Studies Founding Director of the Islam-UK Centre Cardiff University Cardiff, UK

Preface

Representation of Islam/Muslims in the media is an emerging sub-field of religion in the media that has flourished since the beginning of this century due to increased interests in the media about religions and religious groups. Although the representation of Christianity was mostly analysed by researchers in late twentieth century, major terrorist incidents like 9/11 and 7/7, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rise of Daesh in the Middle East, and the refugee crisis in Western countries, due to people fleeing wars and persecution, have changed the landscape of religion in the media research completely. Muslims and their religion Islam have now become one of the most talked about topics in Western media. Academics too caught up with this trend and scholars with expertise in religion in the media are increasingly examining the ways Islam and Muslims are represented in the media. Christianity is still quite relevant in the United States and has deep influence in politics for which media representation of Christianity heavily features in American scholarly works in this field. The situation in Britain, however, is quite different with Christianity in sharp decline in the last few decades. While more than 73% Britons called themselves

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Christians in the 2001 census when the religion question was asked for the first time, the percentage went down to 59.3% in 2011, and now it is 46.2% in the latest 2021 census in England and Wales (ONS 2021). Although Christianity is by far the biggest religion with Islam at a distant second place with 6.5% adherents in the recent census, the coverage of Muslims far outnumber the coverage of Christianity in the British media. Hence, academics in Britain in this field mostly study the representation of Muslims in the media. Yet, there are not many books published on Muslims in the British media. Those that are published focus on the sociocultural implications of negative media representations (Poole 2002; Poole and Richardson 2006; de Roiij 2020). On the other hand, very few publications can be found on language in the media to represent religions, except for studies by Baker et al. (2013) and Al-Azami (2016), both British academics investigating the British media. The former used a corpusbased approach to discourse in the media to investigate how words relating to Islam mostly refer to terror, and how the most common theme in these articles link Islam with conflict. Al-Azami applied critical discourse analysis to investigate the power exercised by the media while representing religions including Islam and the implications of these types of language on religious and non-religious people. With very few linguists studying media representation of religions, it can be said that while religion in the media in general has been pioneered by American scholars, linguistic analysis of Muslims in the media has been initiated and led by British academics with the potential of the field to grow if more linguists take interest in this area of study. This book takes a nuanced approach to language within Muslims in the media research by focusing on terminologies. Each of the ten contributors in this volume focused on one terminology and its associated words to show how the representation of these terminologies has major implications on the lives of British Muslims. Some of these terminologies link Islam to extremism and terrorism while some others are Islamic terminologies that are portrayed negatively creating obstacles for Muslims to practice their faith without being subjected to criticism and intimidation. It is hoped that the book will be a major contribution in this field of research, and its link with the Muslim community can be a step

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towards new approaches in this field where academics will engage with communities and practitioners to ensure better impact of their published works. It is hoped that this book will not only be an important addition to the linguistic analyses of media reporting on Islam and Muslims, but also pave the way for more studies in this field. It is important to note that not all contributors in this volume are linguists, so there are a combination of analytical approaches applied by the authors of different chapters making it essentially a multidisciplinary book about language and terminologies in the media to represent Muslims. With a commentary contributed by the head of the Centre for Media Monitoring, the book ventures into the area of knowledge transfer. While the academic success of this book will be welcomed with contributors getting good REF (Research Excellence Framework) scores for their respective chapters, the ultimate success of this book will be if the media reacts positively to the academic evidence provided by this book about the way they use the terminologies analysed here. If it leads to some media practitioners reflecting on their portrayals of Muslims and play a more responsible role in their reporting, then this humble effort can be termed a success. Liverpool, UK

Salman Al-Azami

Acknowledgements

After almost three years of struggle, I am happy to see the completion of one of my dream projects. After the publication of my last monograph ‘Religion in the Media: A Linguistic Analysis’ (Palgrave), I started exploring ways to contribute to the Muslims in the media debate and organized a conference in my university bringing together academics, media practitioners, and members of the Muslim community to discuss how the language used by the media to represent British Muslims can be improved. After that I decided to work collaboratively with Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain who was already well-known for taking on prominent news media organisations highlighting their factual errors while reporting on Muslims. As we found common grounds, we agreed that he would work towards developing a style guide while I would develop a book proposal on some of the most frequently used terminologies on Islam and Muslims in the British media. Three years on, the book is now complete. I am grateful to many people who have supported me throughout the process of completing this very important project. I am thankful to Miqdaad for his continuous support. Without him, this book would

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never see the light. Ever since my meeting with him in a café in London a few years ago, he has been actively involved with this project, from helping with getting some of the contributors on board, to involving me in the media style guide they developed, which is intrinsically linked to this book. His Commentary is a valuable addition in this volume. I am greatly indebted to all my contributors for understanding the importance of this volume and making valuable contributions through their well-researched chapters. Despite their very busy schedule, they kept their promise and sent me their chapters on time. I am particularly grateful to two contributors who rescued me by agreeing to join the project late after two contributors pulled out due to personal issues. Some contributors had personal problems, but still completed their chapters demonstrating their sincere commitment to this volume. I am also thankful to all of them for being patient with me and my constant emails with one request after another. I hope they all will be pleased when they see the book in its printed form. My sincere gratitude goes to Professor Sophie Gilliat-Ray, Founding Director of the Islam-UK Centre at Cardiff University for going through the manuscript and writing the Foreword for this book. I am grateful to Professor Guy Cuthbertson, the head of the School of Humanities at Liverpool Hope University for being considerate to me while I was busy with this project. My gratitude also goes to my fellow members of the English Language team—Linda, Lisa, Manel, and Daria for being excellent and supportive colleagues. I am also grateful to Cathy Scott and Connie Li of Palgrave Macmillan for being flexible and supportive, and also for kindly granting me a few months’ extension to complete the book. Last but not the least, I am forever indebted to my beloved wife Shaheen and my three beautiful daughters Naba, Safa, and Hana for being patient with me while I spent hours on this book when I should have given them family time. It is always the family who sacrifice the most when academics like me work on book projects. Finally, my head bows with gratitude to Almighty God for giving me the strength and resilience to complete this book. It is befitting that I was able to complete the project while fasting in the holy month of Ramadan.

Contents

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Introduction: Language Matters—Why the Media Need to Reconsider How They Use Terminologies on Islam and Muslims Salman Al-Azami Commentary: How Theory Can Have a Real Impact—The Practical Realities of Fighting Islamophobia in the Media Miqdaad Versi

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Towards a Grammar of Islamophobia AbdoolKarim Vakil and S. Sayyid

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The Representation of Islamism in the UK Press Gavin Brookes, Tony McEnery, and Isobelle Clarke

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Associations Between Islam, Extremism and Terrorism in the British National News 1998–2019 Paul Baker

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Islamic State: The Political Challenge of Naming Michael B. Munnik

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Islamification, Islamofascism, and the Ideation of Londonistan Laurens de Rooij

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The Embedding of an Islamophobic Trope in the Media: Radical Versus Moderate Muslims Usaama al-Azami

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The Practice of Dissimulation (Taqiyya): Between Islamophobia and Sectarianism Seyfeddin Kara

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“The Myth of Jihad ”: Examining the Multivalent Nature of the Term Saarah Bokhari

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11 The Perceptions of Sharia: Beyond Words and Intentions Kamran Khan 12

Reclaiming the Spiritual Meaning of ‘Allahu Akbar’ from Media Misrepresentation Salman Al-Azami

Index

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Notes on Contributors

Salman Al-Azami is Senior Lecturer in Language, Media and Communication at the School of Humanities in Liverpool Hope University. He specialises in Multilingualism, Language and Education, Religion in the Media, and Islamophobia in the Media. His last monograph is entitled Religion in the Media: A Linguistic Analysis. He sits on the editorial board of the American Journal of Islam and Society. Usaama al-Azami is Departmental Lecturer in Contemporary Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford. He completed his Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at Princeton University. He is the author of Islam and the Arab Revolutions: The Ulama Between Democracy and Autocracy (Oxford University Press, 2022). Paul Baker is Professor of English Language at Lancaster University. He has written 22 books on various topics relating to language, identity, media, and social history, including Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes: The Representation of Islam in the British Press (with Costas Gabrielatos and Tony McEnery). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society

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of Arts and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He is also the commissioning editor of the Journal Corpora. Saarah Bokhari is Doctoral Researcher in Theology and Religion, specialising in research on the Greater Jihad at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of two books, entitled Soul to Soul and Arbaeen: A Lens into a Sacred Journey. Gavin Brookes is a UKRI Future Leader Fellow in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University. His research uses corpus linguistic, critical, and multimodal approaches to discourse analysis to examine the connection between language and social life. He is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics and Co-Editor of the Corpus and Discourse book series. Isobelle Clarke is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Researcher in the Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science at Lancaster University. She specialises in the analysis of short texts. Her research interests include corpus linguistics, forensic linguistics, discourse analysis, and learner language. Her current project is aimed at understanding the linguistic mechanisms and repertoires of anti-science across pseudoscience and conspiracy websites on topics, such as vaccination, climate change, stem cells, and genetically modified organisms. Laurens de Rooij is currently based at Toulouse School of Management. His research examines how people interact with media in relation to religion and culture and how that affects their interpretation and conceptualization of a variety of contemporary issues. His latest publication is Islam in British Media Discourses: Understanding Perceptions of Muslims in the News. Seyfeddin Kara is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellow at The University of Toronto and the University of Lund. He was previously a Teaching Fellow at the University of Durham, UK and Assistant Professor at Hartford Seminary, USA. He is the author of In Search of Ali ibn Abi Talib’s Codex: History and Traditions of the Earliest Copy of the Qur’an.

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Kamran Khan is the Director of the MOSAIC research group for multilingualism and Associate Professor in languages, social justice, and education at the University of Birmingham. His interests include language, security, race, and citizenship. Tony McEnery is Distinguished Professor in the Department of English Language and Linguistics at Lancaster University and Changjiang Chair at Xi’an Jiaotong University. He has published widely on corpus linguistics and is the author of Fundamental Principles of Corpus Linguistics (with Vaclav Brezina, 2022) and Swearing in English (2006). Michael B. Munnik is Senior Lecturer in Social Science Theories and Methods at Cardiff University. He works with the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK, the leading centre for sociological research on Muslims in Britain. S. Sayyid is based at the University of Leeds, where he holds a Chair in Social Theory and Decolonial Thought and is the Head of the School of Sociology and Social Policy. He is the editor of the interdisciplinary academic journal ReOrient. His books include A Fundamental Fear (3rd edition 2015) and Recalling the Caliphate (2nd edition: 2022). His writings have been translated into ten languages. AbdoolKarim Vakil is Lecturer in History and Portuguese studies in the departments of History and of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at King’s College London. He is co-editor/co-author of Thinking Through Islamophobia: Global Perspectives (2010), Moçambique: Memória Falada do Islão e da Guerra (2011), and Al-Andalus in Motion: Travelling Concepts and Cross-Cultural Contexts (2021). Miqdaad Versi is the founder of the Centre for Media Monitoring and a former Assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). He is a media spokesperson for the MCB, a trustee at Rights and Security International, and an executive committee member of SICM (Mahfil Ali)—a local community centre in Harrow, London.

List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 7.1

Sample concordance output for the collocation of Islamism with radical Percentage of times terror(ist/ists/m) co-occurs with words relating to Islam over time Percentage of times extremist words co-occur with words relating to Islam over time Percentage of times devout words co-occur with words relating to Islam over time Percentage of times moderate words co-occur with words relating to Islam over time Picture taken of Morley Street Resource Centre in Bradford showing both English and Urdu on the signs

65 92 95 100 100 133

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List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 6.1

Top 20 collocates of Islamism (MI ≥ 3), ranked by frequency Top 20 collocates of Islamist (adj.) (MI ≥ 3), ranked by frequency Top 20 collocates of political Islam (MI ≥ 3), ranked by frequency Frequencies of words relating to terror and strength of belief in the Islam News Corpus Most frequent collocates of terror words over time Most frequent adjective collocates of extremist words over time Most frequent verb collocates of extremist words over time Frequency of articles in Nexis UK newspaper search

66 72 74 90 94 97 98 117

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1 Introduction: Language Matters—Why the Media Need to Reconsider How They Use Terminologies on Islam and Muslims Salman Al-Azami

Research on representations of Islam and Muslims in the British media suggests that Islam is positioned as a ‘threat to security’ by the British news media and that Islam is represented as incompatible with the putative mainstream British way of life (Moore et al. 2008; Poole and Richardson 2006). Corpus analysis in a study by Baker et al. (2013) on the British media’s attitude towards Islam found some “explicitly Islamophobic representations, particularly in the right-leaning tabloids” (p. 254). A Cambridge University study (2016) demonstrates that media reporting on Islam and Muslims is contributing to an atmosphere of rising hostility towards Muslims. Al-Azami’s (2016) work on language in the media found that a large section of the British media approach Islamic cultural practices from an ethnocentric perspective. The language used by the media has significant implications. Baker et al. (2013) observed that British media’s use of the term ‘Islamic’ carries S. Al-Azami (B) School of Humanities, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_1

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an ‘extremely negative discourse prosody, heavily associated with religious and political extremism, militancy and terror’ (p. 262), and that their subtle and ambivalent language indirectly contributes to negative stereotypes (p. 255). Moore et al. (2008) found that five most used adjectives in the media in relation to Muslims were radical, fanatical, fundamentalist, extremist, and militant. The consequences of unfair media representations on British Muslims can be serious. Often, mainstream media are the only sources for the wider public to know about Islam and Muslims and continuous misrepresentations, mostly sensationalised in the tabloids, but also prevalent among other media outlets, affect community cohesion significantly. For example, after Boris Johnson’s column was published in the Telegraph referring to veiled Muslim women as ‘letterboxes’ and ‘bank robbers’, a report by Tell MAMA in 2018, an organisation that monitors antiMuslim hatred, says, “We recorded a total of 57 incidents in the three weeks following the column’s publication, 32 of which were directed at visibly Muslim women. Between the 5th and 29th of August, 42% (24) of the street-based (offline) incidents reported to Tell MAMA directly referenced Boris Johnson and/or the language used in his column”.

Why This Book? The idea of this book came about after a series of discussions with the head of the Muslim Council of Britain’s (MCB) Centre for media Monitoring (CfMM) which monitors and reports on the way British Muslims are (mis)represented in the British media. This volume coincides with the publication of their ‘Media Style Guide’ to help the British media report more accurately and responsibly about Islam and Muslims, particularly with regard to the language and terminologies that can affect the general public’s perceptions about British Muslims. Discussion between the MCB leadership and senior managing editors of national newspapers and senior producers in broadcast news has made it clear that support in this area is important and that a ‘style guide’ would be helpful. The MCB carried out significant stakeholder engagement with the media and the style guide project included several consultation

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events that involved senior media practitioners, academics, and representatives from Muslim and other faith communities. The publication of the style guide following these engagements with most of the media stakeholders in Britain is expected to give it credibility. This edited book, comprising detailed analyses of some of the most frequently used words and terminologies in the British media in their representation of Islam and Muslims, and contributed by well-published scholars and academics in the field of Muslims in the media, will provide scholarly evidence to the style guide. The ten chapters in this volume consist of detailed analyses of ten major terminologies on Islam and Muslims and their associated words frequently used in the British media. Key recommendations for these terms in the style guide have been included with the relevant chapters in this book to establish the link between the book and the style guide. The analyses in the book include etymological discussion, literal and contextual meanings, various usages in the media, the actual meaning within Islamic texts and practices, perceptions of these terms among the wider public, and the implications of these usages on everyday lives of ordinary British Muslims.

An Emerging Area in Academia Media representation of Islam and Muslims is an emerging field that mainly developed following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It is a sub-field of religion in the media, which also developed and flourished in the twentyfirst century. Stewart Hoover’s pioneering works in this field include ‘Rethinking Media, Religion and Culture’ (1997), with Knut Lundby, and ‘Religion in the Media Age’ (2006). Lynch, Mitchell and Strhan’s edited book, ‘Religion, Media and Culture: A Reader’ (2012) explores the relationship between religion, media and cultures of everyday life. There are other edited volumes, e.g., de Vries and Weber’s ‘Religion and Media’ (2001) and Lynn Clark’s ‘Religion, Media and the Marketplace’ (2007). Lövheim’s ‘Media, Religion and Gender: Key Issues and New Challenges’ (2013) explores the role of gender in the interaction between religion, media and contemporary values in the society, while Granholm et al.’s edited book ‘Religion, Media, and Social Change’ (2014) looks

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at the correlation between the religion, media, and popular culture and broader sociological theorising on religious change. Knott and Poole’s book ‘Media Portrayals of Religion and the Secular Sacred: Representation and Change’ (2013) examines British media’s coverage of religion and considers what has changed in the last 25 years. Academic journals such as The Journal of Media and Religion and The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture also publish works on the relationship between religion and media. However, there is dearth of literature from an interdisciplinary perspective, with the exception of the ‘Oxford Handbook of Religion and the American News Media’ (OUP 2012), which is helpful for secular and religious journalists and journalism educators, scholars in media studies, journalism studies, religious studies, and American studies. No such work on British media has been published. In terms of Islam and Muslims in the media, Edward Said’s work ‘Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine how We See the Rest of the World’ (1997) examines the role media plays in the way the rest of the world perceives Islam. Elizabeth Poole’s book ‘Reporting Islam: Media Representations of British Muslims’ (2002) gives a detailed analysis of the representation of Islam and Muslims in the British press, while the edited volume by Poole and Richardson ‘Muslims and the News Media’ (2006) looks at the media representation of Islam in the climate of threat, fear, and misunderstanding. The role of new media in reshaping different aspects of Muslim societies is analysed by Eickelman and Anderson in ‘New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere’ (2003), and Mellor and Rinnawi’s study ‘Political Islam and Global Media: The boundaries of religious identity’ (2016) examines the implications of new media on the rise of political Islam and on Islamic religious identity in the Arab Middle East and North Africa, as well as among Muslim Arab Diasporas. Rane et al.’s edited volume ‘Media Framing of the Muslim World: Conflicts, Crises and Contexts’ (2014) explains the production and consumption of news about Islam and the Muslim world and its impacts on relations between Islam and the West. Pennington and kahn’s book ‘On Islam: Muslims and the Media’ (2018) offers insights into how Muslims are represented in the media today and provides tips for covering Islam through facts and perspective

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at a time when truth in journalism is more vital than ever. Laurens de Roiij’s ‘Islam in British Media Discourses: Understanding Perceptions of Muslims in the News’ (2020) looks at how commonly the media relates Muslims to stories about terrorism, violence, or the lack of integration with Western values and society and the ways these negative coverages influence the thoughts and actions of non-Muslims. There are only a couple of books on Islam/Muslims in the media that are linguistic in nature. Baker et al.’s comprehensive book ‘Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes: The Representation of Islam in the British Press’ (2013) uses Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics methods to understand different terminologies used by journalists to report about Islam and Muslims. Al-Azami’s book ‘Religion in the Media: A Linguistic Analysis’ (2016) studies the way the power of language is used by the media to influence the audience’s perceptions of the three Abrahamic religions in Britain through newspaper articles, television documentaries and television dramas.

Unique Features of the Book There are four distinctive features in this volume that makes it unique in the body of existing literature in the field of religion in the media: first, the multidisciplinary nature of the book means that each of the ten contributors focused on one terminology and its associated words by applying analytical models from their own respective disciplines; second, the chapterisations are dedicated to media representations of particular terminologies. It is the first book where most frequently used terminologies used by the media to represent Islam and Muslims have been comprehensively analysed with examples from the media; third, the book will provide media practitioners evidence-based insights of the ways they currently use these terminologies while representing Islam and Muslims and what the implications of these representations can have on the Muslim community and community cohesion; and finally, the inclusion of recommendations on each of the ten terminologies from the style guide to the respective chapters in this book establishes knowledge exchange with a key stakeholder in media representation of British

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Muslims. Due to the book providing academic evidence to the media style guide, there is an expectation that some journalists will engage with this book, reflect on how they use these words and phrases, and understand how their language can impact the lives of everyday Muslims.

Theoretical Approaches This book has been written by a team of scholars and academics with expertise in History, Sociology, Social Science, Corpus Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Theology, Islamic Studies, Cultural Studies, etc. The interdisciplinary approaches of this volume enabled the contributors to examine the media representations of the chosen terminologies using various analytical methods and approaches that range from quantitative analyses of media corpus, qualitative studies on media and political discourse, and focus group discussions with Muslim communities to investigate their reactions to media representations of terms they frequently use as part of their religious practice. There are chapters written by linguists applying various Corpus Linguistics methods like, collocation analysis, content analysis, and corpus-assisted discourse analysis. Other linguistic approaches in the book include Speech Act theory, conceptual metaphors, indexicality, media framing and news values, critical discourse analysis, and Encoding/Decoding model of audience response study. News journalism theory of propaganda model has also been applied, while a number of contributors looked at the influence of Orientalism (Said 1997) in these representations. A number of chapters investigated how Islamophobia underpins the discussions in some of the representations in modern times.

The Chapters There are ten chapters and one commentary in this book. Each chapter consists of one of ten most frequently used terminologies on Islam and Muslims featuring in the media. It is to be noted that although all the terminologies in the book have been discussed by different scholars

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using different analytical frameworks; there will be some overlap due to the semantic associations between these terms. For example, ‘Islamism’, ‘Islamic Extremism’, ‘Jihad’, and ‘Radical Muslims’—all these terms have some degree of connections between them for which some natural overlap in the discussions is not unexpected. However, the perspectives each contributor took in their studies ensured that the analyses are clearly distinctive in each chapter and that there is no repetition of content. Secondly, while talking about Muslims in the Western media, it is impossible to avoid the role of politics, as politicians and media often collectively and collaboratively use their discursive power to undermine Muslim interests. This can be found in several chapters where the contributors moved between politics and the media to substantiate the negative effects of this nexus. Before taking up the ten terminologies, this volume starts with a Commentary entitled, How Theory Can Have a Real Impact: The Practical Realities of Fighting Islamophobia in the Media by Miqdaad Versi, the founder of CfMM, which is the recently developed research wing of the MCB—the largest umbrella body of British Muslims. It is not a usual practice to include non-academic chapters in an academic book, but this volume is unique not only due to the content, but also because of its knowledge transfer element, particularly its association with the media style guide. In his Commentary, Versi contextualises his involvement with this volume and shares his experience of taking on the media highlighting their factual errors and Islamophobic representations that led him to set up the CfMM. He discusses why certain terminologies related to Islam and Muslims are not presented fairly in the media for which it was necessary to develop a style guide to show journalists the examples of poor usage and good usage of some important terms and give recommendation. He concludes that the academic rigour of this volume will complement their style guide and support editors and journalists to represent these terms fairly and responsibly. We begin the analyses of the terms with Islamophobia in Chapter 3. The approach in Towards a Grammar of Islamophobia by AbdoolKarim Vakil and S. Sayyid is different from the other nine chapters in this book as it focuses on Islamophobia as a term rather than its media representations. As Islamophobia underpins the discussions and analyses of

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most chapters in this volume, it is logical that we begin with an in-depth look at the term itself and unpack the key aspects it entails. The authors in this chapter investigate the issues and controversies since the term was introduced into policy, public discourse, and academic research in the 1990s. Highlighting the narrowness of the etymological approaches of looking at the term’s component parts or the fallacies of its political interpretations and controversies, the authors offer a grammatical reading of Islamophobia taking a Critical Muslim Studies approach in order to reframe it as the waging of struggles for social and epistemic justice. Journalists often borrow terms that already exist and give it more currency by using it regularly in their reporting. Islamism is a term that has been used in academia with one meaning, and then adopted in media discourse, and sometimes adapted to mean extremism or terrorism—very different to its common academic usage. According to Cox and Marks (2003, p. 6), the terms ‘Islamism’ and ‘Islamist’ are widely used terms that refer to “… radical, militantly ideological versions of Islam”. In the fourth chapter, The Representation of Islamism in the UK Press Gavin Brookes, Tony McEnery and Isobelle Clarke adopt a corpus linguistic methodology in their examination of British newspaper coverage of Islam between 1998 and 2019. They look at the representation of Islamism, and its associated words, like Islamist(s) and political Islam applying the corpus linguistic technique of collocation analysis, investigating how language is used in British national newspapers to represent these terms. They question why the news coverage of these terms mainly relate them to violence and totalitarianism and why Islamic values are portrayed to be incompatible with mainstream British values. The authors question whether responsible reporting exists among the British media in their use of these terms. The collocation of ‘Islam’ and ‘extremism’ is common in the British media, which in effect, brings the word ‘Islam’ into disrepute as it suggests that extremism is a core element of Islam. It is true that a tiny minority of Muslims do possess extremist views, and some do go on to become terrorists. However, when overwhelming majority of Muslims around the world practice Islam peacefully, using ‘Islamic’ as an adjective to describe an extremist ideology distorts the reality. In Chapter 5, Paul Baker’s Associations Between Islam, Extremism, and Terrorism in

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the British National News 1998–2019 investigates this association that the British media often make to suggest that Muslims follow a religion that breeds extremism and terrorism. Baker revisits some of the main findings of his previously co-authored book ‘Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes: The Representation of Islam in the British Press’ (2013) and looks at how Muslims and Islam are linked to terrorism and extremism. For this study, he uses a larger corpus that contains an additional decade of data and expands the remit to consider local and national British newspapers. Calling the period 2010–2019 a ‘more aware’ period, thanks to works done by organisations like the CfMM and MEND (Muslim Engagement and Development), Baker observes an increased willingness by some journalists to listen and change citing an example of a cross-parliamentary event organised by the CfMM in 2019 involving speeches by editors of two tabloid newspapers. The analysis in this chapter focuses on the extent to which the patterns that were identified by Baker et al. in 1998–2009 have changed in the later, more ‘aware’ period of 2010–2019. Michael B. Munnik investigates the media usage of the term Islamic State in Chapter 6 entitled, Islamic State: The Political Challenge of Naming. This term is the English translation of the Arabic phrase “ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah” referring to the terrorist group Daesh. The basic argument of journalists is that because the name “ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah” translates to “Islamic State” in English; it would be inaccurate to refer to them as anything else. Most journalists use this term with the intention of merely reporting and using the term that the perpetrators use to refer to themselves. However, the problem is that the term Islamic State is used with a completely different intent by mainstream Muslims, but there is little media sensitivity or understanding on this matter. In this chapter, the author examines the shifts in journalistic practice over how to name the group—Islamic State, ISIS, IS, Daesh, and other permutations—in the context of wider social and political debates. Focusing on UK newspapers’ representation of these terms in three discrete periods between 2014 and 2017, Munnik analyses differences between quoted material from sources and original writing from journalists and considers the public demonstration of journalistic independence from other institutions in society, including competitor news

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organisations. He examines whether UK news organisations favour journalistic values of brevity, familiarity, and independence over concerns about social harm that may occur due to associating the word ‘Islam’ with a terrorist organisation. Chapter 7, Islamification, Islamofascism, and the Ideation of Londonistan, covers the term Islamification with its associated words Islamofascism and Londonistan contributed by Laurens de Rooij. Some sections of the British media tend to use the term Islamification to describe the increased number of Muslim populations in Britain, and particularly, use it to highlight that some areas in Britain where there is a large percentage of Muslims, are becoming a state within a state where the process of Islamification has taken place. Similarly, London is often termed “Londonistan” by those wishing to play into the narrative of Muslims taking over, with the right-wing columnist Melanie Phillips popularising the term in 2006, with her book “Londonistan: How Britain Is Creating a Terror State Within”. The usage of this term has intensified following the election of Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London. In this chapter, the author argues that, driven by an ignorant media audience seeking to be informed, as well as a media structure that doesn’t reward inclusion, terms like “Islamification”, “Islamofascism”, and “Londonistan”, are used in the media to create a myth of religious violence that marginalises religion and justifies regulation against religious actors in domestic affairs, particularly in London. The author also discusses how the portrayal of Islam in the British press reflects power and religious struggles in Muslim Majority countries and subsequently reduces the agency and vibrancy of Muslims in Britain. Chapter 8 focuses on how Muslims are labelled radical or moderate by British politicians and the media. Labelling some Muslims as radical is a dog whistle method to spread fear, while some Muslims are called moderate as an antithesis—a categorisation that implies that the default kind of Islam is a religion of extremity. Therefore, ‘moderate’ is a political determination which forces Muslims living in the West to pick a side between their religious and political identities and to conform with the version of Islam that has been sanctioned by the state. Usaama alAzami takes up this complex phenomenon in his chapter The Embedding of an Islamophobic Trope in the Media: Radical Versus Moderate Muslims

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where he examines how this labelling of Muslims is to discursively discipline Muslims with an Islamophobic undertone. The author investigates how the media and political classes work collaboratively to construct the reality of ‘the Muslim problem’ highlighting the socio-cultural perceptions that are created by influential politicians like Tony Blair who worked alongside so-called terrorism experts in the media to construct a sense of imminent danger. Drawing on the Herman-Chomsky’s Propaganda Model, al-Azami analyses the discursive construction of radical vs moderate Muslims and its far-reaching impact on the lives of Muslims. In Chapter 9, entitled, The Practice of Dissimulation (Taqiyya): Between Islamophobia and Sectarianism, Seyfeddin Kara analyses a controversial theological doctrine in Islam, namely Taqiyya (dissimulation), which seemingly allows Muslims to intentionally lie about their faith in dangerous situations. The conspiracy theory propagated by Islamophobes is that Muslims lie to deceive non-Muslims in pursuit of their domination over the non-Muslim world. The author in this chapter discusses the roots of Taqiyya in Islam and examines how it is used within the contemporary Islamophobic discourse as well as by some Muslims to launch a sectarian attack against minority groups. Kara investigates how a protective measure against persecution has often been deliberately or inadvertently misunderstood and misconstrued into anti-Muslim discourse by politicians and the media portraying it as a malicious religious concept to disguise the hidden agenda of Muslims to take over the world. Chapters 10, 11, and 12 cover three Islamic terminologies that are integral to Muslims but are misrepresented in the media to imply Islam and Muslims as violent aggressors. In chapter ten Saarah Bokhari’s “The Myth of Jihad”: Examining the Multivalent Nature of the Term examines the media’s exclusive portrayal of this term as a ‘holy war’ by Muslims, whereas the semantic meaning of the Arabic term “Jihad” does not particularly refer to a holy war. Despite having a broad meaning of the term, it is still mostly depicted as only a holy war in the Western Media. This narrow application of the term creates the false impression that Islam, and by extension Muslims, are inherently militaristic and violent. Jihadism is often used to describe the ideology behind terrorist attacks and the terms Jihadi or Jihadist are synonymously used with terrorists.

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In order to deduce the impacts of monolithic descriptions of Jihad in the media, the author discusses the multivalent and nuanced meanings of the term in Islam and examines its use in news headlines between January and April 2022 by applying the framework of orientalism, othering and a ‘myth of religious violence’. Kamran Khan’s chapter The Perceptions of Sharia: Beyond Words and Intentions examines the moral panics in the society around this term. Sharia covers every aspect of a Muslim’s life, from the cradle to the grave. However, it is often used in the narrowest context of a legal system with the media often suggesting that Muslims demand a parallel legal system to be introduced into Western societies, thereby diluting their non-Islamic cultures. It is also sometimes used quite narrowly in the sense of a penal code that is excessively harsh. In this chapter, the author examines the social effects of this term focusing on notions of perception and compares between the moral panics around the term in the media, and its mundane uses within the financial sector to understand what lessons can be taken from these varied perceptions. Allahu Akbar or ‘God is Great’ is the most uttered phrase by a practicing Muslim as it is used many times in daily prayers and is also frequently used as an expression of joy and gratitude, even in situations that have no religious significance. However, it has also been co-opted by terrorists as a battle-cry and has been used as a declamatory statement to accompany acts of violence. It is in this context that the phrase is almost always used in the media, thereby implying a direct link between violence and Islam. In the twelfth and final chapter Reclaiming the Spiritual Meaning of ‘Allahu Akbar ’ from Media Misrepresentation, Salman Al-Azami attempts to explain the multiple roles of the term in the spiritual, individual, and social lives of a devout Muslim, examines the way the British media represents it as a by-word for terrorism, and explores how the British Muslims react to these misrepresentations with the hope to reclaim the word from its misuse by both terrorists and the media.

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Conclusion We all live in a mediated world where the power of media institutions is at an unprecedented level. Print and online newspapers, 24-hour TV channels, social media, and popular culture—all play their parts in controlling the narratives of modern societies and politics. In Western societies, the unequal power relationships between the media and the minorities evidently puts two groups of powerless people—the majority population and the minorities, against each other. Continuous negative media images of the minorities create a sense of fear among the majority population against the minorities. The overwhelming negative media framing of Muslims that often stem from othering and Islamophobia, and are deeply rooted in Orientalist tropes, have created a vicious cycle of anti-Muslim propaganda, resulting in anti-Muslim sentiments among the majority population, and leading to an increase in Islamophobic abuse and attacks. The irresponsibility shown by a large section of the British media in their use of language to represent British Muslims portraying them as incapable of integrating in Britain and even complicit to terrorism exemplifies the unhelpful role the media is playing in a country that is becoming increasingly diverse. Therefore, it is time that the media practitioners understand that language matters and their use of language to represent Muslims has far-reaching consequences. This volume opens a new perspective of knowledge transfer in terms of practitioners’ involvement in academic works. The chapters in this book provide insights into how covert and overt Islamophobia, media framing, and irresponsible journalism underpin the representation of important terminologies on Islam and Muslims in the British media. Detailed examinations on some frequently used terminologies demonstrate how irresponsible journalistic practices while using these important terms on Islam and Muslims can affect non-Muslims’ perceptions on Muslims, which eventually can affect community cohesion, and even lead to Islamophobic abuse. The ten chapters in this book, the Commentary by the founder of CfMM, and the inclusion of recommendations from the media style guide may pave the way for more linguists to study religion in the media, inspire academics in the future to consider more

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practitioners’ engagement in their scholarly works, and encourage newsmakers and news providers to revisit their approaches towards Muslims in their use of the terminologies analysed in this book.

Bibliography Al-Azami, S. (2016). Religion in the Media: A Linguistic Analysis. Palgrave. Baker, P., Gabrielatos, C., and Mcenery, T. (2013). Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes: The Representation of Islam and the British Press. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chomsky, N., and Herman, E. S. (2011). Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Clark, L. S. (Ed.). (2007). Religion, Media, and the Marketplace. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Cox, C. and Marks, J. (2003). The ‘West’, Islam and Islamism: Is Ideological Islam Compatible with Liberal Democracy? London: Civitas. de Roiij, L. (2020). Islam in British Media Discourses: Understanding Perceptions of Muslims in the News. Manchester University Press. De Vries, H., and Weber, S. (2001). Religion and Media. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Eickelman, D. F., and Anderson, J. W. (Eds.). (2003). New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Granholm, K., Moberg, M., and Sofia Sjö, S. (Eds.). (2014). Religion, Media, and Social Change. Routledge. Hoover, S. M. (2006). Religion in the Media Age. London and New York: Routledge. Hoover, S., and Lundby, K. (1997). Rethinking Media, Religion and Culture. London: Sage. Knott, K., Poole, E., and Taira, T. (2013). Media Portrayals of Religion and the Secular Sacred: Representation and Change. Ashgate AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Series Lövheim, M. (2013). Media, Religion and Gender: Key Issues and New Challenges. Routledge. Lynch, G., and Mitchell, J. (Eds.). (2012). Religion, Media and Culture: A Reader. London and New York: Routledge.

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“Media Fuelling Rising Hostility Towards Muslims in Britain”. Cambridge University Study (2016). URL: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/ media-fuelling-rising-hostility-towards-muslims-in-britain. Accessed 20 December 2022. Mellor, N., and Rinnawi, K. (Eds.). (2016). Political Islam and Global Media: The Boundaries of Religious Identity. Routledge. Moore, K., Mason, P., and Lewis, J. (2008). Images of Islam in the UK: The Representation of British Muslims in the National Print News Media 2000– 2008. Cardiff: Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. “Normalising Hatred”—Tell MAMA Annual Report (2018). URL: https://tel lmamauk.org/tell-mama-annual-report-2018-_-normalising-hate/. Accessed 18 December 2022. Pennington, R. and Kahn, H. E. (Eds.). (2018). On Islam: Muslims and the Media. Indiana University Press. Poole, E., and Richardson, J. E. (2006). Muslims and the News Media. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. Poole, E. (2002). Reporting Islam: Media Representations of British Muslims. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. Rane, H., Ewart, J., and Matrinkus, J. (2014). Media Framing of the Muslim World: Conflicts, Crises and Contexts. Palgrave. Said, E. W. (1997). Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World . London: Vintage Books. Winston, D. (Ed.). (2012). Oxford Handbook of Religion and the American News Media. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/978019 5395068.001.0001.

2 Commentary: How Theory Can Have a Real Impact—The Practical Realities of Fighting Islamophobia in the Media Miqdaad Versi

[Editor’s Note: This non-academic chapter has been included to contextualise this book with the Media Style Guide developed by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) of the Muslim Council of Britain. The book provides academic evidence to the problematic media coverage of nine terminologies that are among many terminologies included in the Style Guide. The author of this chapter is the founder of CfMM. Here, he shares his experiences of his personal and organisational struggles to correct many inaccuracies in the British media while representing Islam and Muslims, and the background of developing the Style Guide through his engagement with senior editorial staff of print and broadcast media in Britain. Therefore, it was important to add this chapter to make readers understand the intrinsic link between this book and the Style Guide.] “Muslims are scary, very different to us and may even take over if we do not do something about it”: this is the dangerous characterisation of M. Versi (B) Centre for Media Monitoring, Muslim Council of Britain, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_2

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Muslims in the minds of many ordinary Britons, undoubtedly driven— at least in part—by reporting from some media outlets.1 One of the most egregious examples in recent years was The Sun falsely claiming “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy with Jihadis” on its front page, with a picture of a terrorist. This lie—eventually forcibly retracted with a correction on page 2—falsely associated ordinary British Muslims with terrorism.2 From the dangerous to the outrageous, The Mail claimed “more than 50 million Muslims are willing to support those who carry out terror attacks”3 in one article, and that “300,000 illegal immigrants” lived in a little commune called Saint Denis, when its population was only 110,000.4 Similarly, a headline in the Daily Star said “UK mosques give cash for terror” but then “clarified” that this was untrue.5 Some might claim that such hysterics and sensationalism was the purview of the tabloids alone. Even if this were true, these tabloids have the widest readership and a huge influence in public life.6 However, it is not true. For example, The Daily Telegraph published a front page story claiming that a scout group hosted by the Lewisham Islamic Centre had extremist links, based on an investigation by the Henry Jackson Society.7 1

E.g. see Third of Britons believe Islam threatens British way of life, says report, The Guardian, 17 February 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/17/third-of-britonsbelieve-islam-threatens-british-way-of-life-says-report. 2 Sun forced to admit ‘1 in 5 British Muslims’ story was ‘significantly misleading’, The Independent, 26 March 2016, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/ipso-sun-british-muslimsstory-headline-significantly-misleading-a6953771.html. 3 More than 50 million Muslims are willing to support those who carry out terror attacks to defend their religion, migration expert warns the EU, Mail Online, 13 February 2017, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4219154/Some-Muslims-support-carry-terror-att acks.html?ito=social-facebook. 4 Daily Mail removes ‘Powder Keg Paris’ report after complaints, The Guardian, 6 August 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/aug/06/daily-mail-removes-powderkeg-paris-report-after-complaints. 5 Daily Star on Sunday forced to correct claims mosques ‘fundraised for terror’, Huffington Post, 4 April 2016, https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/daily-star-forced-to-clarify-claimsmosques-fundraised-for-terror-by-ipso_uk_57011589e4b069ef5c006268. 6 National press ABCs: December distribution dive for freesheets Standard and City AM, Press Gazette, 25 January 2023, https://pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_ metrics/most-popular-newspapers-uk-abc-monthly-circulation-figures-2/. 7 Miqdaad Versi, Twitter, 4 February 2021 (12:51 pm), https://twitter.com/miqdaad/status/135 7310912647020544.

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This claim was later retracted, like so many others by the paper.8 We see similar stories in The Times. For example, on its front page, it claimed “Muslims ‘silent on terror’”9 and another said: “Christian child forced into Muslim foster care”—a claim that was distorted according to the press regulator.10 I would go as far as to say that any news story from The Times or Telegraph about Islam or Muslims (other than in the religion section) should be verified by an independent source, given the number of misleading stories from the paper about Islam and Muslims.11 These may be regarded as mere anecdotal examples in a subset of newspapers, but they form a pattern. According to analysis conducted by the Muslim Council of Britain’s Centre for Media Monitoring in its groundbreaking report, based on “analysing over 48,000 online articles and 5,500 broadcast clips”, “almost 60% of online media articles and 47% of television clips associate Muslims and/or Islam with negative aspects or behaviour”.12 The evidence shows that media reporting about Islam and Muslims is hugely problematic. These stories are not merely the ramblings of a man shouting at passers-by at Speaker’s Corner. These views are shared with hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. The way the press reports an issue can have a real impact. We can look at Rwanda where according to the International Development Centre, local media fuelled the killings and played a crucial role in the 1994

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Khizra mosque—A correction, The Telegraph, 11 March 2019, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/2019/03/11/khizra-mosque-correction/. 9 Are Muslims ‘silent on terror’? The Muslim Council of Britain responds to The Times, The Muslim Council of Britain, 28 December 2015, https://mcb.org.uk/times-response-terrorism28-dec-2015/. 10 Times distorted Muslim foster case, regulator finds, BBC, 25 April 2018, https://www.bbc. com/news/uk-43887481. 11 Examples can be seen in Miqdaad Versi, Twitter, 18 June 2022, https://twitter.com/miqdaad/ status/1538094592687472640. 12 British media’s coverage of Muslims and Islam (2018–2020), Centre for Media Monitoring, 30 November 2021, https://cfmm.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CfMM-Annual-Report2018-2020-digital.pdf.

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genocide.13 The UK press has not reached that scale of incitement to hatred and bigotry. What has happened, however—according to a University of Cambridge roundtable held at the House of Lords—is that the media has played a role in “contributing to an atmosphere of rising hostility towards Muslims in Britain”.14 Experts from the University of Leicester have reached a similar conclusion stating that “politicians and media fuel hate crime in Britain”.15 It is therefore unsurprising that the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance attacked the UK media for offensive, irresponsible and reckless reporting about Muslims.16 The issue is also acknowledged by some in the press. For example, Gary Jones, Editor of the Daily Express, admitted that the paper had helped create Islamophobic sentiment.17 The press regulator’s former Chair also recognised the issue, stating “I speak for myself, but I have a suspicion that [Muslims] are from time to time written about in a way that [newspapers] would simply not write about Jews or Roman Catholics”.18 We can see the impact of this reporting in how it is shared on social media. Research by BuzzFeed News revealed that stories about Muslims that have been changed or entirely retracted since publication have received over 165,000 shares in one year alone.19 Unfortunately, this 13

The Media and the Rwanda Genocide, International Development Research Centre, https:// www.idrc.ca/en/book/media-and-rwanda-genocide. 14 Media fuelling rising hostility towards Muslims in Britain, University of Cambridge, 28 April 2016, https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/media-fuelling-rising-hostility-towards-mus lims-in-britain. 15 Politicians and media fuel hate crime in Britain say experts, University of Leicester, 29 June 2016, https://le.ac.uk/news/2016/june/2018politicians-and-media-fuel-hate-crime-in-bri tain-2019-say-experts. 16 ECRI report on the United Kingdom, ECRI, 4 October 2016, https://rm.coe.int/fifth-rep ort-on-the-united-kingdom/16808b5758. 17 Daily Express helped create ‘Islamophobic sentiment’, admits newspaper’s editor, The Independent, 25 April 2018, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/daily-express-islamophobic-sen timent-editor-gary-jones-home-affairs-select-committee-a8321026.html. 18 Muslims treated differently by newspapers, says press watchdog, Financial Times, 30 December 2019, https://www.ft.com/content/60d5bea6-1ff9-11ea-b8a1-584213ee7b2b. 19 Inaccurate or misleading news stories about Muslims have been shared hundreds of thousands of times this year, BuzzFeed News, 16 August 2017, https://www.buzzfeed.com/aishagani/viralunbalanced-news-muslim-stories.

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was prevalent amongst leaders of the far-right, who often shared such stories to corroborate their hateful narrative. Examples include Tommy Robinson, the English Defence League and Britain First.20 It is with this background and within this context that I wanted to work with Dr Al-Azami on this project. Our goal was to bring together world-class academics and analyse the language used by certain sections of the media.

*** Media misreporting about Islam and Muslims is considered a wellrecognised phenomenon by ordinary Muslims. My personal experience taking a more active role in this field, however, began in earnest in 2015.21 Charged with leading work on Islamophobia as Assistant Secretary General for the Muslim Council of Britain, I identified a story in the Mail on Sunday about what the paper described as “Muslim gangs” without a shred of evidence to support this framing.22 After deciding that silence in the face of unevidenced prejudice was not an option, I found an avenue for complaint: the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), a quasi-(self-)regulator run by the press and for the press. This one instance, followed by a meeting with the Managing Editor at the Mail on Sunday offices, facilitated by IPSO, started my journey of media monitoring and analysis, of constructive dialogue and engagement, of influence and frustration. Given what I had seen in terms of the scale of Islamophobia in the media as well as the potential (constructive) impact that we could have, I wanted to professionalise the work I had been doing and founded the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM). 20

See for example Miqdaad Versi, Twitter, 17 March 2019 (2:26 pm), https://twitter.com/miq daad/status/1107287207604297730. 21 My first article in the Guardian: It’s time the media treated Muslims fairly, Miqdaad Versi, The Guardian, 23 September 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/23/ media-muslims-study. 22 Mail on Sunday apologises for ‘Muslim gangs’ attack immigration van story, The Guardian, 20 September 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/sep/20/mail-on-sunday-apologisesfor-muslim-gangs-attack-immigration-van-story?CMP=twt_gu.

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With a team of three full time staff and many supporters, the CfMM has now analysed almost 200,000 online print and broadcast clips, secured hundreds of corrections in print and online and developed a deep evidence base and has engaged with over 1,500 managing editors, editors, producers, correspondents and journalists from over 100 mainstream and “ethnic” print and broadcast media. The reception to this work has been varied. On the one hand, there have been many positive articles about the work. The BBC described me as “the man correcting stories about Muslims”,23 and the Guardian profiled the work under the headline “One man’s very polite fight against Islamophobia in the British media”.24 One would think that the work of analysing media articles related to Islam and Muslims, and constructively engaging with journalists, editors, managing editors and the self-regulator IPSO, to build an evidence base to improve standards of reporting, would be seen as a good thing. The one thing we can say for sure, is that the work has had impact. Following our research, the Press Gazette called for the press regulator to step in, “Why can’t IPSO take action to improve the way Islam is covered? It is supposed to have more power than the PCC and its title, the Independent Press Standards Organisations, would suggest a broader remit to improve quality in the press”.25 Speaking to managing editors of national newspapers at roundtables we organised, in one-to-one meetings or at conferences, it was clear that many were starting to be more careful. However, some journalists were worried and feeling the heat. In The Telegraph, Juliet Samuel wrote: “Outside the courts, a project of formal complaints to the independent press regulator IPSO by

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The man correcting stories about Muslims, Catrin Nye, BBC, 15 January 2017. One man’s very polite fight against Islamophobia in the British media, The Guardian, XX. 25 Newspaper stories misrepresenting Islam would not be tolerated if they were about Judaism, regulator IPSO needs to step in, Dominic Ponsford, Press Gazette, 27 January 2017, https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/newspaper-stories-misrepresenting-islam-would-not-be-tol erated-if-they-were-about-judaism-regulator-ipso-needs-to-step-in/. 24

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Miqdaad Versi, of the Muslim Council of Britain, is steadily narrowing the bounds of what newspapers can and cannot say about Islam”.26 The Spectator’s Charles Moore made the audacious claim that the CfMM “tries to insist that all media coverage of the subject must have its approval”.27 The Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh said: “it is impossible to write about Muslims without catching the eagle eye of MCB assistant secretary general Miqdaad Versi….as a Sun journalist and as a board member of IPSO…I represent a particularly juicy target”.28 He was right, of course. He was a juicy target: not because of his affiliation to The Sun or IPSO, but because of what he said. For example, Kavanagh made a false claim about migrants, which he was forced to correct29 ; similarly he falsely attacked the Islamophobia definition, which was again retracted.30 He often makes disgusting remarks about Muslims such as claiming that “too many” Muslims applaud the actions of terrorists.31 I had wanted him to become a better journalist—not to make false claims and not to engage in prejudice or bigotry. In a similar vein, the Spectator’s James Delingpole wrote: “My main resolution in 2018 is to avoid upsetting Miqdaad Versi, ever-vigilant

26 The Duchess of Sussex’s legal win is the latest salvo against our right to speak openly, The Telegraph, 3 December 2021, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/12/03/duchess-sussexslegal-win-latest-salvo-against-right-speak-openly/. Note the original article stated that I was the “Head of the Muslim Council of Britain” demonstrating the lack of basic fact-checking at The Telegraph – see contemporaneous screenshot on Miqdaad Versi, Twitter, 4 December 2021 (8:35 am), https://twitter.com/miqdaad/status/1467049912210702336. They made the change without even acknowledging the correction at the bottom of the article. 27 Peppa Pig’s conservative values, Spectator, 27 November 2021, https://www.spectator.co.uk/ article/peppa-pigs-conservative-values/. 28 I was treading on eggshells as I described the very specific problem of ‘some’ Muslim men and their attitude to white Western women, The Sun, 5 September 2017, https://www.the sun.co.uk/news/4259021/i-was-treading-on-eggshells-as-i-described-the-very-specific-problem-ofsome-muslim-men-and-their-attitude-to-white-western-women/. 29 09910-16 Versi v The Sun, IPSO, 2 February 2017, https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings-and-res olution-statements/ruling/?id=09910-16. 30 04225-19 Versi v The Sun, IPSO, 7 August 2019, https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings-and-resolu tion-statements/ruling/?id=04225-19. 31 We need to root out evil lurking behind migration—As Donald Trump warns leaders they MUST defend Western values, The Sun, 10 July 2017, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/398 2541/trevor-kavanagh-we-need-to-root-out-evil-lurking-behind-migration/.

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assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain”32 after I had caught him lying about statistics related to Muslims and terrorism. Saying the truth should not be too much to expect from journalists? Many managing editors and news editors were aware that if they crossed the line of accuracy when it came to stories about Islam and Muslims; they would be on the other end of a complaint from the Centre for Media Monitoring and would have to retract their false claim. The number of complaints we have had to submit has fallen markedly in the past few years. There could be a number of drivers of this—but my hunch is that accountability and constructive dialogue can have a positive impact, and that our approach has had some part to play. However, some have not taken well to this level of scrutiny. The think tank Policy Exchange, which infamously was accused by the BBC of fabricating evidence about Muslims,33 published a whole report, most of which appeared to be dedicated to targeting the work of the Centre for Media Monitoring.34 The right people’s feathers have been ruffled by this work.

*** From my experience “in the field” as an advocate for responsible reporting about Islam and Muslims, and based on the work done by the brilliant team at the Centre for Media Monitoring, inaccuracy is only one pillar of irresponsible reporting. More often than not, it is the overall framing and narrative which is the driver of the worst prejudice and bigotry. In the “Muslim gang” story in The Mail on Sunday, the decision to use “Muslim” as the adjective in the headline (even if it were true) when 32

Accept this as the new normal? Never, James Delingpole, The Spectator, 23 September 2017, https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/accept-this-as-the-new-normal-never/. 33 Evidence of extremism in mosques ‘fabricated’, The Guardian, 12 December 2007, https:// www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/dec/13/terrorism.religion. 34 Eroding the Free Press, Will Heaven and Sir John Jenkins with a Foreword by Trevor Phillips, Policy Exchange, September 2019, https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ Eroding-the-free-press.pdf.

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the Muslimness of the gang was irrelevant to the story is just one example of this phenomenon. There is a framing of what Muslims are supposed to be, which such stories encourage. Similarly, we can look to when The Sun published a “Cut out and keep guide: here’s what terrorists look like”35 —apparently, the paper wanted the ordinary reader to look out for individuals who wore a turban, had a long beard or wore a headscarf. The managing editor of The Sun declined to apologise for this article.36 The Spectator is one of the worst offenders. Rod Liddle wrote a piece trying to seed doubt in the ethnic cleansing of Muslim Rohingya refugees in Myanmar, he gave a “Muslim savages update”, said “a significant proportion of Muslims living in Europe hate us and want us dead”, said we should “start deporting Muslim extremists” and “shut every Islamic school”.37 One might think that these stories would be caught by the press regulator—but this is the press regulator which concluded there was no problem in Katie Hopkins using dehumanising language in The Sun, calling migrants “cockroaches”.38 It is the same press regulator who had no issue with The Sun’s Kelvin MacKenzie claiming that Fatima Manji should not have been allowed to report on the Nice terror attacks because she was wearing a headscarf. The Channel 4 news reporter said this was suggesting that she was “somehow sympathetic to a perpetrator of a terrorist attack” and called IPSO’s green-light for MacKenzie “frightening”.39

35

Miqdaad Versi, Twitter, 20 December 2016 (8:35 pm), https://twitter.com/miqdaad/status/ 811309194011885568. 36 Daily Express helped create ‘Islamophobic sentiment’, admits newspaper’s editor, The Independent, 25 April 2018, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/daily-express-islamophobicsentiment-editor-gary-jones-home-affairs-select-committee-a8321026.html. 37 Miqdaad Versi, Twitter, 6 December 2021 (9:19 am), https://twitter.com/miqdaad/status/146 7785750213271556. 38 IPSO rejects Katie Hopkins migrant ‘cockroaches’ complaints: Editors’ Code does not cover ‘taste and offence’, Press Gazette, 6 May 2015, https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/nation als/ipso-rejects-katie-hopkins-migrant-cockroaches-complaints-editors-code-does-not-cover-tasteand/. 39 Kelvin MacKenzie Ipso ruling ‘frightening’, says Fatima Manji, BBC, 20 October 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-37713538.

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This press regulator also had no problem in one of its own board members, the very same Trevor Kavanagh, using Nazi-like language about Muslims, asking “What will we do about The Muslim Problem then?”40 Out of the more than 8,000 complaints made to press regulator IPSO on discrimination, only one had been upheld, as of 2018.41 Unfortunately the quasi-self-regulator has determined its remit to be accuracy, with disgusting racial stereotyping, racism and prejudice considered examples that do not breach what it terms as the “highest professional standards”.42

*** Reaching out to managing editors, editors, journalists and others within the media landscape has been the main option for many examples of irresponsible reporting about Islam and Muslims. In my experience, there are, unfortunately, many who want to defend the right of journalists to frame a story with a bigoted narrative so as to appeal to racists, and others who defend the right of columnists to be free to be racist. Interestingly, these individuals are often the first to play the victim card when others use their free speech to hold them to account and call out their racism. However, very few have been willing (to my face, at least) to defend inaccurate or misleading stories about Islam and Muslims and some have even put together policies and greater editorial control to prevent the publication of lies about Islam and Muslims.

40

Press watchdog clears Sun writer who referred to ‘the Muslim problem’, The Guardian, 23 November 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/23/press-watchdog-clears-sunwriter-who-referred-to-the-muslim-problem. 41 IPSO has upheld one out of more than 8,000 discrimination complaints but its chairman says a ‘balance has to be struck’, Press Gazette, 26 February 2018, https://pressgazette.co.uk/ publishers/nationals/ipso-has-upheld-one-out-of-more-than-8000-discrimination-complaints-butits-chairman-says-a-balance-has-to-be-struck/. 42 Editors’ Code of Practice, IPSO, https://www.ipso.co.uk/editors-code-of-practice/.

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In addition, there are many who are looking for guidance. They recognise the issues highlighted and want to find a way to improve the standard of reporting. One particular area where there is potentially a meeting of minds is how certain words are used. This remains centrally within the editorial remit and is a serious issue that has wide ramifications. Let us consider, for example, the term “Islamic State”. This is the translation of the name of the terrorist death cult, which dominated news and media reporting for many years. It is also the term used by many ordinary Muslims who dream of a utopian future where equality, justice and freedom prevail. Famously, the BBC rejected the requests from many to drop the term.43 Their first justification was that an alternative, such as Daesh, was a derogatory term and they had to retain their impartiality. This was despite the BBC using the derogatory term “Boko Haram” for the militant group when they call themselves “Jam¯a’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jih¯ad”. Their second justification was that it was perfectly standard practice to translate what the group called itself, even though BBC practice has never been to translate “Al-Qaeda”, “Taliban” or “Hamas”, for example. It was deeply unfortunate that the BBC editorial team took such a bizarre and inconsistent position for the largest terrorist group on the planet. There are, however, many terms—perhaps those that are less in the public eye—where greater guidance, with examples, can be of value and may change minds when the evidence is shared. Consider for example a term which might have a technical meaning in academia, a range of different meanings in general usage amongst media outlets and a different meaning amongst the wider public. Should that term be used at all, in particular without an explanation as to which meaning is intended? Should the concern that the ordinary reader may conflate ordinary Muslims with terrorism due to the usage of the term, play a role in the editorial usage of a term? These questions are considerations with the term “Islamist”.

43

David Cameron criticises BBC for use of ‘Islamic State’, The Guardian, 18 January 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jan/18/david-cameron-criticises-bbc-for-use-ofislamic-state.

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Well-meaning editors and journalists with integrity on these issues can reach different conclusions but in the process of choosing their approach, they have to consider a range of challenges and trade-offs. As a result, the Centre for Media Monitoring has embarked on developing its own style guide, with examples of poor usage, good usage and our own recommendation. The goal is not to force journalists to take our guidance, but merely to propose a justification for our position, in the hope that our arguments are at least considered carefully by those in decision-making roles. Whilst our style guide covers a wide range of terms with significant detail on the most contested terms, it is not aimed at being an academic work. This volume—covering the most controversial terms—will therefore complement the CfMM style guide and provide greater weight and academic rigour to support editors and journalists who want the depth that our style guide does not seek to provide. Whilst the ill-willed journalists and those amongst the far-right will never find this a useful exercise, our hope is that it will be a meaningful contribution to decision-makers within media outlets, and our experience suggests it will be. Only time will tell.

3 Towards a Grammar of Islamophobia AbdoolKarim Vakil

and S. Sayyid

Islamophobia is indisputably a common place term of public discourse. It can be heard from news media to public debates; from aggrieved victims to politicians and public policy analysts; it features in guidance documents across diverse sectors of life and work, from the informal vocabulary of convivial everyday life to HR norms and awareness training; it proliferates in academic research and publishing; and loudly reverberates in advocacy and mobilisation, from community organisations and grassroots activism to anti-war and anti-racist fronts. It straddles and structures medium, message, and reception from movies to memes; from art works to comedy; from histories to speculative fiction of possible futures. A. Vakil (B) King’s College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] S. Sayyid University of Leeds, Leeds, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_3

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Such broad usage, across such widely different registers, is both revealing and obscuring. It is revealing, first, of a degree of taken for granted understanding in the usage and meaning of the term. Pragmatically, whether it is a news headline, a victim complaint, a workplace guideline, or a punchline in a joke, meaning must be getting across. It is revealing, second, in that it indexes a social fact: increased and more diffuse usage of the term reflects a socially more prevalent and more salient phenomenon. Thirdly, the seeming banality of some of its more unmarked use, glosses over critically important aspects about its current usage: how recent it is, how deeply contested it was, conceptually and politically, from a range of positions, and—no less importantly—how critically divergent definitions, assumptions, histories, means, and ends remain even amongst those waging the struggle against Islamophobia. It is obscuring, on the other hand, in that such generalised level of understanding covers over an enormously differentiated spectrum of meanings, definitions, contradictions, debates, and disputes across the fields of use. In the face of this, the temptation in turning to a guide to terminology, for the general reader, is often the desire to cut through the fog of discussion to the bedrock of fact and measure, the search for litmus test and sentence: when is it Islamophobia and when is it not; how much is there of it; who causes it, how do we eradicate it? To this end, those who seek to offer such certainties and comfort adopt a number of approaches, the most common of which are etymology, legal definition, and statistical data. In what follows, we review and evaluate some of these approaches and their findings, noting both their contributions and shortcomings, but just as importantly, their framing assumptions (most obviously, nationally centred), conceptual limitations, and political naiveté. More broadly, what the chapter offers, in line with a Critical Muslim Studies approach, is a grammatical reading of Islamophobia.1 Conventionally, grammar refers to the rules by which words are arranged and organised in sentences to produce meaning. We extend this understanding of grammar to refer 1

This approach is inspired by Wittgenstein’s discussion of grammar (see Véronique Pin-Fat’s 2014 articulation of such a grammatical reading in the field of international relations); on Critical Muslim Studies, see ReOrient Manifesto (Sayyid et al. 2015): https://criticalmuslims tudies.co.uk/about-us/.

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not only to linguistic but also non-linguistic phenomena. Therefore, what follows is not an extended discussion of the meaning of Islamophobia but rather the sketching out of its grammar; that is, of the rules that govern the way Islamophobia is deployed, and how it is combined with other concepts and practices in different situations.

On Islamophobia Three basic premises underlie the discussion advanced in this chapter. Firstly, that Islamophobia is a type of racism; one whose specificity lies in the targeting of perceived Muslimness. Second, that just as the identifying markers of Muslimness are historically and contextually dependent, changing over time and across place, so Islamophobia too, mutates over time and context in its expressions and assemblages. But, third, that whilst Islamophobia is indeed always contextually inflected and particular, ‘context’ is far less bounded than often assumed, and even less so, unique. Islamophobia plays out at different horizons, from local to global, and transnationally, and these are, moreover, invariable articulated. And so whilst the almost default framing of both the study and discussion of Islamophobia and especially of policy responses to it tends to be nation-state based, it is fundamental to keep present that there can be no nationally contained understanding of what is a globally articulated phenomenon. Islamophobia, like all racisms, is quite literally detrimental to life outcomes and to lives; primarily, and most visibly, those of its victims, but inextricably also to broader social and institutional inter-relations and so to the welfare and potential of society overall. On both counts it is thus unsurprising that ever since Islamophobia emerged as a serious public concern following the landmark 1997 Runnymede Trust Report, Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All , activist effort and research has focused on monitoring and documenting Islamophobia, and on advocacy for its recognition and redress. And, arguably, in all the years to date the report form remains the most consistent authoritatively received pronouncement on Islamophobia, and periodic spur to its public discussion. This has lent such interventions a predominant concern with

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quantitative data and the measurable, with a corresponding focus on the empirical over the conceptual, and a somewhat narrowing of focus on incidents, hate crime, negative media representations, and the observable over the structural. Even then, since every advance in social justice requires recognition and redistribution, including representational capital and material resources, and since all social and institutional accommodation carries a change to the status quo and hence to the relations of social and symbolic power invested and reflected in it, addressing Islamophobia is political, and redressing it, equally unsurprisingly, has met both resistance and contestation. More conceptually centred discussions and critiques of Islamophobia, as might be expected, characterise academic research and publication. However much academic contributions may be at the forefront of contemporary work, including engaged initiatives and policy on Islamophobia, initially they lagged behind public debates.2 Academia and academic research is, after all, no less worldly. As the histories of ‘race relations’, ethnic and racial studies, and of Orientalism and racism in the West, and those of the history, culture, and literature in post-colonial contexts reiterate, every aspect of the organisation and production of knowledge, including research programmes and research funding and dissemination, bear the traces of that worldliness. And so does academic teaching, and its framing of meaningful literacies for cultured life and informed citizenship, and even more pointedly so, academic expertise and its impact on the public sphere. Whilst all of these aspects inform the discussion that follows, two thematic clusters that have dominated the literature and public debate are its focus. The first concerns the term, and its relation to the phenomenon; their histories, including contestations and debates over terminology; and the question of definition. The second concerns the nature of Islamophobia and its dominant manifestations.

2 Even if the first UK PhD on Islamophobia was exactly contemporaneous with the first civil society report, its use was borrowed from the latter’s consultation paper, and remained within its terms (Fox-Howard 1997, 97).

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Etymological Fallacies The question of the first use of the term Islamophobia and of its coining has loomed large, arguably far larger, in public debates concerning Islamophobia than for comparable phenomena. Whilst first recorded usage, the origin, and context of terms and concepts and their changing meaning over time is certainly a staple of academic research and public debate on racism and antisemitism, a different weight and framing attaches specifically to the coining and etymology of Islamophobia both in the literature in general but especially in that which is critical of it, and is virtually integral to attempts to contest its use and validity. Several distinct but often inter-related strands are braided in the critical discussion of Islamophobia as the term of reference ever since the publication of the Runnymede Trust report, in Britain and globally: the neologism and its etymology, both in terms of what is argued are its mislabelled component parts (Islam and phobia), and of its origins (purported coining, first use, and foundational meaning); its supposedly especially problematic nature or wrongheadedness as a concept (whether mis-naming, fundamental flaws, or mere conceptual shortcomings); and its ultimately ideological bent. All of these were as present in 1996–1997 as they are today, and unravelling them remains as important now as it was then.

Phobia The first set of issues stem from analysis and critiques that explicate the meaning of Islamophobia and its validity or effectiveness from a disaggregation of its purported component terms, Islam and phobia. The repertoire of objections to the latter can be summarily mapped out by means of four illustrative references. For the sociologist of race and racism, Ali Rattansi, ‘the use of the vocabulary of “phobia” has a tendency to treat the phenomenon as an illness and as a form of irrationality’ (2005, 295; also Rattansi 2007, 108).3 For Marcel Maussen, 3

Though contradictorily Rattansi immediately goes on to also contest understandings of antisemitism as a viral or irrational pathology (2005, 295), which, since antisemitism is not a

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to whom are owed some excellent pioneering studies of Muslims in Europe, from a deliberative democracy approach the ‘phobia’ in Islamophobia compounds the problems with the term (stemming from its embedding of ideology critique), because ‘the idea that citizens who articulate specific discourses and ideas about Islam are victims of a “mental illness” (a phobia), easily leads to the argument that citizens should […] be cured of their “illusions” and “prejudices”’, which is ‘incompatible with the basic values and principles of democracy’ (2006, 102). Lord Parekh, whose career in the interface of academic and policy work on racism and multiculturalism included his involvement in the original Runnymede Trust report, reiterated the risks of the term claiming it ‘confuses Islam with Muslims’, but ‘secondly and more importantly’, that ‘“phobia” absolves the agent of responsibility’. The latter, because ‘[i]f someone says, “I have this phobia; there is nothing I can do about it; it is an irrational, deeply ingrained fear”, it gives them a get-out’ (Hansard 2018). In a discussion of ‘“-phobic”’ as ‘a weapon in the identity wars’, Amanda Hess argues not only that ‘the “-phobic” suffix has emerged as the activist’s most trusted term of art for pinning prejudice on an opponent’, but that its proliferating iterations do so as ‘copycat neologisms’, modelled on the coining of—and success of the movement against— homophobia (Hess 2016). As we will see the argument had already been levelled at Islamophobia, and with a twist. But one particular response to Hess is of interest in queering the over neat problematisations of Islamophobia as a phobia word. Extending Hess’s ‘half-century’ homophobia-centred word history, Don McLoughlin recalled rather, the two centuries long history of ‘colourphobia’ and ‘negrophobia’ waged by US abolitionists with such success that ‘by the late 1830s, colourphobia and Negrophobia had become central to national conversations about slavery and social life’ (2016). Explaining the rhetorical appeal of the terms on the basis of their original coinage by analogy with hydrophobia (the pre-canine explanation and name for rabies), namely, its imputations of fear and contagion, phobia word, suggests that his objection is to wrong conceptualisations, not wrong names per se, and that Islamophobia being renamed anti-muslimism would not of itself prevent the same being the case. The same applies to racism (see Gilman and Thomas 2016).

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McLoughlin correspondingly attributes the loss of their popularity to the loss of the lexical link with the disease as the name became outdated from the mid-1880s. But three things in his account are of interest to our discussion beyond his own argument. Firstly, foregrounding the terms’ rhetorical power, McLoughlin describes how ‘armed with these neologisms, abolitionists developed a vocabulary that not only contested the slave system, but also unearthed an emotional basis for slavery’s persistence. In their eyes’, he goes on to argue, ‘racial phobia was a malevolent force—one that threatened to tear the nation apart’. Curiously, we find the near exact words in the renowned Chicago sociologist of race relations, Robert E. Park’s review of Leonard Barnes’ 1930 book on Afrikaner South Africa. Rewording Barnes’ subtitle—An Impression of Color Madness—Park renders the author’s account of ‘Colour-phobia’ as ‘a kind of insidious political disease which inevitably destroys in the long run the people or the nation that is afflicted by it’ (Park 1932, 813). The almost exact words and meaning recalled by McLoughlin for colourphobia in pre-Civil-War US, resurface in 1932, which suggests that the rhetorical power of the phobia term had a far longer and more autonomous circulation than is suggested by indexing its fate to that of hydrophobia. Second, McLoughlin suggests as an additional point for the shift away from colourphobia, the growing realisation that by ‘its focus on irrational fear’ the term ‘was giving slaveholders and their political allies the benefit of the doubt, implying that they could not perhaps help themselves’. But his example of how this led one campaigner to describe it rather as ‘Negro-equality-phobia’, to better reflect the fear as not of ‘people of colour’ so much as ‘the fear that white supremacy might be exposed, challenged, and demolished’ (McLoughlin 2016) exactly brings out the clarity abolitionists had that the issue was power and reactionary retrenchment, and that their use of phobia was metaphorical (after all, if phobia conceded too much as a condition perpetrators could not help themselves over, it would apply as much to their phobia of ‘Negro-equality’ as to their phobia of ‘negro colour’). Third, and most importantly, McLoughlin’s two hundred year corrective to Hess leaves out a rich vein of usage of ‘phobias’, ‘philias’, and ‘manias’ in European political journalism, including on imperial contexts

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and rivalries and diplomatic relations, which both attests to its continued use into the interwar years and beyond, and unquestionably attests to its banal, political, and rhetorical, not medical, meaning, and currency.4 It is in this strand, we’d argue, that we find the two most directly relevant precedents for the linguistic usage of Islamophobia: an 1857 reference to ‘Mussulmanophobia’, explicitly framed by the context of the ‘Indian Mutiny’ of that year (see Bayly 1996, 324), and the publication of A Study of English Turcophobia by the London Pan-Islamic Society at the turn of the century ([Halid] 1898).5 And indeed of more recent uses in the same vein, such as Iranophobia (Ram 2009), where ‘obsession’ and the recycling of historical tropes is squarely placed within the logic of political and geopolitical strategies of state.6 So much, then, for the simplistic disqualification of Islamophobia on account of phobia; but what of the Islam in Islamophobia?

Islam Here lies the crux of the fiercest objections to the neologism as a compound word. Here—it is claimed by a range of voices, from hostile and sympathetic critics to polemical pundits and conscientious academics; from racist Islamophobes and proud self-proclaimed Islamophobes to anti-racist activists—lies the crux of the misnaming, conceptual muddle, fundamental wrong-headedness, and even more dangerous 4

See for example Thompson (1842, 7), Anon (1874, 1), Anon (1885, 127), and Colquhoun (1914, 685). 5 A later pamphlet in French by the same author repeats the term within a more pointed postWorld War I context: La Turcophobie des Impérialistes Anglais [The Turcophobia of English Imperialists]). On Halil Halid and his writings, including the editions of Turcophobia, see Wasti (1993): Wasti dates the English language pamphlet from 1904, but a copy from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office collection is clearly dated 1898. This is the same period when, as discussed below, the neologism ‘Islamophobia’ itself is recorded in a couple of European languages. 6 Perhaps the simplest way to de-exceptionalise ‘pathologising’ objections to Islamophobia, is to compare the uses of Anti-Gypsyism, Gypsyphobia, and Romaphobia by different monitoring and anti-racism organisations, researchers, and authors. As Aidan McGarry’s Romaphobia: The Last Acceptable Form of Racism (2017) and Michael Stewart’s edited collection The Gypsy ‘Menace’: Populism and the New Politics of Anti-Gypsy Politics (2012) suggest, the analytical framing in both is political mobilisations and ends.

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threat to that most fundamental of democratic freedoms, the right to free speech. The contention, voiced ever since the term first emerged in the workings of the Runnymede Trust Commission and consultations, amongst both secularist and Christian critics, and soon after in academic circles, being that, on the one hand, an ‘Islam’-centred word exceptionalised, stigmatised, and potentially criminalised legitimate criticism of religion; and on the other hand, that what needed naming in the protection from prejudice and discrimination, is Muslims, not Islam. The first line of criticism is exemplified by the Reverend Patrick Sokhedeo, director of the London-based International Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity in the New Christian Herald of March 1997 objection that the Runnymede discussion paper failed ‘to distinguish between race and religion’, with the inexorable corollary that ‘if we ever arrive at a situation where a law links religion and race together, so that to attack a religion is deemed to be a racial attack on those who profess it, then we will have fashioned a situation of censorship of what we say, think, and write’ (BMMS 1997, 2–3). And, from a secular and left position, by Polly Toynbee’s ‘In Defence of Islamophobia’ on the seemingly similar grounds that ‘racism is the problem, not religion’, but also that ‘Religiophobia is highly rational’ (Toynbee 1997; consistently repeated over the years: 2001, 2004, 2005). More generally, the claim that because of the wording, Islamophobia inadmissibly seeks an exceptional protected status for Islam from the criticism to which all religions must be open in a democratic society, and thereby undermines both the progress won against the historical power of the Church in society, as well as the fundamental right of freedom of speech, remains the most recurrently raised objection to the name. The familiar range of claims, showcased by an all too familiar list of signatories and contributors (ex-“extremists” turned counterextremists, ex-Muslims, anti-“fundamentalist” feminists, new atheists), is conveniently rehashed in the Civitas response to the UK All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) proposed definition of 2018, aptly subtitled Islamophobia: An Anthology of Concerns (Webb 2019), whose tone is well conveyed by the two featured endorsements with which it opens. Lord Singh (one of the most consistent deniers of the reality of Islamophobia in the House of Lords) welcomes it as a ‘comprehensive anthology

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of widespread concerns about the danger to free speech and legitimate discussion in the usage of the vague catch-all term Islamophobia’; and Richard Dawkins, the ‘new atheism’ luminary, who besides deeming Islamophobia ‘an otiose word which doesn’t deserve definition’, repeats the customary contrast between ‘hatred of Muslims’, which he deems as reprehensible as hatred of any other group, and ‘hatred of Islam’ which, ‘on the other hand is easily justified, as is hatred of any other religion or obnoxious ideology’ (Webb 2019, v). The selective framing which characterises the ‘concerns’ is illustrated, for example, by the presentation of Peter Thatchell, one of its contributors, as virtually an embodiment of the reports’ warnings, for having been ‘accused of Islamophobia after protesting against the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir’ (Civitas [press release] 2019); what is left unmentioned, is the fact that the charge of Islamophobia has just as much been levelled against Thatchell by antiracist Queer activists (on which see Ahmed 2011). The second line of criticism, is exemplified by the Middle East International Relations writer and public intellectual Fred Halliday. His much cited ‘Islamophobia Reconsidered’ critiqued the term for ‘confusing the issue’ (which, as he sees it, is ‘Muslims’ not ‘Islam’), and influentially championed ‘anti-Muslimism’, rather than Islamophobia, as the more rigorous and effective term (Halliday 1999, republished as 2002a). The distinction is one that Halliday maintained into his very last writing, but in that final, Cassandra-like pontification of a decade later, where the ‘confusion’ is depicted more as a ‘conceptual sleight-of-hand’ too appealing for ‘conservative Muslim leaders’ to resist, and the ‘collusion of ill-informed Western liberals’ is blamed for ‘giving the concept official status’, Halliday comes disturbingly close to right-wing exposés of Islamophobia as a weapon (Halliday 2011, 187, cf 1999, 898; 2005, 57). Though this is often forgotten, Halliday’s article was actually not specifically about Islamophobia, and arguably, we would add, nor was his argument. The Runnymede Report was but one of the six works reviewed in it (and briefly at that), which ranged from Islamism, relations between Islam and the West, and their Media representations, to the evolution of Turkey since Ataturk. So whilst his distinctions between ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslims’, ‘religion’ and ‘racism’, and ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘anti-Muslimism’ gained ground as a seemingly clear-headed, analytical

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disambiguation of categories whose mistaken transposition ended up (however unwittingly) reiterating the same unhistorical and essentialist readings behind clash-mongering ideologies, Halliday’s own discussion, is not as focused as later citations suggest, nor above glosses and confused misrepresentations of his own. Thus, Salman Sayyid’s A Fundamental Fear, one of the other books reviewed, is charged alongside the Runnymede Report, with ‘treat[ing] “Islam” […] as a unitary object and Muslims as a single community’. This is a stark misreading (or misrepresentation) of a book that curiously is used as a foil for Halliday’s own argument in each of the article’s three main sections.7 Of pertinence here, A Fundamental Fear sought to move the discussion of Islam, Islamism, and Muslims beyond Orientalism and Eurocentrism; more specifically, and contrary to Halliday’s claim, it sought to move post-Orientalism debates beyond both essentialism, and the ethnographic, sociological, and political bind of deconstructing ‘Islam’ into endlessly proliferating ‘little islams’, and ‘Muslim’ into either ethnicised or geographical identities, myriad individuals, or fashionable shifting and situated identities (Sayyid 1997, ch.2 but see also the preface to the 2nd edition of 2015). Equally often forgotten, is that fact that Halliday’s argument pitting anti-Muslimism against Islamophobia in this rather short review article of 1999, assumes and builds on a largely ignored but potentially far more promising piece where Halliday had shortly before explored antiMuslimism at greater length (Halliday 1996; republished as a ‘Short History’ of Anti-Muslimism in 2002, ch.4). Far more promising because, on the one hand, there Halliday had framed the discussion within a historical and geographical mapping of anti-Muslimism that, unlike most of those who followed him, was global in scope. Ranging over the Balkans, Europe and the US, India, and Israel, Halliday acutely notes, for example, both how in Western Europe ‘the most extreme 7 Additionally, this same claim of essentialising Islam and the West warrants both a footnote which renders the author complicit by his silence in the violation, in the name of religion, of the human rights of Muslims in Muslim societies (Halliday 1999, 902 fn11), and is contortedly pointed as a hypocrisy of those who ‘protest non-Muslim discrimination against Muslims’ in illustration of the assertion that ‘Islamophobia, like its predecessor “imperialism”, can too easily be used to silence critics of national states and élites’ (1999, 900). N.B. through some evidently very poor proofreading, in the 2002 edition a number of criticisms of Sayyid appear to be directed at (Edward) Said instead.

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case of hostility to Muslims was undoubtedly that of France’, but also how aspects of anti-Muslim discourse were ‘perhaps more developed [in India] than anywhere else in the world’ (2002b: 111 and 103 respectively). But equally promising because, in stated intention at least, it explicitly ‘[left] open the extent to which anti-Muslim discourses are, wholly or mainly directed against the Islamic religion, and the extent to which the anti-Muslim theme is deployed in contexts where it is issues of ethnicity and disputes over territory or power that are at stake’ (2002b, 91). Though, granted, the analysis of the Western European context ends up asserting ‘pervasive social unease arising from the economic recession, and the rise of an anti-foreign and “anti-coloured” resentment’ both as ‘two issues separate from Islam and Muslims’, and as the real causes of ‘anti-Muslimist sentiments’ (Halliday 2002b, 112). And yet, the very same sentence which notes France’s extreme ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ illustrates it with the National Front’s ‘anti-Arab racism’ (2002b, 111), and quotations illustrative of British ‘anti-Muslimism’ speak of ‘Islam’s New Drive into Europe’, and the ‘Despotic Creed’ of ‘fundamentalism’ as a threat. (So just how ‘separable’ in practice is ‘Islam’ from ‘Muslims’, and ‘Muslims’ from their ‘ethnicities’, in the operation of anti-Muslimism?) And granted, too, in the final analysis, just as ‘contingency’ and ‘specificity’ end up trumping ‘historical continuities’ (2002b, 90, 119), and the comparison of contexts ends up denying ‘the existence of any single anti-Muslimism’, so also it is ‘other issues’ and these ‘other processes and disputes’, not ‘anti-Muslimism’, that is deemed ‘the defining feature of the ideology or conflict in which it is deployed’ (2002b, 119). Two things, then, are forgotten in the citation of ‘Islamophobia Reconsidered’ as a foundation of the ‘Muslims not Islam’ critique: first that the argument against Islamophobia as a term is framed within the broader argument and agenda of the review article, and second that the argument for anti-Muslimism similarly draws on a broader series of steps, rarely if ever revisited. Both are really about how to narrate the contemporary world, the authority to narrate it, and the valid categories with which to do so. Both in other words, are about politics and power, in a post-Orientalism field of studies, and about the agency and autonomy of the name and category Muslim, for ‘it is Muslim autonomy in the context of the post-colonial condition that discloses the politics

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of Islamophobia’ (Vakil 2010b, 271). And it is here, that Sayyid’s epistemological post-Orientalist and post-Eurocentric move, dismissed by Halliday as merely ideological, remains as relevant now as it did then. First, to the conceptualisation of Islamophobia from the position that ‘an understanding of Islamophobia in absence of an understanding of the way in which there has been a global re-assertion of Muslim identity is difficult to sustain’ (Sayyid 2010b, 11). Second, to the conceptualisation of Islamophobia as a globally articulated phenomenon, rather than an array of irreducible contingencies and political contexts, for ‘at the heart of Islamophobia is […] the “violent hierarchy” between the idea of the West (and all that it can be articulated to represent and Islam (and all that it can be articulated to represent)’ (Sayyid 2010b, 15).

Present at the Creation The third line of etymologically-based criticism of Islamophobia centres on its coining and first usage (Vakil 2014). An extreme form of this, risible but for its increasing mainstreaming, has the term deliberately forged, by Islamic fundamentalists or Islamist, as an ideological weapon. Thus, to believe Claire Berlinski (2010), ‘the neologism “Islamophobia” did not simply emerge ex nihilo. It was invented, deliberately, by a Muslim Brotherhood front organisation, the International Institute for Islamic Thought’. The proof is in the exposé of an ex-member of the IIIT, who ‘was an eyewitness to the creation of the word’. By his own account, ‘This loathsome term is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics’. Even more specifically, she goes on to detail, he even explained ‘the strategy behind the word’s invention’, namely, how ‘the Islamists decided to emulate the homosexual activists who used the term “homophobia” to silence critics’ (Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, quoted in Berlinski 2010). Referencing Berlinski’s version of the coining of Islamophobia by a Muslim Brotherhood front organisation, David Horowitz and Robert Spencer more comprehensively bring out the totalitarian overtones of this conspiracy theory in their diatribe against the term, by sketching a

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vast nebula of insinuation, association, and complicity with the Brotherhood at its centre. First, by casting the Muslim Brotherhood as ‘fountainhead of terrorist Islam’ and tracing its origins to its founder, Hassan al Banna, depicted as ‘an open supporter and admirer of Adolf Hitler’ and Mein Kampf , and its designs to his ‘ambition […] to create a global Islamic empire instituting Sharia as a global law’ (Horowitz and Spencer 2011, 5). Second, by exposing the vast array of its historical and continuing reach and influence, from Hamas and the founders of al-Qaida, to Shi’ite Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini; and of its impact on the campaign against Islamophobia, globally through its uptake by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and through it the United Nations, and in North America through another of its front organisations, the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR). But finally, and just as importantly, by exposing the ‘Unholy Alliances’ with progressives, anti-racists, leftists, and anti-imperialists, most notably the Runnymede Trust, ‘whose elaborate definition of Islamophobia has since become a model for Muslim Brotherhood fronts’ (2011, 11). Beyond them, however, and to the core of their contention, is the claim that Islamophobia has triumphed as a totalitarian thought crime, abetted by governments, judiciaries, the left, and anti-racists, instituting a generalised witch-hunt against critics, stifling freedom of speech, and endangering security (2011, 13–24). A similar discrediting of Islamophobia through its origin story as an Islamist weapon for the silencing of critics, though here from a specifically French and secular feminist line was popularised by Caroline Fourest (Fourest and Venner 2003a, 2003b; Fourest 2004, 2005, 2013).8 Three points structure her account: that the term originated in the context of the Iranian Islamic revolution where it was first deployed by Iranian clerics against feminist critics and political dissidents, who were and are its first victims; that its second and more important redeployment was similarly by Islamists but in the radicalised context of post-Rushdie 90’s Britain; and that it was from such circles that the term penetrated and usurped British and later international antiracist language and agendas, from the Runnymede Trust to the United 8 Whilst their book firmly assumes a laicist position against all integrismes, Islam, Islamists, and Islamophobia was soon revealed as Fourest’s real target and veritable obsession; see Bourgoin (2014).

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Nations. Though short on evidence, long on insinuation, and riddled with factual errors and chronological contradictions, her account has cast a long shadow. The philosopher and public intellectual Pascal Bruckner, for example, has repeatedly recycled Fourest’s account of its ‘first use’ in his own exposé of ‘Islamophobia’ as a ‘clever invention’ that makes Islam ‘untouchable under penalty of accusation of racism’ (2006, 65–66; 2010).9 And when in 2013 France’s interior minister, Manuel Vals, repudiated the term ‘Islamophobia’ as a ‘Salafist’ ‘Trojan Horse to destabilise the Republican pact’, Fourest again was cited. (Anon 2013; Leprince 2020). Into academic domains too. It is largely by reproducing and updating Fourest and Viemmeta’s account that the sociologist Leila Babès structured the entry she penned on Islamophobia for the Historical and Critical Dictionary of Racism, on the term’s weaponisation by Islamists (Babès 2013). Foundational to Fourest’s discrediting disclosure of the Islamist and instrumentalist function of the concept, is the ‘chain of transmission’ narrative she constructs of the term’s history, from radical Islamist origins, to more moderate Muslim circles, and then through antiracist, and anti-imperialist, fellow travellers on the left, to sanction by respectable human rights organisations. The problem with this narrative sequencing and connecting of the dots is that it simply does not stand up to the facts of chronology or evidence.10 The term in Britain did not originate in Islamist circles; and its use by researchers and policy analysts did not come only after or through its diffusion from Islamist circles (Fourest 2003a, 189; 2004, 354–355). Earlier sporadic occurrences in the English language (1923, 1966, 1976,

9 Repeating the charge yet again in 2017, but by when a history of earlier usage of the term stretching back to the 1910s had become irrefutable, Bruckner now conceded first use, but redoubled on ‘the Khomeynist revolution’ as the moment of ‘a mutation’ when ‘Islamophobia’ became weaponised (Bruckner 2017, 3). 10 For an even more preposterous history of the chain of transmission of ‘Islamophobia’, couched in the language and scholarship of Psychological warfare and rendered as a ‘logomachine of war’ designed to disorient and subvert western democracies by resignifying and turning their values against themselves, see Del Valle (2002, 2018). On Del Valle’s mediatic rise as an expert and his proximity to intelligence and geopolitical circles see Geisser (2003, 58–66).

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1982, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1991) aside,11 we see it appear more regularly in print between its first Runnymede reference in the antisemitism report of January 1994, and the launch of its Islamophobia Commission in 1996 and publication of the Commission’s Consultation paper on Islamophobia, of February 1997.12 Examples from 1994 include a letter to The Times, by A. F. M. Yusuf, of the Bangladesh High Commission (Yusuf 1994), a joint letter to The Guardian, by Saba Risaluddin and Richard Stone, of the Calamus and Maimonides Foundations respectively, both of whom, would later serve on the Runnymede Islamophobia commission (Risaluddin and Stone 1994), and a Guardian article of August by professor Akbar Ahmed, active in both the antisemitism and the Islamophobia Runnymede Commissions (Ahmed 1994). Examples from 1995 include a Guardian article by Tariq Modood, a then Senior Fellow at the Policy Studies Institute and important influence on Robin Richardson as part of the research basis for the 1997 report (Modood 1995; Richardson 2017, 82), and, dated from that same month of June, a Draft journal paper on Islamophobia by Saba Risaluddin (1995). Beyond print, a rare insight is afforded into its broader public use by an article in the Daily Jang of April 1993. Covering the ‘angry responses’ of Pakistanis, Kashmiris, and Bangladeshis to the BBC current affairs Panorama programme, ‘Underclass in Purdah’, the article gives voice in particular to Bradford’s Muslims, already reeling from the coverage of the Ray Honeyford and Satanic Verses affairs. The article writers mention that ‘Islam-phobia was a new term used in the programme’, may actually suggest more ordinary oral usage of the term within communities (Anon 1993). In any case, as Gordon Conway, the Runnymede Commission’s Chair, explicitly stated in his foreword to the report, before being 11

1923: Stanley A. Cook, 1966: Rafael Guevara Bazan, 1976: George C. Anawati, 1982: Allen Christelow, 1985: Hichem Djait and Edward Said, 1987: Mark Batunsky, 1988: Christopher Harrison, 1991: Insight magazine, initially referenced by OED as first use. See Vakil (2010a, 33–41). 12 Reference to ‘the phenomenon known as Islamophobia’ and section on ‘Antisemitism and Other Forms of Racism: The case of Islamophobia’ in the antisemitism report (RCA 1994, 4, and 55–56 respectively), and Islamophobia, its features and dangers. A Consultation paper (CBMI 1997a). It is within the same period that we find documented use by Kalim Siddiqui, in a Muslim Parliament speech of 30 March 1996 (see Johnson 1996), and by al-Muhajiroun’s Omar Bakri Muhammad, in September 1996 (see Black 1996).

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adopted by the Commission, Islamophobia ‘was already in use amongst sections of the Muslim community as a term describing the prejudice and discrimination which they experience in their everyday lives’ (CBMI 1997b, iii).13 In any case, a number of points should be noted about the question of first usage. First, and rather obvious but often forgotten, by initial usage what is really meant is extant and known usage, in other words what happens to have survived in documented form, and of that, what has been discovered. Both are to a great extent a matter of serendipity (and increasingly also of technology such as searchable digitalisation of archival and published materials), but unquestionably also of forensic research. Thus if the Oxford English Dictionary initially cited the first recorded use as 1991, suggesting to some the post-89 and Gulf War contexts as most immediately relevant, it now references 1923. If in February 2004 Xavier Ternisien and Alain Gresh fairly immediately called out Caroline Fourest’s 1979 Iranian coining by noting its appearance in the works of Étienne Dinet and Sliman Ben Ibrahim of the 1920s (Ternissien 2004; Gresh 2004), in his 2009 PhD thesis Fernando Bravo Lopez pushed the date of earlier usage to a 1912 book by Maurice Delafosse (Bravo López 2009, 61), and shortly after, to 1910 in an earlier article by the same Delafosse as well as a PhD of the same year by Alain Quellian (Bravo López 2011, 562; see also Ezzerhouni 2010). And if for a decade after that, 1910 and in French stood in the scholarship as the earliest recorded usage of the term Islamophobia, now it is 1904 and in Italian (Maghrabi 2021). But if, as Mark Sedgwick says, Abdul-Hadi El Maghrabi [Ivan Aguéli]’s article ‘Il Nemici dell Islam’ [‘The Enemies of Islam’], published in the bilingual Cairo newspaper Il Convito/Al-Nadi, ‘may be the first ever use of this term’ (Sedgwick 2021, 13), its reading also helps drive home the point that sometimes historical usage, regardless of its archival interest, is merely of historical, not critical interest. It is important not to confuse lexicographic interest in recorded occurrences of word usage, with either meaning, or—especially—with a conceptual

13 For other claimants to it coining of the term see Oral Evidence to the Select Committee on Religious Offences in England and Wales, Minutes of Evidence for the session of 23rd October 2002 Q.425 (SCRO 2003).

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history of the term.14 And so, third, we need to be clear what the history of a term illuminates and how, and what we are recalling it for. As we have already suggested, phobias and philias in nineteenthcentury writing described any number of rhetorical dichotomising strategies, on the one hand, and a diverse range of geopolitically framed attitudes and policies predicated on advancing national interests, rather than necessarily existential threats. We can, for example, find an even earlier use of the noun ‘Islamophobes’ in English (Anon 1877), from which an implicit meaning of Islamophobia would be along the lines of the savant Islamophobia (the wilfully ignorant denigration of Muslim culture and civilisation) somewhat along the lines of one of Dinet and Ben Ibrahim’s senses.15 More significantly, we can point to two different but semantically equivalent terms at opposite ends of a crisis of governance in British India. One, is ‘Mussulmanophobia’, coined by the Indian Civil Service officer E. A. Reade in Agra in 1857, capturing the ‘overwhelming conviction of Muslim conspiracy’ that gripped the immediate post-Mutiny years (Padamsee 2005, 9).16 The other, is the ‘Mohomedan Question’, described by Sir George Campbell in 1885 as ‘a sort of panic fear of a Mahomedan revival—a sort of vague apprehension of a new Mahomeddan wave of fanaticism’ […] a sort of holy horror of Mahomedanism, curiously inconsistent with our present liberality towards Jews, heretics, and unbelievers’ (Campbell 1885). Islamophobia, 14

For Zia-Ebrahimi (2021, 49–50), for example, since ‘a historical phenomenon does not have to await the invention of a term to acquire an objective reality’, it is legitimate to consider the historical conjuncture of fifteenth and sixteenth-century Spain as that in which ‘modern racial Islamophobia’ emerges. 15 ‘From these two books [Arabic ethical and devotional treatises by Zamakshari translated into French by Barbier de Maynard] some Islamophobes may, perhaps, acquire a little idea of the moral sense of the professors of this religion’ (Anon 1877), example cited in the OED 3rd ed. An OED example of ‘Islamophobic’, from 1980, is also of particular interest, because though in a book by an Australian journalist, the citation is from an Indonesian context, and refers to Islamophobia in a Muslim majority context: ‘Chalid said the Muslim majority in Indonesia felt an “Islamophobic” tendency amongst Suharto’s adviser’ (Hamish McDonald Suharto’s Indonesia [London: Fontana/Collins, 1980]). 16 Also 2005, 55 and 75–76; Padamsee’s source for the term (206 n.45) is Chris Bayly and his archival reference (Bayly 1996, 324, n.50): ‘minute by E.A. Reade, Agra, 29 Sept. 1857, Montgomery Papers, Mss. Eur. D1019/3, 135, OIOC’. Stephens (2012, 28) also notes these ‘phobias peculiar to the post-1857 period’, characterised by the fear of organised and widespread Muslim sedition.

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in these senses, is a moral panic. Specific to them, is a perception of Muslim threat fed directly on Muslim anti-colonial resistance, and this is what is significant about any tracing of the term’s history to its colonial context.17

Addressing Islamophobia and the Racialisation of Muslimness Arguably the single most critical development in the public conversation on Islamophobia over the last 25 years has been the growing convergence across academic, policy, and activist circles around the racialisation of Muslims, carrying with it a transformation in the broader public literacies of the grammar of race and racism, and of Islamophobia as a type of racism. This has important consequences for how we talk about and combat Islamophobia. Namely, that Islamophobia is not about illegitimate and exceptional protection of Islam from criticism, or of Muslim sensitivities and special pleading, and that combating Islamophobia requires its inscription within broader histories of antiracism and contemporary struggles for social justice, with a corollary shift from understanding Islamophobia in terms of individuals, attitudes, and intent, to the language and analysis of structures, the legacies of colonialism, unequal standing and protection, institutional Islamophobia, and state Islamophobia. What has not necessarily also carried through with the same level of either grassroots or academic traction are what we see as four further corollaries of this shift. Firstly, understandings and definitions of Islamophobia have remained too beholden to negative representations, notions of homogenisation, and of hostility, demonisation, and hate. A conception of Islamophobia that is fit for purpose must, rather, be able to address state-based and state-sponsored Islamophobia (Massoumi et al. 2017). It must be able to encompass illiberal and liberal forms of Islamophobia (Mondon and Winter 2017; Amir-Moazami 2022, 7). It must 17

See David Tyrer’s incisive point on Bravo López’s reading of the earliest references in French in their colonial context (Tyrer 2013, 163).

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attend to how islamophobia beyond exclusionary practices, also works through inclusionary practices, and governmentality, or the conduct of conduct (see for example Hernández Aguilar 2018). It must move past the focus on prejudice, individuals, and incidents, to the racialised territorialities (Rai and Hesse 1992, 172–173) and enabling political environments which underpin them. Hate crime, in other words, is political, and countering Islamophobia requires shifting the focus from incidents to environments, from hot Islamophobia to the cold Islamophobia that enables it. Most Muslims would name the UK Prevent Strategy as Institutionalised Islamophobia; what good to them is a definition of Islamophobia that cannot name Prevent in its scope? Second, whilst at least some of the literature on Islamophobia has explicitly foregrounded the role of its Muslim peddlers, the more general scholarship—and definitional work especially—has by and large failed to theorise Islamophobia in Islamdom. In such contexts, the dominant form of Islamophobia is not the problematisation of Muslims as an ethnographic minority, but rather of Muslimness as a subalternised category (Sayyid 2010a). Its dominant expression is Kemalism (Sayyid 1997), the disciplining of Muslims in a world order predicated on westernising modernisation and a globally racialised Western horizon. Thirdly, it is critical not to lose sight of the fact that not only can no non-Islamophobic future be achieved nationally, given the interlocked global nature of Islamophobia, but no non-Islamophobic order can be achieved in isolation from an anti-racist struggle for a non-racist global order.

Social Justice and Public Understandings In any discussion of terminology the question of definition will loom large. To the work of countering Islamophobia, however, that need not necessarily be so. Rather, what is foundational to the conception of Islamophobia within social justice struggles, is the naming of Islamophobia, the recognition of its existence. This is a matter, firstly, as with all justice movements, of cultivating a sociological imagination (Mills [1960] 2000): that is to say, of rendering the biographical in its social

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dimensions and revealing a particular victimisation, and its causes, as neither ‘natural’, nor a problem of the individual, nor resolvable by the individual. And a matter, secondly, of worldmaking; that is to say, of linguistically and conceptually, and therefore ontologically, repartitioning the world; of creating categories of thought and action that enable Muslim agency and autonomy. In this sense, not only was a consensual definition of Islamophobia initially not overly important, but a lack of agreed definition was even productive to advancing both its social purchase and effectiveness. Thirdly, it is a work of intellectual and moral reform, a battle of ideas and persuasion waged across all sectors of society, not just government; it is about engaging, educating, and empowering. That said, what matters about definitions is the work that they do. That work, is to name and disallow injustice. It does so by contestation, not by fiat. And as with any contestation, it will in turn be contested. It works not through Courts, or primarily through legislation (though both can send symbolic and material messages), but through raising standards of acceptable practices and social discourse, and social censure. To do its work it must have easy currency and recognisability. It must embed itself in social discourse and institutions, and this is eased if it builds on and articulates with already embedded standards and institutional practices, such as anti-racism charters, guidelines, and standards, and a broadly shared public literacy, such as over racism. Finally, it must capture the two core characteristics of the phenomenon in question. Firstly, as a racism within the contemporary globalised racial order and its diverse but interlocking local iterations. And secondly, as the targeting of identifiable markers of Muslimness, regardless of whether the victims identify as Muslims or not (Vakil and Sayyid 2020). As we wrote elsewhere: ‘The real test of a definition and its operationalisation […is] the concrete and practical difference its contribution to the greater literacy of injustice and justice makes to the victims of Islamophobia. This hinges on whether it addresses two questions: Does it give a victim who would otherwise suffer in silence the language and the confidence to bring forth their grievance and seek recourse? And, does it make it more likely that in each sphere of life, work and social interaction, those in bodies committed to enforcing the principles and laws of equality, inclusiveness and diversity will the more readily recognise and

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act upon such grievances? If the answers are yes, then this definition has met its only real test’ (Sayyid and Vakil 2021, 11). What applies to the definition, and to the concept, applies to the term.

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4 The Representation of Islamism in the UK Press Gavin Brookes , Tony McEnery , and Isobelle Clarke

Introduction This chapter explores the language that newspapers published in the UK use to represent Islamism. Adopting a corpus linguistic methodology, we examine how the terms Islamism, Islamist(s) and political Islam are represented in a large database, or ‘corpus’, of newspaper articles, broadly concerned with the topic of Islam, published over a period of 22 years (1998–2019, inclusive). Corpus linguistics broadly refers to a group of methods that use specialist computer programmes to study G. Brookes · T. McEnery (B) · I. Clarke Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK e-mail: [email protected] G. Brookes e-mail: [email protected] I. Clarke e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_4

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naturally occurring language use, based on large bodies of machinereadable text (McEnery and Wilson 2001; Brookes and McEnery 2020a). These bodies of data are known as corpora (singular: corpus, Latin for ‘body’). Corpora are assembled with the aim of representing a language or particular linguistic variety on a broad scale. One of the main advantages of corpus linguistic approaches to language study is that they allow us to look at a far larger body of real-life language use (typically millions, and sometimes billions, of words) than is feasible using purely qualitative approaches. If designed carefully, such corpora are thus able to better represent the language variety under study, in turn facilitating findings that are more generalisable to the language or variety under study. This chapter is divided into five sections. Following this brief introduction, in the section “Islamism: Background and Linguistic Research” we provide a more detailed (though still necessarily short) introduction to the concept of Islamism, before reviewing existing linguistic research on this topic. Section “Methodology” introduces our corpus of British newspaper articles about Islam, before describing our corpus linguistic methodology. Specifically, we describe the approach we use to analyse how the press uses and represents the terms Islamism, Islamist and political Islam. The results of our analysis are reported in the section “Findings”, whilst the section “Conclusions” concludes the chapter by considering the implications of our findings and reflecting on the limitations of the study, which in turn form the basis for recommendations for future research on this topic.

Islamism: Background and Linguistic Research We begin our introduction to Islamism by acknowledging the important distinction between Islam as a ‘faith’ and Islamism as a ‘religionized politics […] which employs religious symbols for political ends’ (Tibi 2012: vii). Islamism stems from a political interpretation of Islam. This interpretation is based ‘not on the religious faith of Islam but on an ideological use of religion within the political realm’ (ibid.). Islamism thus involves various forms of social and political activism, the objective of which is to establish Islamic principles in public and private life, for example through

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the establishment of Sharia law. Islamist regimes classify non-Muslims as infidels, whilst even Muslims who do not support Islamist ideology can be excommunicated from the global Muslim community by Islamists. Whilst the term Islamism has, on these bases, tended to be associated with extreme political views, some variation can also be observed within those who adhere to a broadly Islamist ideology. Whilst more extreme Islamists can encourage violence, others, known as ‘moderate Islamists’ (Baker et al. 2021), are non-violent and participate within democratic frameworks. It is on this basis that Hoigilt (2010) advocates a view of Islamism as a ‘context’ as opposed to a specific political ‘movement’. As Starret puts it, in relation to Islamic political movements, The Islamic Trend, as I have labelled the wide range of cultural and social phenomena that include specifically political movements, is extremely complex. It ranges from the Islamization of the publishing industry and the increase in enrolment in Islamic studies programs, to the odious violence of terrorist organizations with scripture-based ideologies and the sophisticated legal manoeuvring of Islamist lawyers within the court system. [...] [T]he Trend has moved beyond the level of a “movement” to become one of the most important contexts in which everyday life is lived. (Starrett 1998: 191–192)

The difference between Islam—the faith—and Islamism—the political ideology—is thus an important one. Indeed, it is even argued by some that this distinction is crucial to the belief that Muslims can live in peace with non-Muslims (Tibi 2012). However, Tibi observes how in the field of Islamic studies, ‘the difference between Islamism and Islam is largely ignored or even dismissed’ (2012: vii), whilst Baker et al. (2021: 7) point out that ‘[w]ithin academia, the term Islamism does not in itself specify the political vision that is advocated or how it should be achieved’. Most linguistic studies concerned with the topic of Islamism have examined the linguistic and rhetorical means through which particular Islamist positions are articulated and legitimated (for a detailed introduction to legitimation in language, see van Leeuwen [2007]). Such

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studies typically focus on texts published by prominent Islamist organisations (including, in some cases, political parties), or speeches given by their leaders or other prominent members. For example, in perhaps the most comprehensive study of Islamist discourse to-date, Hoigilt (2010) examined the rhetoric of three prominent Islamist figures in contemporary Egypt (Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Amr Khalid and Muhammad Imara). Focusing on pronoun use, mood choice and configurations of processes and participants, the analysis explored how these Islamist figures used language to relate to their readers, as well as how they constructed concepts such as ‘Islamic thought’, ‘Muslims’ and ‘the West’. This study highlighted the diversity of Islamist rhetoric in this context, with such differences interpreted as revealing sociological and ideological tensions between Islamist rhetoric and the ‘Islamic field’ within Egypt. Whilst Islamism encompasses, as noted, a range of positions, the majority of studies of Islamist rhetoric have arguably focused on its more violent adherents, setting out to elucidate the linguistic or rhetorical means by which individuals are persuaded to such positions, including violent ones. For example, Holbrook (2010) examined how the Qur’an was selectively applied in English-language militant Islamist discourse as a means of justifying Islamist-inspired terrorist violence. In a later study, Holbrook (2014) explored the framing and evolution of the public discourse of Al-Qaeda based on an analysis of statements made by the organisation’s leaders, Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Osama Bin Laden. This study showed how the leaders ‘diagnosed’ problems, offered solutions and advocated escalating violence. The analysis also demonstrated how the leaders developed more critical stances towards Islam following the 9/11 attacks, as well as how they tailored their messages for particular audiences, revealing tensions between the respective leaders’ discourse. More recently, Al-Rikaby and Mahadi (2018) examined the discursive strategies in so-called ‘calls to jihad’ by Al-Qaeda leader, Ayman AlZawahiri, in 2006 and the former leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, in 2015. This study demonstrated how both leaders focused on in-group/ out-group representations and the impacts these had on Muslim societies. Baker and Vessey (2018) carried out a corpus-driven comparison of English and French Islamist extremist texts, focusing in particular on

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the ‘discursive themes and linguistic strategies’ employed in the Englishlanguage Inspire and Dabiq magazines and in ISIS’s French-language Dar al Islam. The discourses associated with extreme, violent Islamism have also been considered as part of corpus linguistic studies by Baker et al. (2021), Brookes and McEnery (2020b) and McEnery and Brookes (2022). Compared both to studies of the rhetoric produced by Islamist organisations and figures, and indeed to studies of representations of Islam and Muslims in general (for reviews, see Baker et al. 2013; Clarke et al. 2021, 2022), linguistic studies exploring how Islamism is talked about or represented are in the minority. One exception is Baker et al. (2013) who, as part of a broader corpus linguistic study of press representation of Islam in British newspapers, reported that the term Islamist had a statistically marked co-occurrence with terror-related language. Specifically, it tended to be used with significant frequency alongside terms such as ‘terror’, ‘terrorism’, ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorists’ in the articles in their data. Given the importance of the distinction between Islam as a faith and the political ideology of Islamism, the latter of which is followed by a small minority of Muslims worldwide, it is in our view important to engage with how the concept of Islamism is linguistically represented to the public. Mass media, including newspapers, constitutes an important site for such an investigation, as such texts have the power to shape widely held views towards particular groups within society (Fairclough 1995; Richardson 2007) and can, in the case of minority groups (such as Muslims living in the UK), contribute towards and legitimate forms of discrimination (Brookes and Wright 2020). Yet, as we have seen, (news) media representations of Islamism have only been studied in passing, as a (very small) part of broader studies of the representation of Islam and Muslims in general. In this chapter, we therefore aim to address this gap by providing a more dedicated, systematic analysis of the language used to represent Islamism in media, focusing in particular on UK newspapers. Our corpus and analytical approach are introduced in the next section.

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Methodology The Corpus In this chapter we analyse a corpus representing British newspaper coverage of Islam between 1998 and 2019 (inclusive). Using the news consolidator service, Lexis Nexis, we downloaded all national newspaper articles containing at least one mention of the following search-terms (where the exclamation mark (!) acts as a wildcard to stand for any sequence of characters, e.g. Islam! will return ‘Islam’ but also ‘Islamic’, ‘Islamist’, ‘Islamism’, etc.): Alah OR Allah OR ayatollah! OR burka! OR burqa! OR chador! OR fatwa! OR hejab! OR imam! OR islam! OR Koran OR Mecca OR Medina OR Mohammedan! OR Moslem! OR Muslim! OR mosque! OR mufti! OR mujaheddin! OR mujahedin! OR mullah! OR muslim! OR Prophet Mohammed OR Q’uran OR rupoush OR rupush OR sharia OR shari’a OR shia! OR shi-ite! OR Shi’ite! Or sunni! OR the Prophet OR wahabi OR yashmak! AND NOT Islamabad AND NOT shiatsu AND NOT sunnily.

Using these search-terms, we collected articles from the following national newspapers: Daily Star Online, Daily Star Sunday, Daily Star, Express Online, Guardian.com, i-Independent Print Ltd, Independent Magazine, Independent Traveller, Independent.co.uk, MailOnline, mirror.co.uk, Sunday Express, Sunday Mirror, telegraph.co.uk, The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Telegraph, The Express, The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, The Independent, The Mail On Sunday, The Mirror, The News of the World, The Observer, The People, The Sun, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Times. We grouped the results by ‘moderate’ similarity using the Lexis Nexis interface and then removed any remaining duplicates (e.g. produced by different editions of the same newspaper) ourselves. Lexis Nexis results also include so-called ‘boilerplate’ text which provides information about the articles, for example relating to the article author and date of publication. This metadata was

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removed prior to analysis to prevent it from interrupting our analytical procedures (discussed in the next section). The resulting corpus comprised 696,061 articles (605,956,295 words).

Analytical Approach We examined the representation of Islamism in our corpus primarily through the corpus linguistic technique of collocation analysis. Collocation is a linguistic device whereby words, by associating strongly with one another, become bearers of meaning by virtue of co-occurrence. Collocation is typically judged to exist by the use of a word association measure which tells us how often two or more words occur alongside one another and whether this association is notable as a sizeable effect in our data. By sizeable effect, we mean whether the words in question have a measurably strong preference to occur together as opposed to being randomly associated. Following Firth’s (1957: 6) dictum that ‘you shall know a word by the company it keeps’, corpus linguists have long sought to learn about words’ meanings and patterns of use by examining a given word in terms of the words with which it tends to co-occur, or ‘collocate’. Analysing the collocates of a particular word can thus enable insight into the textual context surrounding that word in the texts under study. In this chapter, we analyse the collocates of three terms associated with Islamism: (i) Islamism, (ii) Islamist and (iii) political Islam. The frequencies and distribution of these items (in terms of how many texts they occurred in) are given in the next section. Using the CQPweb corpus analysis tool (Hardie 2012), on which we stored our corpus, we obtained a list of collocates of each of the terms (i–iii), in turn. For the purposes of this analysis, we stipulated that collocates should occur within a window of five words to the left and or right of our given search-word, or ‘node’ (otherwise expressed as L5 > R5). This collocation span was chosen as it was judged to provide a ‘good balance between identifying words that actually do have a relationship with each other (longer spans can throw up unrelated cases) and [gives] enough words to analyse (shorter spans result in fewer collocates)’ (Baker et al. 2013: 36). We imposed a minimum frequency threshold of five, which meant that a word had to

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co-occur within the five words to the left or right of our search-word at least five times throughout the corpus to be considered a candidate collocate. We measured the strength of the collocational pairings using the Mutual Information (MI) statistic. MI determines collocation strength by comparing the observed frequency of each collocational pairing against what would be ‘expected’ based on the relative frequency of each word in the pairing and the overall size of the corpus. The difference between the observed and expected collocation frequencies is then converted into a score (an MI score) which indicates the strength of the collocation, with higher scores assigned to stronger pairings. We stipulated that to be considered as collocates for this study, word pairings should be assigned an MI score of at least 3, which represents something of a standard in corpus linguistic research (Hunston 2002). However, we should note again that higher scores indicate stronger relationships, and an MI score of at least 6 has been found to be a reliable indicator of word pairings which are psychologically primed in people’s minds (Durrant and Doherty 2010). We ranked each set of qualifying collocates according to the frequency of co-occurrence with the node, and extracted the top 20 for analysis. It was judged by the analysts to represent a broad range of collocates whilst giving a manageable number of items for analysis. Following the extraction of the collocates for each of our Islamism terms of interest, we then analysed how each collocate contributed to the representation of Islamism in our corpus. For this, we went beyond the collocation output and qualitatively analysed how each collocate was used alongside its given node. We accessed this more contextualised view of our data through the concordance function of CQPweb. Concordancing essentially provides a way of viewing corpus data that allows the user to access every occurrence of a user-determined word, phrase or collocational pairing, with the surrounding text shown to the left and right. An example of a concordance output is given in Fig. 4.1, which shows a series of concordance lines for the collocation of Islamism and radical in our corpus.

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Fig. 4.1 Sample concordance output for the collocation of Islamism with radical

With the node, Islamism, running down the centre of the computer screen, and a few words of context displayed on either side, the concordance view thus offers a useful means for spotting patterns that might be less obvious during more linear, left-to-right readings of the data. For this analysis, we qualitatively analysed how each collocate (i) could invoke particular social actors, processes and places; (ii) could be used to attach particular features or traits to each node or (iii) articulate a stance towards a node, or create a particular evaluation of it (Fairclough 2003). In the next section, we report on the dominant (i.e. most recurrent) representational patterns for each of the top twenty collocates for each of our Islamism terms (Islamism, Islamist and Political Islam). For collocational pairings occurring over 100 times, this part of our analysis was based on a randomly selected sample of 100 co-occurrences of the node with the given collocate. In such cases, we ensured that the samples used represented a balanced mixture of the different newspapers of which our corpus is comprised.

Findings Islamism We begin our analysis by considering the patterns in language use around the noun Islamism. This word was used 4,475 times across 3,443 texts in our corpus. The collocates for Islamism are displayed in Table 4.1.

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Table 4.1 Top 20 collocates of Islamism (MI ≥ 3), ranked by frequency Rank

Collocate

Frequency of collocation

Number of texts

MI score

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

radical Islam militant ideology violent fight extreme rise threat jihadism extremist links extremism spread form brand democracy hardline totalitarian murderous

744 221 189 164 142 129 126 114 98 90 65 64 48 46 44 43 41 40 33 32

592 173 187 156 136 99 125 107 95 68 63 64 45 45 44 43 40 38 32 32

7.708 3.586 5.955 6.78 5.283 3.733 5.686 4.599 3.246 9.258 3.955 4.158 3.811 4.166 3.089 4.756 3.367 5.415 7.865 5.273

The first feature of note in Table 4.1 is the prevalence of gradable adjective collocates which qualify Islamism and place particular forms of it along a scale. This includes the most frequent collocate, radical , along with extreme, extremist and hardline, and the nominalised extremism. The use of these grading terms implies a spectrum in terms of the extent to which Islamist views are held, yet it is telling that the strongest word pairings indicate a tendency to frame Islamism as an extreme position rather than a moderate one. Indeed, the most frequent collocate of Islamism denoting a more moderate position, moderate, collocates with Islamism just 25 times, across 24 texts. To explore what types of activities and traits tend to be associated with Islamism, including these extreme forms, it is useful to consider the other collocates in Table 4.1. When attributed to a particular individual or group, particular versions of Islamism are described as a brand or form. These can range from the more extreme to the more moderate (including the more seemingly democratically legitimate as discussed later), though it tends to be

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the former that is reported on. In such cases, the especially extreme or violent character of such form(s) or brand (s) of Islamism is foregrounded. Mr Choudary is an unpleasant man, and he fronts an unpleasant organisation, which advocates an unpleasant brand of Islamism. He has described the 9/11 hijackers as “magnificent martyrs” and has called on Muslims not to co-operate with the police. (Times, 06.01.10)

Radical , extreme or hardline forms of Islamism tend to be evaluated negatively, being presented as a malevolent form of ideology. Whilst ostensibly an evaluative neutral term, ideology, as used in general British English, is a term with a negative evaluative prosody (Morley and Partington 2009). For example, in our wider corpus of news texts about Islam, ideology collocates strongly with negatively evaluating terms such as extremist, poisonous, warped , twisted , security-threatening, terroristsympathising, Britain-hating, hateful , violent, evil and perverted . As such, there is a particular concern with the rate at which such ideologies are spreading, particularly in Western societies including the UK. DAVID Cameron has vowed to “aggressively” pursue and disrupt extremists trying to spread the “poisonous ideology” of radical Islamism. (Telegraph, 20.10.15)

This links, in turn, to the collocates spread and rise. As the example below shows, concerns around the spread or rise of Islamism are not restricted to its more extreme forms. Arab nationalism has trampled on human rights; massacred and repressed minorities such as Copts, Jews and Assyrians. The rise of Islamism “and global jihad” is a direct result of the lack of real democracy in the Arab world. (Independent, 12.07.05)

Another theme in the representation of Islamism evident from the collocates is violence. The connection between Islamism and forms of violence is rendered most explicit in uses of the collocate violence. It is

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also implied through uses of the adjective collocate militant, though this implication can be reinforced through the attribution of violent acts to a form of Islamism that is also described as militant. Jewish groups blame militant Islamism for the upsurge in violence - a claim Muslim groups dismiss as “nonsense”. (Express, 09.08.04)

Another way in which Islamism is represented as violent is through its association with jihadism. When collocating with each other, Islamism and jihadism tend to be used in ways that imply a semantic equivalence. As Islamism and Jihadism rose globally, so did the way in which governments cut back on fundamental civil liberties. (Independent, 11.07.07)

At other points, the equivalence between Islamism and jihadism is established in more explicit terms, though this tends to be in quoted speech. In such contexts, jihadism tends to be compared to and grouped with radical Islamism specifically. Trump had been hounding Obama and Clinton to call the shooting spree at the gay night club what it is - ’radical Islamic terrorism’ This morning Clinton gave him what he wants and said, ’To me radical jihadism, radical Islamism, I think they mean the same thing. (Mail , 13.06.16)

The connection between Islamism and violence is further reinforced through reporting of particular terrorist attacks that are carried out by individuals who are presented as having links to Islamism. TERROR WARNING: Experts warn truck attacks will become ’MORE common’ GERMAN police hunting the terrorist who killed 12 at a Berlin Christmas market are searching for a Tunisian asylum seeker who was given a temporary residence permit despite his criminal past and links to radical Islamism. (Express, 21.12.16)

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As well as being connected to violent individuals, Islamism itself can also be represented metaphorically as a violent social actor. This was evident in uses of the collocate murderous, which tended to be used to anthropomorphise Islamism by casting it as an especially violent and, consistent with the notion of its spreading, seemingly ubiquitous agent. In the extract below, for example, the spread of Islamism is indicated by the geographical reach of its metaphorical ‘murderous hand’, which is also framed as ‘enslaving and killing’. The murderous hand of Islamism stretches from Africa to Europe to the Middle East, enslaving and killing. (Telegraph, 24.01.15)

Given its firmly established links to violence within the news articles in our data, it is little surprise that Islamism is presented as a threat. Yet Islamism is also framed as a threat not just to life, but also to democracy, especially in cases where it is described as totalitarian. So why are many Muslims against the niqab? Because we know Islamism, a profound and totalitarian distortion of Muslim belief, when we see it. (Telegraph, 12.08.18)

Islamism is also represented as being totalitarian in cases where it is pitched in opposition with democracy. In such cases, democracy is framed as being incompatible with Islamism, such as in this article quoting Dutch politician, Geert Wilders. ‘Islamism and democracy are incompatible. The more Islamism we have, the more freedom we will lose and this is something worth fighting for.’ (Telegraph, 06.03.10)

The relationship between democracy and Islamism is complex in the way it is portrayed in the news as the press appears to allow discursively for the co-existence of Islamism and democracy. However, this relationship is also problematised. Such coverage exhibits an undercurrent of scepticism, namely that the democracy is a veneer or ‘package’— implying, perhaps, a less democratic Islamist agenda underneath—whilst

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the Islamist political leaders who achieve electoral success are noted for their ‘skill’. As such, the successes of Islamism in democracies such as Egypt are presented as surprising and as causing a problem for political leaders in the West. The second-round Egyptian parliamentary election results announced on Saturday reinforce the success of the Muslim Brotherhood as comfortably the biggest single party - with a less predicted 20 per cent showing for the ultra-religious Salafist Al-Nour party - leaving Western powers pondering how to deal with a democracy in which Islamism is dominant. (Independent, 26.12.11)

The construction of Islamism as antithetical to democracy is particularly visible in uses of the collocate fight, wherein resistance against Islamism (including by Muslims) is framed as a fight for democracy, along with other ‘values’, most notably women’s rights and the freedom to practice religion. And while as a society we ALL have to fight Islamism, because it’s an affront to our democracy. Muslims in particular have to fight it to protect their religion. (Mirror, 26.05.13)

The responsibility to fight Islamism can be framed as a society-wide one, but it is also one that can be placed with Muslims in particular, as this extract attests. This brings us to our final collocate of Islamism, Islam, which tends to be used in ways that construct a difference between Islamism as a political ideology—and its aforementioned associations with violence and totalitarianism—and Islam as a religion. You can repeat the essential point that we are up against Islamism, not Islam, and most Muslims want nothing to do with totalitarian religion. (Guardian, 14.11.15)

This most frequent use of Islam with Islamism tends to be contributed by left-leaning and centrist newspapers. The pairing is used relatively less by right-leaning publications and tabloids and, in such uses, there

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is evidence of a minority counter-discourse which signals a reluctance to separate Islamism from Islam entirely.

Islamist (Adjective) The term Islamist is more grammatically versatile than our other searchterms, as it can be used as an adjective or as a singular noun. In our corpus, it tends to be used as an adjective (91.55% of cases). Therefore, for the analysis in this section, we searched for and examined the collocates of the adjectival uses of Islamist, using the automated partof-speech annotation within CQPweb to isolate relevant cases for our analysis (77,771 cases across 57,990). The adjective Islamist can be applied, as we saw in the previous section, to the term ideology. However, in most cases, when the newspapers use Islamist as an adjective, they tend to do so in relation to particular groups. These groups operate either regionally or internationally, though the focus tends to be on the former and in particular on groups operating within the Middle East and Africa. This is indicated in uses of collocates such as group and groups, as well as terms denoting specific Islamist organisations, such as Hamas and [Boko] Haram. Furthermore, the collocate movement tends to refer to specific Islamist groups that have been identified in the article. The spokesman accused Hamas - the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip and which has fought three wars with Israel since 2008 - of being behind the protests, and threatened wider military action if they persist. (Mail , 31.03.18)

Some of the collocates of Islamist in Table 4.2 overlap with those of Islamism that we saw in Table 4.1 in the previous section, particularly those which are used to grade Islamism and to mark it out as especially extreme or radical. Likewise, the particular Islamist groups who are reported on can be labelled as extremist and radical. Relatedly, when collocating with them, Islamist tends to directly pre-modify extremists and fanatics. This kind of use implies or straightforwardly attributes an

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extreme position and violent actions on the part of the referent, though these terms seem to be more flexible than those denoting groups, and can be used to denote Islamists in a much less specific sense. Terrorism update: All right, I admit that despite last week ’s outburst I never really expected people to give up the word “terrorism”. It is far too useful a shorthand term for “suicidal Islamist fanatics launching murderous attacks on Westerners and their friends”. (Independent, 29.11.03)

Forms of violence, including terrorism, can also be attributed to Islamism itself, as we see the adjective Islamist used to qualify collocates which nominalise forms of extremism and violence, such as extremism, terror and terrorism.

Table 4.2 Top 20 collocates of Islamist (adj.) (MI ≥ 3), ranked by frequency Rank

Collocate

Frequency of collocation

Number of texts

MI score

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

group groups militants extremists extremism terror terrorism terrorists militant radical extremist hamas movement fighters suspected fanatics rebels ideology haram gunmen

8404 5976 5681 4863 3852 3431 3425 3419 2957 2490 2031 1894 1889 1582 1323 1237 1208 1121 1067 776

7875 5331 5225 4492 3324 3209 3137 3171 2876 2362 1918 1817 1811 1479 1254 1183 1123 965 1040 756

4.037 4.844 5.79 5.823 6.018 3.598 3.731 4.354 5.804 5.331 4.802 4.803 4.48 3.688 4.118 5.885 4.187 5.434 5.631 4.081

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The Home Office yesterday warned that Britain faces a severe threat from Islamist terrorism for at least another two years. (Telegraph, 02.06.18)

Coverage of Islamist groups tends to focus on their violent actions, which can also be described as militant. The focus on the violence performed by Islamist groups manifests further in the nouns that are used to denote its members. In particular, such actors are functionalised through collocates such as militants, terrorists, fighters, rebels and gunmen. Where fighters and rebels denote overseas Islamist actors engaged in domestic violence, militants, terrorists and gunmen can be used to refer to actors engaged in violence in domestic or overseas contexts. The blasts came just hours after suspected Islamist rebels killed seven people, six of them tourists, with grenades in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar. (Mirror, 16.07.06) That incident came a year to the day after an attack on the Paris headquarters of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in which Islamist gunmen burst in and shot dead 12 people. (Telegraph, 03.02.17)

This also helps to account for the collocation of suspected with Islamist, as the individuals themselves are reported on as being suspected members of a particular Islamist group, or an attack is suspected to have been carried out by a particular group. SUSPECTED militants from Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram have kidnapped at least 60 people in neighbouring Cameroon. (Mirror, 19.01.15)

Political Islam The final term we analyse in this chapter is political Islam. This occurred 1,223 times in 1,017 texts. The collocates for political Islam are given in Table 4.3.

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Table 4.3 Top 20 collocates of political Islam (MI ≥ 3), ranked by frequency Rank

Collocate

Frequency of collocation

Number of texts

MI score

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

rise roots radical brotherhood moderate crackdown symbol brand form problem Egypt ideology extremist societies secular militant erdogan ennahda movement forms

77 44 30 27 22 21 20 20 18 18 16 15 14 13 13 13 12 11 11 10

71 44 30 27 21 19 20 20 18 18 16 15 14 12 13 13 12 11 11 10

5.904 7.482 4.947 5.823 5.538 6.079 6.224 5.523 3.671 3.366 3.188 5.201 3.612 6.073 4.972 3.965 3.824 8.304 3.046 4.808

Political Islam shares a number of collocates with Islamism. Like Islamism, Political Islam is defined as an ideology and a movement. Like Islamism, political Islam is also subject to gradation. It can be labelled as radical , militant or extremist. These different kinds of political Islam can be labelled as a particular form, forms or brand. However, unlike the collocates of Islamism, political Islam also collocates strongly with moderate. Moderate political Islam is presented as a potentially more democratic and thus politically legitimate (from a Western perspective) alternative to more extreme forms of Islamism within the articles. However, importantly, this distinction is consistently problematised within the articles. For example, in the extract below, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policies are framed as ‘seemingly’ constituting moderate political Islam. They are presented as being attractive to reformers in the Middle East initially, but then he is described as ‘systematically dismantl[ing] western trust’ by engaging in practices associated with totalitarianism.

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And his brand of seemingly moderate political Islam appeared to be attractive to reformers in the Middle East. Since then, however, President Erdogan has systematically dismantled western trust in his governing style: he has concentrated power around him, sapped parliament and the judiciary and has allowed his towering vanity to bend the country to his will. (Times, 24.05.16)

Whilst the representation between Islamism and democracy is, as we have seen, complex, Political Islam is represented more straightforwardly as being antithetical to democracy in newspapers spanning the political spectrum. The enemy isn’t Christianity or Western culture, although its Saudi and Egyptian leaders know that anti-Western rhetoric can be useful; what they hate, and want to replace, is liberal secular democracy. Political Islam is pre-modern, rejecting the idea of individual rights which is a cornerstone of democracy. (Independent, 04.02.07)

Relatedly, the collocate secular indicates representations of Political Islam as threatening religious freedom, whilst being in a war with secularism. This is a war that Political Islam is portrayed as winning, particularly in the Arab world. The success of political Islam over secular nationalism in the Arab world has largely been because of the former ’s ability to resist the enemies of the community or the state. (Independent, 08.04.09)

Like Islamism, Political Islam is represented as being on the rise. This is mostly in countries in which Islamist organisations are considered to hold power or influence, or to have experienced electoral success. Reference to such specific cases is indicated in uses of collocates such as brotherhood , as in the Muslim Brotherhood, the Ennahda party, Erdogan, as in the Turkish President who is aligned with Political Islam in the coverage, and Egypt, in reporting on the electoral fortunes of Political

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Islam organisations in the country. The collocate roots is used consistently in relation to Erdogan to describe him and his political party as having roots in Political Islam. However, in a minority of cases, political Islam is portrayed as being on the rise in the UK and France. We must also not ignore the rise of political Islam in the UK. We need tougher laws to tackle the preachers of hate on our city streets. (Mirror, 09.09.09)

The collocate symbol is used to describe perceptions that headscarf wearing constitutes a symbol of Political Islam in Turkey but also in France. In the latter, it is also linked more explicitly to violent extremism. Marlne Schiappa, the gender equality minister, said the headscarf was a symbol of “political Islam” and suggested a link with terrorism. (Times, 23.05.18)

The explicit problematisation of Political Islam is also evident in uses of the collocate problem, as in the extract below taken from an article citing then-President of France, Nicolas Sarközy. “France is under threat in its identity and its cohesion,” he growled, singling out “political Islam” as a problem that is “not behind, but in front of us” in a country still licking its wounds from Islamist terror attacks. (Telegraph, 20.11.16)

Conclusions In this chapter, we have reported an analysis of the language that British national newspapers use to represent Islamism. Reporting on Islamism tends to present it as extreme or, at the very least, tends to focus on more extreme forms of it within its coverage. Whilst Islamism can, as noted earlier, be violent or non-violent in how it is pursued, it is strongly

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connected to violence in news coverage, being presented as a causal factor in or as having links to jihadism and other forms of terrorist violence. The connection between Islamism and terrorism is perhaps most clearly evident in reporting on particular individuals or groups who are described as Islamist. The word Islamism itself was broader than Islamist and could refer to a movement or ideology which motivates such Islamist violence. The Islamist ideology is presented as causing concern due to the rate at which it is rising or spreading globally. As well as being associated with terrorist violence, Islamism was also represented as being totalitarian and, as such, as being incompatible with democracy and other modernist values. This was evident across the terms we analysed, but was particularly noticeable in uses of the term political Islam. A notable discourse in this representation of political Islam was of particular politicians or political organisations who were presented as being aligned with it. Participation (and success) in democratic processes such as elections can result in those individuals/groups being labelled as ‘moderate’. However, this was consistently problematised, essentially being presented as a veneer designed to obscure their more totalitarian, dictatorial ambitions from Western political leaders’ view. Thus, any descriptions of Islamism as ‘moderate’ were undercut as part of a rhetorical strategy designed to discredit such social actors and to reaffirm an overarching opposition between Islamist political systems and the global West. Decades of newsworthiness have stressed the prominence of negativity as a news value (e.g. Galtung and Ruge 1965). Thus, even if we believed that positive news stories about Islamism were possible, because bad news ‘sells’, UK newspapers would likely not be commercially motivated to print them. Such dominant negative press narratives around Islamism may, therefore, be entirely predictable and make perfect sense, commercially, to the newspapers printing them. Yet such representations could have quite profound implications for the lives of Muslims living in the UK (and elsewhere, for that matter) in terms of how they are perceived and treated by others in society. Hoey’s (2005) theory of ‘lexical priming’ holds that frequent exposure to recurrent collocations in language can result in people becoming unconsciously ‘primed’ to expect certain words to occur with others, and to infer particular meanings or associations

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based on those word pairings. Thus, the cumulative effect of regular exposure to the types of representations we have identified in our analysis could be that readers come to associate Islamism with extremism, violence and totalitarianism, amongst other things. This could lead to the development or exacerbation of negative attitudes towards ordinary Muslims in the UK, particularly if the distinction between Islam and Islamism is not clear in people’s minds. Indeed, this distinction is made relatively rarely in the coverage, and when it is mostly by left-leaning broadsheets. However, we have seen in our analysis evidence of some coverage wilfully conflating Islam and Islamism, including as part of a rhetorical strategy to argue that Islamic values are incompatible with values held more widely by people living in the UK. Responsible reporting on Islamism should, in our view, endeavour to make the distinction between Islamism and Islam clear, and as part of that to stress the fact that those who adhere to Islamist ideology constitute a small minority of the world’s Muslims, and a likely even smaller minority of Muslims in the UK. This may help to limit the extent to which associations of extremism attached to Islamism spill out to and become associations applied to all Muslims. However, this seems a way off, given, as we have seen, that UK newspapers are currently unlikely to make such distinctions, instead representing Islamism as ‘spreading’ and on the ‘rise’, and placing responsibility on ordinary Muslims to stem this purported increase in Islamism. A limitation of our study, and one that applies to all corpus linguistic research, is that what is gained in scope and generalisability may be sacrificed in terms in depth. Due to the volume of our data, we were only able to look at the majority uses of a select number of collocates, based on analysing samples of their uses in context. A downside of this is that less frequent but significant representations may sit outside of our frequency-driven analytical scope. Due to limitations on space, we have treated the UK press as a homogeneous genre, though parts of our analysis have hinted at distinctions in representations according to the newspapers’ formats and political leanings. Future research should aim at comparing representations of Islamism across such lines. Another promising line of inquiry would be to corroborate our interpretations, particularly regarding the implications of the representations discussed

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in this section, with analysis of readers’ responses, for example in the context of so-called ‘below-the-line’ comments appearing beneath the online versions of articles in our corpus (see Brookes and Baker 2021). Recommendations on Using ‘Islamism’ in CfMM’s Media Style Guide We recommend the avoidance of the term ‘Islamist’ as a descriptor, specifically because the potential meanings of the term are so different that an ordinary reader may infer a very different meaning from that which is intended by the author. The usage of the term ‘Islamist’ to describe a form of Muslim practice, however conservative, is clearly wrong. For example, the wearing of the hijab, or the conforming to a Halal diet, should not be called ‘Islamist’. However, there are more reasonable challenges with our recommendation of avoiding the term altogether. Firstly, many groups self-identify as ‘Islamiyyun’ (translated as ‘Islamist’). For such groups, there is a trade-off between using the term they use for themselves, and using a specific term that may be more understandable to the average reader. Our recommendation specifically in media discourse, would be to prioritise the latter, rather than import a word from Arabic into English without sufficient context that would allow the reader to distinguish between a peaceful and a violent group. Secondly, the term is often used with what is claimed to be a positive intention, to distinguish ordinary Muslims and the faith of Islam, from the acts of those deemed beyond the pale. In case you wanted to distinguish ordinary Muslims from the perpetrators of terror attacks, we would recommend specificity in the descriptors. For example, where there is an identified cause (e.g. Daesh-inspired or Al-Qaeda inspired), then that should be the descriptor. And where there is no identified cause that should be made clear. Our final recommendation is that if you disagree with the arguments presented, the very minimum that should be done is to ensure clarity and consistency across news and opinion pieces in the usage of the term, in such a way that an ordinary reader is not misled.

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References Al-Rikaby, A. and Mahadi, T. (2018). The Significance of the Discursive strategies in al Baghdadi’s and al-Zawahiri’s Hortatory Speeches: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Journal of Language and Politics 17(6): 769–788. Baker, P. and Vessey, R. (2018) A Corpus-Driven Comparison of English and French Islamist Extremist Texts. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 23(3): 255–278. Baker, J. P., Gabrielatos, C. and McEnery, T. (2013). Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes: The representation of Islam in the British Press, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Baker, P., Vessey, R. and McEnery, T. (2021). The Language of Violent Jihad . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brookes, G. and Baker, P. (2021). Obesity in the News: Language and Representation in the Press. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brookes, G. and McEnery, T. (2020a). Corpus Linguistics. In: S. Adolphs and D. Knight (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of English Language and Digital Humanities. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 378–404. Brookes, G. and McEnery, T. (2020b). Correlation, Collocation and Cohesion: A Corpus-Based Critical Analysis of Violent Jihadist Discourse. Discourse & Society, 31(4), 351–373. Brookes, G. and Wright, D. (2020). From Burden to Threat: A Diachronic Study of Language Ideology and Migrant Representation in the British Press. In: P. Rautionaho, A. Nurmi and J. Klemola (eds.), Corpora and the Changing Society: Studies in the Evolution of English. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 113–140. Clarke, I., McEnery, T. and Brookes, G. (2021). Multiple Correspondence Analysis, Newspaper Discourse and Subregister: A Case Study of Discourses of Islam in the British Press. Register Studies, 3(1), 141–171. Clarke, I., Brookes, G. and McEnery, T. (2022). Keywords Through Time: Tracking Changes in Press Discourses of Islam. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics. Online first. Durrant, P. and Doherty, A. (2010). Are High-frequency Collocations Psychologically Real? Investigating the Thesis of Collocational Priming. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, 6(2), 125–155. Fairclough, N. (1995). Media Discourse. London: Arnold. Fairclough, N. (2003). Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge.

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Firth, J. R. (1957). Papers in Linguistics 1934–1951. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Galtung, J. and Ruge, M. (1965). The Structure of Foreign News. The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers. Journal of Peace Research, 2(1), 64–91. Hardie, A. (2012). CQPweb—Combining Power, Flexibility and Usability in a Corpus Analysis Tool. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 17(3), 380–409. Hoey, M. (2005). Lexical Priming: A New Theory of Words and Language. London and New York: Routledge. Hoigilt, J. (2010). Islamist Rhetoric: Language and Culture in Contemporary Egypt. London and New York: Routledge. Holbrook, D. (2010). Using the Qur’an to Justify Terrorist Violence: Analysing Selective Application of the Qur’an in English-Language Militant Islamist Discourse. Perspectives on Terrorism, 4(3), 15–28. Holbrook, D. (2014). The Al-Qaeda Doctrine. The Framing and Evolution of the Leadership’s Public Discourse. London: Bloomsbury. Hunston, S. (2002). Corpora in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McEnery, T. and Brookes, G. (2022). ‘Register, Belief and Violence: A Multidimensional Approach’. In: C. Posch, G. Rampl, and K. Irschara (eds.), Wort-Satz-Korpus: Multimethodische digitale Forschung in der Linguistik. Innsbruck: IUP, pp. 87–117. McEnery, T. and Wilson, A. (2001). Corpus Linguistics: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Morley, J. and Partington, A. (2009). A Few Frequently Asked Questions About Semantic—Or Evaluative—Prosody. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 14(2), 139–158. Richardson, J. E. (2007). Analysing Newspapers. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Starrett, G. (1998). Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt. Oakland: University of California Press. Tibi, B. (2012). Islamism and Islam. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Van Leeuwen, T. (2007). Legitimation in Discourse and Communication. Discourse & Communication, 1(1), 91–112.

5 Associations Between Islam, Extremism and Terrorism in the British National News 1998–2019 Paul Baker

Introduction On 30 June 2011, an article in the Express newspaper reported, ‘An Islamic firebrand preacher banned from the UK is planning to use human rights laws to fight his deportation order, it was reported last night’. Another article in the Mirror on 1 May 2012 referred to an ‘alleged Muslim terror plot’, whilst in the Scottish Press on 18 June 2014, a columnist claimed that the ‘barbaric nature of militant Islam has raised its ugly head in recent days’. These brief but representative excerpts show some of the ways that British newspaper articles associate Islam with terror and extremism. Terms like Islamic firebrand , Muslim terror and militant Islam portray a negative picture of Islam, effectively being examples of a discourse P. Baker (B) Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_5

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prosody (Stubbs 2001), whereby patterns in discourse can be found between a word, phrase or lemma and a set of related words that suggest a particular stance or representation. In this case, it is the repeated association of one set of words (Islamic, Islam, Muslim) with another set (terror, firebrand , militant ). For regular readers of certain newspapers, these associations gradually build up, day after day, to the extent that the concepts can become intertwined, so that the mention of one concept can trigger the thought of the other. To explore this kind of prosody further, this chapter uses an approach called corpus-based discourse analysis which involves the use of computer software to analyse large, representative collections of naturally-occurring language (called corpora). The software helps human analysts to identify frequent and statistically salient patterns of language use. This enables analysts to spot features in corpora that they might not have otherwise had their attention drawn to, as well as giving them a ‘way in’ to the data, allowing them to carry out more detailed qualitative analyses. The analysis carried out in this chapter is an extension of an earlier study which considered the extent to which the British press writes about Muslims and Islam in terms of extremism (Baker et al. 2013). I first describe the background to the study, then outline how the data was collected and analysed, followed by a summary of the findings and finally a reflective conclusion.

Background For decades, the western news media have made an association between Islam and extremism. The UK Government (2011) defines extremism as ‘vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs’.1 A more detailed definition has been given by The Hon. Justice Haddon-Cave, whilst adjudicating Begg vs British Broadcasting Corporation. This involves a ten-point guide

1

HM Government (2011) Prevent Strategy. London: The Stationary Office.

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to what constitutes ‘Extremist Islamic Positions’.2 Amongst others, it includes an ‘us vs them’ view of the world, reduction of jihad to armed combat, ignoring/flouting conditions for armed combat and viewing armed combat as a universal individual religious obligation. Anglo-centric media have tended to find Extremist Islamic Positions very newsworthy. For example, Awass (1996) has shown how American media depict Islam as a threat to western security, associated with fundamentalism and terrorism. Dunn’s study of two Australian newspapers (2001: 296) concluded that Muslims were constructed as ‘fanatic, intolerant, fundamentalist, misogynist [and] alien 75% of the time, whereas positive constructions accounted for 25% of cases’. A study of British newspapers in the 1990s by Poole (2002) found that British Muslims were represented as irrational and antiquated, as a threat to democracy, involved in crime, extremist and influenced by Muslims overseas. Similarly, Richardson’s (2004) study of British news broadsheets identified four main themes around Islam: as a military threat, associated with terrorism and extremism, a threat to democracy and a sexist/social threat. He noted that journalists engage in three processes when reporting on British Muslims—separation (they are apart from other British people), differentiation (they are different from other British people) and negativisation (they are bad). This list carries echoes of van Dijk’s (1987: 58) four topic classes for racist discourses: they are different, they do not adapt, they are involved in negative acts and they threaten our socio-economic interests. The studies above used a range of methods, from qualitative analysis of articles to content analysis based on quantifying patterns or counting themes. An earlier study (Baker et al. 2013) took a corpusbased approach to discourse to examine UK national news articles published between 1998 and 2009 that contained at least one mention of a set of words relating to Islam. The study found that references to terror were actually more common than the references to the set of words relating to Islam, and that the most common theme in the articles related to conflict. Muslims were regularly represented negatively as holding extreme beliefs, being quick to take offence and as forming part of a 2

Neutral Citation Number: [2016] EWHC 2688 (QB).

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separate community from the rest of the UK. Some newspapers, particularly tabloids, published extremely negative representations of Muslims, devoting a large amount of attention to a small number of hate preachers, or demonising Muslims who received government assistance. Muslim women who wore the veil were seen either as difficult and demanding or as passive victims. Over the period examined it was found that representations that had been originally popular in conservative tabloid news had started to be found in other types of newspaper. In this study, I revisit some of our main findings, focusing on the ways that Muslims and Islam are linked to concepts around terrorism and extremism. I use a larger corpus containing an additional decade of data, as well as expanding the remit to consider local British newspapers as well as national ones. Organisations like the Muslim British Council and associated groups like the Centre for Media Monitoring and MEND (Muslim Engagement and Development) have helped to foster increasing awareness of the ways that journalists write about Islam. To an extent, journalists have shown some willingness to listen and change. For example, a cross-parliamentary event organised by the Centre for Media Monitoring in 2019 involved speeches by editors of two tabloid newspapers. The analysis here, therefore, focuses on the extent to which the patterns that were identified in 1998–2009 have changed (for better or worse), in the later, more ‘aware’ period 2010–2019.

Data and Method The study takes a corpus-assisted discourse analysis approach (see Baker 2006; Partington et al. 2013). This first involves collecting a large, ‘corpus’ (Latin for body), of naturally-occurring text which is seen to be representative of a particular language register. The corpus is then uploaded into a specialist software (a corpus analysis tool) and subjected to a range of different techniques which are initially based upon identification of quantitative patterns: common ones include frequency lists (lists of words in order of frequency) and collocates (identification of words that co-occur together within a certain span). This enables a focus on particular uses of language in the corpus, although such cases then

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require more detailed qualitative analysis by humans. A useful technique which enables this kind of analysis is called concordancing whereby a table containing all the citations of a word or phrase is shown (often sorted alphabetically) so that more complex linguistic patterns can be better identified by human eyes. The corpus was collected by a colleague, Dr Isobelle Clark, a member of the Corpus Approaches to Social Sciences research team at Lancaster University. It consists of 815,432,972 words from 947,983 British newspaper articles containing reference to Muslims and Islam collected between 1998 and 2019. Data was collected from the searchable online database Nexis. The search term used to collect the corpus was as follows. Alah OR Allah OR ayatollah! OR burka! OR burqa! OR chador! OR fatwa! OR hejab! OR imam! OR islam! OR Koran OR Mecca OR Medina OR Mohammedan! OR Moslem! OR Muslim! OR mosque! OR mufti! OR mujaheddin! OR mujahedin! OR mullah! OR muslim! OR Prophet Mohammed OR Q’uran OR rupoush OR rupush OR sharia OR shari’a OR shia! OR shi-ite! OR Shi’ite! OR sunni! OR the Prophet OR wahabi OR yashmak! AND NOT Islamabad AND NOT shiatsu AND NOT sunnily.

This means that to be included for collection, an article needed to contain at least one mention of any of the words listed, apart from those followed by the word NOT. For the purposes of consistency, the search term was the same one used in Baker et al. (2013). The symbol ! acts as a wildcard, so Islam! would return articles containing mentions of Islam, Islamic and Islamist. This is why we included some exceptions at the end (prefaced by NOT) like Islamasbad. The search term was not perfect— for example, it resulted in articles containing references to Faisal Islam, a journalist, as well as mentions of Sunningdale, (due to the presence of sunni!), a village in Berkshire. However, such cases were relatively rare and did not affect the overall findings of this study. A wide range of national and local newspapers are represented (286 news sources in total), although national newspapers account for 74.3% of the text in the corpus. In this case, our corpus is almost maximally representative, rather than being a sample of articles. The search term

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may have missed some articles that would have been relevant to Islam and Muslims (perhaps for example, cases where an article contains the name of a well-known Muslim so are implicitly associated with Islam, without referring directly to Islam), although the corpus is one of the largest of its kind and enables useful generalisations about linguistic usage to be made. As the corpus was so large, it was not possible to use it with offthe-shelf corpus tools like WordSmith or AntConc so instead it was mounted on an in-house, online corpus analysis tool called CQPweb by another member of CASS, Andrew Hardie. CQPweb can handle billions of words of text, carrying out complex searches in seconds. The study largely replicates the method used in Baker et al. (2013), which contained a chapter that examined words related to strength of belief. In that chapter, we examined sets of words that related to different levels of belief and then calculated the proportion of times they occurred as collocates of words relating to Islam. That study only considered a corpus of texts between 1998 and 2009. The analysis here updates that study by comparing the results from that time period against two later five-year periods (2010–2014 and 2015–2019). As the study is a replication of an earlier study, it was already known which words would be examined, as time had been spent identifying words which related to different levels of belief previously. The 2013 study focused on three sets of words relating to extremist belief, strong belief and moderate belief. For this study it was decided to include a fourth set of words which directly related to terrorism, particularly as I had noticed that at times words like extremist and terrorist appeared to be used inter-changeably. Additionally, the earlier study had considered how belief words had co-occurred with the terms Muslim(s), Islam and Islamic. For the purposes of this study, a fourth word was identified, which we felt was also important to examine: Islamist.

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Results Table 5.1 shows the frequencies of the words we are examining for the three time periods. There are different amounts of data in each period: 1998–2009 consists of 208,047,979 words, 2010–2014 has 130,533,668 words and 2015–2019 contains 476,851,325 words. Therefore, as well as providing the raw frequencies, the frequencies in terms of per million words (pmw) have been presented, which enable a comparison to be made more easily across the periods (see the last three columns). The pmw figure tells us proportionally how often each word occurs in news stories about Islam during a particular period. The words in Table 5.1 have been grouped into four sets which indicate terrorism, extremist belief, strong belief and moderate belief. Considering the pmw columns, we can see that the latter period (2015–2019) has proportionally the most mentions of all the terror words, as well as militant(s), extremist(s), committed and progressive(s). It should also be noted that collectively, the terror words are the most frequent in the corpus, followed by the ones for extremist belief, with the words relating to strong and moderate belief being generally less frequent. The boundaries between the four groups are somewhat fluid, as the following examples which use compound nouns to link together the concepts of terrorist with militant and extremist indicate. Algeria is also home to extreme militant terrorist groups, which carry out savage attacks on the country’s civilian population. (Evening News Edinburgh, 13 September 2013) Rita Williams, from Maesteg, was at the holiday resort when an Islamic extremist terrorist went on the rampage, leaving 39 holiday-makers dead. (Walesonline.co.uk, 28 June 2015)

In other cases, concepts like terrorist and extremist are implied to be different, but similar (perhaps equivalent), to one another. Mr O’Brien urged world leaders to seize the momentum from the weekend’s international talks in Vienna to put an end to “this horrendous

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Table 5.1 Frequencies of words relating to terror and strength of belief in the Islam News Corpus 19982009 raw

20102014 raw

2015-2019 199820102015raw 2009 pmw 2014 pmw 2019 pmw

terrorist(s)

58,001

43,150

294,656

278.787

330.566

617.920

terrorism

50,398

12,881

131,057

242.242

161.230

274.838

terror

46,501

20,715

223,035

223.511

158.695

467.724

militant(s)

21,778

30,121

95,282

104.678

230.753

199.815

extremist(s)

30,656

26,345

109,445

147.351

201.825

229.516

radical(s)

20,369

11,691

41,779

97.905

89.563

87.614

fundamentalist(s) 13,967

3,832

5,542

67.134

29.356

11.622

fanatic(s/al)

12,049

6.047

19,301

57.915

46.325

40.476

hardline(r/rs)

8,235

4,922

12,258

39.582

37.707

25.706

separatist(s)

4,378

1,761

5,634

21.043

13.491

11.815

firebrand(s)

1,064

686

2,107

5.114

5.255

4.419

committed

14,232

8,739

37,921

68.407

66.948

79.524

strict

5,879

3,414

12,452

28.258

26.154

26.113

orthodox

5,350

1,928

5,686

25.715

14.770

11.924

devout

3,974

1,898

4,211

19.101

14.540

8.831

faithful

3,118

1,246

3,912

14.897

9.545

8.204

pious

1,139

543

1,025

5.475

4.160

2.150

observant

385

189

699

1.851

1.448

1.466

liberal(s)

20,621

7,787

42,815

99.117

87.870

89.787

secular

11,129

6,799

9,682

53.492

52.086

20.304

moderate(s)

10,103

5.676

20,970

48.561

43.483

43.976

progressive(s)

3,094

1,965

10,029

14.872

15.054

21.032

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war” that has cost an estimated 250,000 lives, given rise to extremist and terrorist groups, and reduced much of what was once a middle-income country ‘to rubble”. (Belfast Telegraph, 17 November 2015)

On the other hand, at times a clearer division appears to be made between the devout and extremist terms (although later examples in this chapter suggest this is not always the case). The first person in his family to go to university, Rahman was a secondyear student in public administration, whose parents say he was devout but not militant. (Guardian, 12 June 2016)

Similarly, a distinction between devout and moderate belief appears in some articles but not others. In the following excerpt, someone is described as being devout but moderate, implying that this is a case of exception-negating and typically devout Muslims are not moderate. Alwaleed is a devout but moderate Muslim. (Mail , 12 December 2015)

Such cases were more typical than those which suggested the two terms were synonymous as in the following excerpt. Parveen claimed that she was a devout, moderate Muslim. (Telegraph, 29 November 2005)

Table 5.1 only gives an impressionistic sense of how Islam and Muslims are represented in the corpus, however, as numerous citations might be used in unrelated cases e.g. strict might be used to refer to a door policy rather than strength of belief. For this reason, I have considered collocation as a means of better understanding representation in the corpus. Collocation refers to the co-occurrence of words, and it is used in this sense to identify the proportion of times that the words Muslim(s), Islam, Islamic and Islamist co-occur (e.g. appear within 1– 3 words) with the four sets of words in Table 5.1. The relevant data is provided in Figs. 5.1–5.4. Figure 5.1 indicates that relatively speaking, Muslim(s) and Islam are directly associated with words denoting terror infrequently (less than 1%

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18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Muslim(s)

Islam 1998-2009

Islamic 2010-2014

Islamist

2015-2019

Fig. 5.1 Percentage of times terror(ist/ists/m) co-occurs with words relating to Islam over time

of occurrences). On the other hand, the terror words are more strongly associated with Islamic and Islamist. Whilst there was a decline in this practice during the period 2010–2014, it has more recently increased, particularly for Islamist, which appeared with a terror word around 1 in 6 times in 2015–2019. The strong association of Islamist and terror could be seen as having a priming effect (Hoey 2004) whereby even when Islamist occurs away from terrorist words, the association could be triggered as a result of news-readers’ previous encounters with the way that Islamist is used. For the purposes of this study, Islamist is understood as referring to someone who advocates that Islam should form the basis as a political system. However, its association with terror suggests it is often used in a more specific way, linked to those who advocate violence. Shepard et al. (2009) have noted how the term has acquired a quasi-criminal connotation, associated with those who want to establish, through violent means, an Islamic State or impose Shariah Law. It could be argued that whilst the pairing of terrorism words with all the terms in Fig. 5.1 is likely to result in negative priming, the effect is perhaps most pernicious with Muslim(s) as it is the only word which directly refers to human beings whilst the other words in Fig. 5.1 refer

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to abstract concepts relating to religious and political beliefs. However, it could be argued that it is also problematic to associate words like Islam, Islamic and Islamist with terror and extremism as it allows journalists to brand Islam as dangerous without appearing to attack anyone personally. Not all cases in Fig. 5.1 are straightforwardly used negatively. A small number of cases attribute terms like Muslim terrorist as part of racist discourse. A British Sikh has told of his horror of being spat at, punched in the face and branded a “Muslim terrorist” as he tried to enter a Polish nightclub while wearing his turban. (standard.co.uk, 2 December 2015)

However, in other sections of the press, there is criticism of those who advocate the avoidance of terms like Muslim terrorist, as this leader article about the culture of the BBC indicates. Without irony, BBC managers describe the Corporation as “the greatest force for good in the world”. DIVERSITY and multiculturalism have to be promoted at all times. Most politicians, apart from radical mavericks, are seen as liars, and the police are deemed untrustworthy and largely racist. And staff are encouraged to avoid “emotive” terms such as “Muslim terrorist” and substitute “militant” or the more neutralsounding “Islamist”. (Express, 22 June 2006)

Some cases involve letters from members of the public which are printed in newspapers, as in the following excerpt which uses the term Muslim terror. THANK goodness Muslim extremist gun sniper John Allen Muhammad is locked up. The US was right not to agree to his demand for cash which could have ended up funding terror. But civilians are no longer safe from Muslim terror, whether it be Moscow, Bali, the USA or Israel, and it is only a matter of time before an outrage happens here - so Mr Blair and Mr Bush must step up their war on terror. (Daily Star, 29 October 2002)

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In order to get a better impression of the associations of terrorism in the news corpus, Table 5.2 shows the collocates (within three words either side) of the words terror, terrorist(s) and terrorism taken collectively. The top 10 content words (nouns, verbs and adjectives) which occur most often with the terror words are shown in the table for each of the time periods, with the frequency columns showing how often each collocate co-occurs with the terror words. Table 5.2 shows quite a lot of overlap between the three periods with 7 words (attack, attacks, group, Islamic, suspect, suspects and threat ) occurring in all periods. Of the words that directly relate to Islam, Islamic is always within the top 10 of content words collocating with terror words. Even though Islamist appears to be more frequent than Islamic in Fig. 5.1, we need to bear in mind that Fig. 5.1 only shows proportional frequencies (what percentage of times Islamic occurs with terror words) whereas Table 5.2 shows actual raw frequencies (how often in total Islamic occurs with terror words). The table also indicates that the collocate war has dropped out of the top 10 in 2015–2019. War largely appears in the table as a result of the phrase war on terror(ism), which was used to refer to US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9.11 terror attacks on America. Jackson (2005: 8) has criticised the phrase as ‘simultaneously a set of actual practices—wars, covert operations, agencies and institutions—and Table 5.2 Most frequent collocates of terror words over time 1998– 2010– 2015– Frequency 2014 Frequency 2019 2009 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

war attacks suspects group network groups attack Islamic threat suspect

7,589 3,310 2,865 1,603 1,316 1,291 1,164 1,033 953 863

group war attacks suspects attack suspect threat charges Islamic groups

1,947 1,611 1,379 1,222 1,031 867 795 721 638 599

attack attacks group Paris threat ISIS Islamic suspect suspects cell

Frequency 41,696 38,656 29,578 13,194 8,669 6,891 6,205 5,357 5,234 4,994

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an accompanying series of assumptions, beliefs, justifications and narratives—it is an entire language or discourse’. The phrase was abandoned by the British government in April 2007. Figure 5.2 indicates how words relating to Islam are associated with the set of extremist words in Table 5.1. To recap these words are extremist(s), fanatic(s/al), firebrand(s), fundamentalist(s), hardline(er/ers), militant(s), radical(s) and separatist(s). The extremist words are generally more frequently connected to central concepts around Islam than the terror words, although as with Fig. 5.1, we can see that they are more strongly linked to Islamic and Islamist. The Muslim Council of Britain has requested that journalists do not use the phrase Islamic extremism as they do not view it as a neutral term but one that makes a direct link between the religion and the ideology of extremism. Islam is a general term for a religion that is practiced by 1.8 billion people, with several schools of jurisprudence and numerous interpretations of key texts. Terms like Islamic extremism are therefore massively over-generalising.

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Muslim(s)

Islam 1998-2009

Islamic 2010-2014

Islamist

2015-2019

Fig. 5.2 Percentage of times extremist words co-occur with words relating to Islam over time

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The Channel 4 programme features a young Asian woman who turns to Islamic extremism after witnessing Government-sponsored harassment of her friends. (The Mail , 4 March 2007)

The Muslim Council of Britain also notes that the term Muslim extremist is problematic as although this does not demonise the entire religion of Islam, instead laying blame at the door of an individual, it implies that the Muslimness of the individual is relevant. A MUSLIM extremist set to give speeches across the country was banned from Britain yesterday. (The Sun, 18 June 2010)

Figure 5.2 indicates that there has been a decrease over time with the association of extremism with Muslim(s) and Islamic, although an increase with Islam and Islamist. Indeed, in 2015–2019, Islamist appeared with a word like extremist, militant or separatist around one in every 4 times that it was mentioned. This figure was around 1 in 9 for Islamic, 1 in 15 for Islam and 1 in 64 for Muslim(s). In order to get a better sense of how the extremist words are used, and the extent to which they are used in relation to words pertaining to Islam, it is useful to consider their most frequent collocates. Table 5.3, therefore, shows the most frequent adjective collocates (with a 3 word span) in each of the three time periods when the extremist words are considering collectively. It can be seen that for all three periods the most frequent collocate of these words is Islamic, although Islamist always occurs in the top 3 and Muslim is down from 2nd place in 1998–2009 to 6th place in 2015–2019. Table 5.3 contains the terms far-right and right-wing in the top ten of the 2015–2019 column, indicating that during this period when newspapers referred to Islam or Muslims they also sometimes referred to other forms of extremism. The following article discusses figures from the law enforcement agency Europol, and shows how right-wing extremism is seen as linked to Islam. Most plotters were home-grown extremists radicalised in their own countries and new attacks were ‘highly likely’ despite the collapse of Islamic

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Table 5.3 Most frequent adjective collocates of extremist words over time Adjective 1998– 1-3L 2009 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

2010– Frequency 2014

Islamic 16,921 Muslim 5,819 Islamist 2,790 Palestinian 2,298 religious 1,432 other 1,402 suspected 1,332 young 528 violent 476 Christian 465

Islamic Islamist Muslim other suspected religious British Palestinian violent alleged

2015– Frequency 2019 8,427 4,497 2,455 1,075 839 587 568 550 417 296

Frequency

Islamic 26,582 Islamist 13,393 other 4,396 suspected 3,629 Kurdish 3,476 Muslim 3,409 far-right 2,070 violent 1,993 British 1,878 right1,649 wing

State in the Middle East. A rise in Right-wing extremism in Europe had been ’partly fuelled by fears of a perceived Islamisation of society and anxiety over migration’. (Scottish Daily Mail , 21 June 2018)

The collocate Christian occurs in 10th position for the 2009–2015 texts. It is a relatively rare occurrence—465 cases compared to 16,921 incidences of Islamic collocating with the extremist words. It should be borne in mind that the corpus was collected on the basis of containing articles about Muslims, rather than Christians, so we should not view the disparity as revealing that the press hardly ever use terms like Christian extremist. Therefore, a separate search of the database of Nexis was carried out, finding 1,450 uses of Muslim extremist occurring in British newspapers between 1998 and 2009. The equivalent figure for Christian extremist was 78. The former term is thus 18 times more frequent than the latter across British news as a whole. When cases of Christian paired with extremist words are examined in the corpus, there are cases which actually note its rarity, compared to terms like Islamic extremism, as the following letter indicates. If we must talk of Islamic extremism and Islamic terrorism, why do we not talk of Christian extremism or Catholic terrorists in relation to what were brutal killers in Northern Ireland? (Telegraph, 20 August 2006)

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Catholic extremist only occurs 18 times in UK newspapers between 1998 and 2009 in the Nexis database, being even less frequent than Christian extremist. As well as asking what is described as an extremist we can also consider their representation in terms of what they are described as doing or having done to them. Table 5.4 thus shows the top verb collocates for the extremist words collectively. Compared to Table 5.3, which considered adjectives, there is less change here over time, with the top 3 always being said , killed and claimed . We might note the higher frequency of verbs relating to violence in the 2010–2014 and 2015–2019 sections of the corpus, with six verbs denoting violence in 2010–2014: killed , attacked , seized , stormed , fired and launched and five verbs denoting violence in 2015–2019: killed , attacked , stormed , launched and detonated as opposed to only two in 1998–2009: killed , attacked . Extremists thus seem to be increasingly represented as involved in acts of violence over time. In the following excerpts, extremists and radicals are described as killing, making them akin to terrorists. Islamist extremists stormed the hotel in capital Bamako on Friday, killing 19 people. (Daily Record , 22 November 2015)

Table 5.4 Most frequent verb collocates of extremist words over time verb 3R3L

1998– 2009

2010– Frequency 2014

2015– Frequency 2019

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

said killed claimed took believed came warned attacked told became

1,906 539 527 246 219 218 211 204 192 191

1,555 440 303 274 268 242 185 160 147 146

said killed claimed took attacked seized stormed fired became launched

Frequency

said 5,743 killed 2,008 claimed 1,109 attacked 982 stormed 918 took 747 launched 572 detonated 491 told 475 possessed 444

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A siege at Kenya’s largest shopping mall in Nairobi launched by Islamic radicals in which dozens of shoppers were killed and more than 170 were injured, appears to be finally over. (Guardian, 24 September 2013)

In contrast, the extremists in 1998–2009 seem to be more connected to verbs of speech or cognition: said , claimed , warned , told , believed , although it is not typically extremists who are carrying out these actions. THE Queen used her annual Christmas Broadcast to appeal for greater multicultural and religious tolerance and understanding in Britain - but warned that extremists could wreck peace and progress. (Daily Express, 26 December 2004) Officers made at least seven arrests yesterday as senior Turkish politicians and officials met to discuss an intelligence report saying hundreds of Turkish Islamic radicals believed to have fought in foreign conflicts could have returned to work with militant groups. (Scotsman, 22 November 2003)

Moving on, Fig. 5.3 shows the proportional frequencies for the uses of devout words (orthodox, pious, committed , devout, strict, faithful and observant ) with words relating to Islam. Here, the frequencies are much smaller (all less than 1.4%), although there is a reverse picture to Figs. 5.1 and 5.2, whereby Muslim(s) is most likely to be associated with devout belief, and Islamist least likely. However, looking back to Table 5.1, it is the case that mentions of the devout words overall have fallen over time. Some cases of devout Muslim are used in contexts where Muslims are described as victims of crime, as in the following excerpt which describes a devout Muslim who is also a ‘family man’, both implied to be positive characteristics which help to engender a sense of sympathy for the victim of an attack. Det Chief Insp Dave Mirfield, leading the hunt, said: “This was a vicious and unprovoked attack and we are appealing for anyone who witnessed the incident to come forward.” Dr Naqvi is a devout Muslim and family man. The attackers are believed to be white and obviously we have to look at this as a possible racially motivated attack.

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1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 Muslim(s)

Islam 1998-2009

Islamic 2010-2014

Islamist

2015-2019

Fig. 5.3 Percentage of times devout words co-occur with words relating to Islam over time 1.8 1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 Muslim(s)

Islam 1998-2009

Islamic 2010-2014

Islamist

2015-2019

Fig. 5.4 Percentage of times moderate words co-occur with words relating to Islam over time

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Whilst terms like devout Muslim are generally represented more positively in the news, compared to terms like Muslim extremist, numerous cases were noted where the devout words were used in ways that appeared to be synonymous with extremism. In the first example below, the terror group Boko Haram is described as wanting to turn Nigeria into a devout Muslim state, and a description of their violent activities is given. The second example describes devout Muslim women as demanding to wear ‘preposterous forms of dress’. Boko Haram’s goal is to turn Nigeria into a devout Muslim state under Sharia law. It bombs churches, schools and slaughters men, women and children. In February its forces attacked a boys’ boarding school, locked the pupils in a building then set it on fire. Any boys who got out had their throats cut and 59 died. (Sun, 11 February 2009) Devout Muslim women (who have nothing in common with my secular Muslim friends) demand the right to wear more and more preposterous forms of dress, prompting Anglican bishops to insist they’re entitled to wear really big crosses. (Independent, 22 October 2006)

The phrase described/cast/projected/regarded/portrayed (him/her) as a devout Muslim occurring 155 times in the corpus, usually involving stories of people who are claimed to be devout Muslims but are then linked to terrorism or extremism. Abdulmutallab, described as a devout Muslim, tried to ignite an explosive device on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day after shouting about Afghanistan. Bomb materials had apparently been sewn into his underwear, an authoritative American report said. (Times, 27 December 2012)

Other representations of devout Muslims describe them as hypocritical. A rapist who masqueraded as a devout Muslim was blasted as a hyprocrite [sic] by a judge as he was jailed for 16 years for attacks on schoolgirls. (Manchester Evening News, 5 May 2016)

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The devout set of words are used in complex ways, then, sometimes positively or sympathetically, but at times they imply extremism, either hidden or not. Figure 5.4 shows occurrences of moderate words (progressive(s), moderate(s), liberal(s), secular ) relating to Islam over time. Again, this type of collocation is relatively rare, with no cases exceeding 1.8%. As with the devout cases, the proportion of times that Muslim(s) are paired with words relating to moderate belief is decreasing, as is the case for Islamic. The other two words, Islam and Islamist have also seen falls since 1998–2009. Unlike the devout words, the moderate ones tend to be used in a much more straightforwardly positive way when they are used to describe Muslims, for example describing them as working with the government. Sir Andrew reported: ‘We need to find ways of strengthening the hand of moderate Muslim leaders, including the young Muslims with future leadership potential, through the status which contact with the Government can confer, and through practical capacity building measures.’ (Independent, 4 April 2006)

However, there are still some criticisms that moderate Muslims are not doing enough to stem extremism. Moderate Muslim leaders and parents should be more aware that their confused and disillusioned youth are prime targets for the extremists and preachers of hate. (Express, 6 July 2006)

The term itself has also been criticised in the press, for the implications associated with it. The implication in the term “moderate Muslim” is someone who is not especially devout. But being devout is not antithetical to being moderate. That is why it is so important to make a distinction between being moderate, conservative and religious. Many of the people I talked to considered themselves devout Muslims but told me they believed Islam was intrinsically moderate. (Guardian, 16 March 2015)

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Thus, whilst the press generally view moderate Muslims as ‘good Muslims’, there is the implication that Muslims who are not viewed as moderate are problematic, and even terms like devout can carry connotations of extremism as shown earlier.

Conclusion The analysis shows the changing picture of representations around belief and ideology in relationship to Islam and Muslims over time. A key pattern has been a gradual avoidance of labelling Muslims as extremist, devout or liberal. Instead, labels of strength of belief have been attributed to abstractions, with Islam and Islamist both more likely over time to be associated with extremist belief. The analysis has also indicated a shift in the ways that extremist labels were used over time, with terms like extremist being more likely to be associated with acts of war or terror in the latter half of the corpus. It was also found that discussion of terrorism was proportionally much more likely occur in articles referring to Islam or Muslims in the later years of the corpus as opposed to the earlier ones. On the other hand, mentions of devout or liberal types of belief appear to have decreased over time in these articles. These findings present a mixed picture then, indicating efforts by journalists to avoid some of the more obviously problematic uses of language like Muslim terrorist, although discussion of extremism and terrorism in relation to more abstract concepts relating to Islam is still very much present. In 2015, I gave a plenary talk at a conference where I presented some of my earlier work on how the British press had represented Islam, based on Baker et al. (2013). At the end of the conference, I was approached by a member of the audience who told me that my talk had been ‘propaganda’ and that it is the job of newspapers to write newsworthy stories and this involves negative stories involving violence, war and terror. If such stories involve Muslims, then this is just one of those things and does not indicate bias on the part of the press. It is certainly true that news values (Galtung and Ruge 1965) play a large part in what newspaper editors decide is worth reporting, and stories that are based around conflict tend to sell papers (or in today’s

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context, are more likely to clicked upon, generating advertising revenue). Stories that describe terrorist attacks, wars or the activities of people who hold extreme beliefs are therefore likely to be reported on. This poses a dilemma in terms of responsible media reporting, however, in that a minority of Muslims tend to receive a great deal of attention in the news, and they tend to be the ones involved in violence and conflict. In a non-Muslim majority country like the UK, many readers will receive information about Islam based on reading stories that repetitively focus on problematic cases. This is likely to result in some readers over-generalising these negative representations of Muslims and Islam, which is sadly likely to result in Islamophobia, Muslims withdrawing from interaction with non-Muslims and an increased sense of grievance, which has the potential to engender extremist belief, perpetuating a cycle of further negative stories about Muslims. Indeed, this is something which some parts of the press are concerned about, as the following example indicates. There has been a 300 per cent rise in reports of attacks against Muslims since the devastating events of Paris according to Tell-Mama, an organisation which records incidents of verbal and physical attacks on Muslims and mosques in the UK. A similar trend emerged in the aftermath of the murder of Lee Rigby in Woolwich. Considering Muslims to be the enemy within or a fifth column, allowing the term “Muslim” to become synonymous with “extremist” and “potential terrorist”, is playing to the tune of Daesh (the so-called Islamic State). Division, hatred and committing violence towards each other is central to their ideology. (Yorkshire Post, 2 December 2015)

It should also be noted that the way that Muslims and Islam are represented in stories involving extremist or terrorist activities is not equivalent to the way that journalists represent such cases where Christians are involved, as indicated by the low frequency of use of terms like Christian extremist. British journalists writing about Muslims would be advised to perhaps consider how their articles would appear if equivalent words relating to Christianity replaced the ones about Muslims and Islam. A recent strategy appears to be to increasingly assign much of the negative ideological work onto the word Islamist. However, it is difficult

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to know of the extent to which readers of newspapers are able to distinguish between Islamist and Islam, and also Islamist tends to be used to refer to a certain type of political Islam, rather than used in a more wideranging way. The following letter writer disapproves of using Islamist to describe extremists, arguing that religion is a cover for a political play for power. Ever since returning volunteers from the US war of terror to overthrow the Afghan republic started to play the same game back in their home countries (beginning with Algeria) the term Islamist has been used to describe all these extremist groups. In fact, as in Afghanistan, their religious pretentions are hypocritical nonsense to cover purely political grabs for power. This is why I object to the use of the term Islamist or jihadist to describe them. (Morning Star, 11 August 2013)

The analysis in this chapter indicates that the British press have continued to associate Islam and related concepts with terror and extremism. Whilst some sections of the press have taken a more nuanced perspective, there is still much work to be done in order to break these chains of association. The consequences for not doing so could be devastating.

References Awass, O. (1996). The Representation of Islam in the American Media. Hamdard Islamicus, 19(3), 87–102. Baker, P. (2006). Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum. Baker, P., Gabrielatos, C. and McEnery, T. (2013). Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes: The representation of Islam in the British Press. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dunn, K. (2001). Representations of Islam in the Politics of Mosque Development in Sydney. Tijdschrit voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 92(3), 291–308.

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Galtung, J. and Ruge, M. (1965). The structure of foreign news: The presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norwegian newspapers. Journal of Peace Research, 2(1), 64–90. Hoey, M. (2004). Lexical Priming. London: Routledge. Jackson, R. (2005). Writing the War on Terrorism. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Partington, A., Duguid, A. and Taylor, C. (2013). Patterns and Meanings in Discourse: Theory and Practice in Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Poole, E. (2002). Reporting Islam: Media Presentations of British Muslims. London. I.B. Tauris. Richardson, J. E. (2004). (Mis)representing Islam: The Racism and Rhetoric of British Broadsheet Newspapers. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Shepard, W., Burgat, F., Piscatori, J. and Salvatore, A. (2009). ‘Islamism’. In J. Eposito (ed.) The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stubbs, M. (2001). Words and Phrases: Corpus Studies of Lexical Semantics. London: Blackwell. van Dijk, T. (1987). Communicating Racism: Ethnic Prejudice in Thought and Talk. London: Sage.

6 Islamic State: The Political Challenge of Naming Michael B. Munnik

The semantic Othering of Muslims and Islam takes many forms. Since 9/11, with increased news media attention on Muslims and Islam, particular patterns have formed and spread. Journalists fulfil professional norms by writing in terms that clearly state the motivations, reported speech, and names of groups; yet to do so can link an entire tradition and the people associated with it to acts of violence and terrorism, with harmful consequences. Studies of news writing interrogate the words connected to “Muslim” and “Islam” as nouns or “Muslim” and “Islamic” as adjectives to understand their usage and social meaning (Baker et al. 2013; Baker and McEnery 2018). “Islamic” comes with an additional challenge, increased since 2014, through its use in the name of the insurgent group “Islamic State”. That term is the subject of this chapter, and our first task needs to be to limit the term from its wider use: an Islamic M. B. Munnik (B) School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_6

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state can refer to a political reality in a nation such as Iran, a putative reality for Muslim-majority nations that nonetheless lack overt religious governance, or a concept both historical and imagined for the future. The group’s audacious name choice pairs with its claim to a physical territory ruled as a caliphate, and that presents a conundrum for journalists just as it does for scholars, politicians, and people in general. After surveying literature on the importance of naming and the impact of public framing of the group, I examine articles from UK news organisations over three month-long periods between 2014 and 2017 to consider how naming choices are constructed, changed, retained, and employed. In my own text, I refer to the group as Daesh, though cognate terms are also used when necessary.

Framing Islamic State Daesh emerged from conflicts in Syria and Iraq. At first, it centred around the brutal fighter Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who shuttled between Afghanistan post-Soviet withdrawal and his native Jordan, organising fighters and terrorising state and civilian populations through the 1990s (Fishman 2021). After 9/11, the group focused on Iraq, aligning with global terrorist organisation al Qaeda and dubbing itself al Qaeda in Iraq in 2004. Al-Zarqawi’s death two years later led to the dissolution of its ties to al Qaeda, along with a new name and a declaration of its religious, territorial, and state ambitions: the Islamic State in Iraq. Civil unrest in Syria, in concert with wider regional uprisings popularly called the Arab Spring, made that country a likely venue for the group’s ambitions, reflected in the 2013 name change to the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham. By 2014, the group had control of wide regions and key cities, such as Raqqa in Syria and Mosul and Fallujah in Iraq, and on 29 June 2014, the group announced it had established the caliphate and dropped the geographic limitations of “Iraq and al-Sham” to simply declare itself the Islamic State. Such a declaration suits the group’s objectives. As Nagham El Karhili and colleagues note, “An organization’s name is central to its identity” (2021, p. 80). But naming is a social activity, as communications

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scholar Jacqueline Bruscella suggests: “We call organizations, terrorist groups included, ‘into being’ by naming them as organizations and by paying homage to the names we give them” (2015, p. 763). Her “we” is ambiguous, however: a group declares its name; politicians, state actors, and journalists will intersubjectively adopt and adapt that name; and the confusion of different views creates a moment—sometimes a prolonged one—of inconsistency. That inconsistency may revolve around minor issues of spelling (e.g. al Qaida or al Qaeda) or more substantive issues about the meaning of key terms, such as terrorism or liberation. Journalistic style guides reveal how long inconsistencies can remain in place (Munnik, 2023). This confusion is visible in the case at hand, as news organisations oscillate between the various names ascribed to the group: Islamic State, IS, ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh. The political sphere is no more consistent, and some of the confusion in coverage results from reporting on the unsettled question, as we shall see below. Martha Crenshaw, a pioneer of critical terrorism studies, notes the entangled and dynamic nature of language around terrorism: “There are few neutral terms in politics, because political language affects the perceptions of protagonists and audiences, and such effect acquires a greater urgency in the drama of terrorism. Similarly, the meanings of terms change to fit a changing context. Concepts follow politics” (1995, p. 7). Those who originate a term do not have the power to lock in its meaning: as Crenshaw notes, “once concepts are constructed and endowed with meaning, they take on a certain autonomy, especially when they are adopted by the news media, disseminated to the public, and integrated into a general context of norms and values” (1995, p. 9). However, Crenshaw insists that a term cannot be utterly divorced from its context, and although words take on a life of their own, she holds out hope that “scholars can attempt to shape these contours through the judicious use of language” (1995, p. 9). This chapter serves to provide such an intervention, as indeed does this volume as a whole. The “called into being” quality of language around Daesh indicates the group’s entangled relationship with governments and news media. El Karhili and colleagues (2021) examine the group’s institutional positioning by studying Daesh’s own media communications; though

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branding is not the focus of this chapter, the authors’ analytical separation of the terms “Islamic” and “State” is relevant. Whilst recognising the tight fusion of the terms for the group, they identify the increasingly broad audiences the group is marketing to and the diverse interests those audiences hold: “Daesh seeks to use its new name to unite adherents who hold different views of the secular and religious missions of the collective” (El Karhili et al. 2021, p. 80). Ultimately, the authors determine that the political “State” designation seems the more important of the two to the group, though religious legitimation is still essential to its ambitions. Observers argue that, by adopting the group’s language, political and news media actors are confirming this status. Think-tank researcher Lauren Williams boldly suggests that, “Unwittingly, the Western media has become an accomplice to Islamic State’s aims” (2016, p. 6). This was primarily accomplished by saturating the news with stories that inspire fear and convey the group’s potency and by adopting its framing of events—repeating its claims and sharing its broadcast materials. Scholars have investigated whether the group’s internal framing is indeed matched in external media reports. Jared Ahmad (2020) uses UK broadcast coverage of the November 2015 attacks in Paris as a case study and identifies three primary frames: (para)military, elusive, and extremist. The first of these frames, encompassing about half of his sample, positions the group in relation to its political ambitions, potentially conferring the legitimacy it seeks. The second, “elusive”, undercuts this, emphasising instead the group’s clandestine, diffuse, and only implicitly organised status. This frame accounts for a quarter of coverage in his sample, with the balance focusing on Daesh’s “extremist” qualities, evoking an “inherently evil entity primarily driven by extremist religious motives and an inherent hatred of ‘Western’ culture” (2020, pp. 579–580). This analysis suggests that the group’s internal emphasis on “State” rather than “Islamic” qualities, as El Karhili and colleagues argue, has been appropriated by UK news media. Ahmad provides a twist, however: the (para)military frames were present primarily in the blow-by-blow analysis of events in the Paris attacks. When journalists looked instead to the group’s aims and motivations, the extremist frame dominated, presenting the group as irrational and, therefore, politically illegitimate.

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Audrey Courty and colleagues (2019) assessed coverage of the same event, drawing from US, UK, and French newspapers. They intended a deliberate test of Williams’s thesis that the mainstream Western news media are being manipulated by Daesh. Their conclusions concurred with her analysis: themes of a clash of civilisations and Islamic State as a formidable foe were present, and “the Daily Mail was found to be the most prominent in reproducing IS propaganda” (Courty et al. 2019, p. 88). In another international study of newspaper reporting, Kris Boyle and Jordan Mower (2018) likewise found the Daily Mail to be exceptional at least by degree in its coverage, though they emphasise the tabloid’s complicity not with Daesh but with US and UK state interests, for example proposing that its “frames may have been motivated by the hope that the news coverage could help stem the flow of radicalised British nationals into the ranks of ISIS” (2018, p. 215). The news media’s independence or collaboration is obliquely referenced in articles on the messaging from state and military actors. Asaf Siniver and Scott Lucas argue that the administration of US president Barack Obama got the tone and strategy wrong on Daesh—especially concerning nomenclature. The decision to call the group ISIL “can be viewed as an evasion—in strategic, policy, and operational terms” (Siniver and Lucas 2016, p. 63). That is indeed how the authors view it, though their reasoning turns largely on the American public’s lack of familiarity with the term “the Levant”. Further, they argue that obscuring the word “state” frames the group as a terrorist organisation rather than an insurgency with state ambitions. They advocate a different tack: “How does one recognise and address that vital difference between language in support of a clearly defined political strategy and language covering up the lack of that strategy? The answer lies in returning from the abstraction of ‘ISIL’ back to the actuality of the Islamic State” (Siniver and Lucas 2016, p. 78). Strategy is itself a contest within US policy circles. A team of scholars led by Benjamin Smith (Smith et al. 2016) wrote in Perspectives on Terrorism that the Obama administration’s low-key strategy is the right one, not building up Daesh as more than it is and thereby conferring the legitimacy it desires. Political opponents and news media, however, have framed the group as an “existential threat” to the US: “The result of

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this framing is an inherent disconnect between public perceptions of the threat posed by Daesh and the response to Daesh being pursued by the Administration” (Smith et al. 2016, p. 43). Identifying the news media as a crucial venue for developing public understanding and, thereby, public opinion, Smith and colleagues argue that the US government “must do a better job of framing the threat and response to the media”, articulating a “more nuanced understanding” of the group and its motives (2016, p. 48). In this, they align with Williams, who, despite her concern that news media are unwitting accomplices for Daesh, is optimistic about the media’s potential “as a platform for counter-messaging” (2016, p. 14).

The Impact of Journalism Suggestions that the news media are an accomplice to either Daesh or the governments that oppose it will not sit easily with news workers. Journalists in the Anglo-American tradition treasure their independence from government regulation and intrusion, though normative theorists note that collaboration between state and media can take many forms even in democratic societies, including, for example the expectation that government representatives speak on the record (Christians et al. 2009). There are also implicit ways in which state priorities influence journalistic framing and language. Stephen Reese and Seth Lewis (2009) write how the language of the War on Terror generally is transmitted from political actors to news audiences through US journalism, where it is reified and naturalised. Barbie Zelizer (2018) writes specifically about Daesh but, in doing so, reflects on Cold War journalism, where again news media were drafted to support state interests. Seldom was this overt, as US news media “strive for some degree of independent newsmaking— however affected they may be by common, often unvoiced ideological orientations” (Zelizer 2018, p. 10). These orientations manifest in binary constructions, simplification of the contextual factors in an incident that gets reported, and demonisation of the Other or enemy. Alongside Cold War thinking, an enduring trope into which UK reporting on Daesh fits is Islamophobia, which has an impact on Muslims in Britain. The Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), part

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of the Muslim Council of Britain, highlighted the challenges of nomenclature in its report on British media representations of terrorism, writing that, by adopting the English translation of the group’s name, the media are “inadvertently propagating a basic and negative stereotype of Islam” (2020, p. 105). This draws on scholarship that suggests the repeated fusion of “Islamic” with antisocial, violent, or otherwise antagonistic terms reinforces negative associations and even Islamophobic attitudes in media audiences. This idea is developed most fully in a corpus analysis by Paul Baker and colleagues, studying UK newspaper content on Muslims and Islam. They found that the adjective “Islamic” had “a negative discourse prosody” (Baker et al. 2013, p. 45). Moreover, the term was more frequently used in news reports than the noun “Islam” but had a much narrower range of frames: The main pattern of Islamic is as a modifier of nouns that reference people, groups or concepts characterized as extreme or dangerous in some way … A second pattern involves Islamic modifying nouns that reference Muslims as an organized group … and, more frequently, that of Islam as a political entity… (Baker et al. 2013, p. 44)

Though “state” was one of the top words connected with “Islamic”, it was in lower-case form for their initial study, which ended in 2009. When Baker and McEnery applied their codes and methodology to a further sample from 2010 to 2014, these patterns persisted but with a change: “reporting of the Islamic State group’s activities has served to intensify the association of the word Islamic with extremism” (2018, p. 222, emphasis original). The increase was slight, but their analysis concluded in the year Daesh adopted its name. Their restudy also demonstrates an increase in words such as “youth”, “radicalised”, and “travelled” alongside “Muslim”, catching the beginning of a related trend of young British Muslims going abroad to join extremist groups. But can we say with certainty that the mere inclusion of the term in news reports creates this negative attitude in the minds of news audiences? A team of researchers from Vienna examined this problem with experiments in Germany and Austria, supplying participants with different versions of mocked-up news stories about terror

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attacks conducted by groups claiming inspiration from Islam: one set used differentiated language and included statements distancing Muslims as a whole from specific actors, whilst another set used more categorial, less cautious language that made the problem of threat and violence appear endemic to Islam (von Sikorski et al. 2021). Across the two studies, “news coverage that did not differentiate Islamist terrorists from Muslims in general significantly increased the activation of negative stereotypes about Muslims. Such negative stereotypes, in turn, prompted Islamophobic attitudes” (von Sikorski et al. 2021, p. 219). They argue that journalists can help combat negative, Islamophobic attitudes and argue further that “journalists and other communicators should use terms such as Daesh to refer to IS as a means to prevent associations between Islam and the terrorist organisation” (von Sikorski et al. 2021, pp. 221–222, emphasis original). CfMM concurs, making this a recommendation in its report (2020, p. 110). The Vienna researchers’ inclusion of “other communicators” shows sensitivity to journalist-source relations: it is not merely what journalists write but what sources say that builds news reports. A typical (and credible) defense from journalists is that they need to report the truth and not censor actual events just to protect the feelings of people who are associated with the group by shared claim on a religious tradition. A newsworthy group has named itself Islamic State, and it is not for journalists to practice takfir, or the determination of who is and is not a Muslim, and police the boundaries of the religious tradition, much less to invent a new name for the group. This defense, however, has problems. Firstly, any choice is an evaluative one: to claim neutrality is to cede decision-making to actors who will take a stance on the matter. Journalists can assert their independence by deliberately choosing a term just as they can by “not taking sides” and only repeating what they are told. Secondly, there is a problem of consistency: “Islamic State” is not what the group calls itself, since its primary language of communication is not English but Arabic. Properly, the group is ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyah. Lest we assume the Arabic would give English-language news organisations trouble, CfMM (2020, p. 105) reminds us that al Qaeda has a perfectly ordinary English translation: The Base. Taliban translates as The Students, and Lebanese militant group and political party Hezbollah

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is The Party of God, yet journalists have normalised the Arabic names. Indeed, some of the studies cited here note the fear-inspiring quality of al Qaeda as an Arabic name for an English audience (Bruscella 2015; Smith et al. 2016). Something else is going on, and whether journalists are taking their cues from official communications or insisting on a particular way of addressing the group, a choice is at play. Sociolinguist Allan Bell, reflecting on news reports about climate change, observed how journalistic language could introduce errors into published news text, and most of these errors “served to enhance the news value of the story” (1991, p. 229). “Error” may be too strong a word in this instance, as journalists are not inventing a name but choosing to use the English translation of a name the group has claimed. Considering the news value that Bell identified, the choice adds drama by fitting Daesh into broader social narratives of Islamophobia; considering the complicity of news media that Williams (2016) alleges, the choice may serve the objectives of Daesh, conferring on them political legitimacy, religious authenticity, and a measure of fearsome intimidation.

News Reports and Naming The next step in this research is to see how the term “Islamic State” is used in practice in news media reports. It is neither my interest nor my skillset to conduct a dense quantitative analysis of a large corpus of news texts. As the literature review shows, many studies undertake a thematic or framing analysis of news coverage of Daesh in both UK and international contexts. What principally interests me is the discursive construction of the group’s name in social context—principally but not exclusively through state sources. What terms do different organisations use, how do they manage terminological differences amongst sources, and what do they do when terms change? Though I am not conducting a thorough quantitative analysis, I offer some general numbers as part of my analysis, not to make them significant but to indicate choice, proliferation, and change. Given the dramatic actions of Daesh, nested in media representations of Islam and the social fact of Islamophobia, there is a high volume of news stories

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published on the subject. My interest, however, was in isolating two key moments of change: the group’s declaration of the caliphate on 29 June 2014, at which point the term “Islamic State” began to appear on its own rather than as part of a longer title, and the debate over the UK government authorising airstrikes in Syria on 2 December 2015, shortly after the group’s attack on Paris. Prime Minister David Cameron used this occasion to encourage public use of the name “Daesh”, and so it presents an opportunity to see a shift, or at least an attempted shift, in media terminology. I, therefore, conducted searches on Nexis UK, restricting the search to newspapers in the UK publishing in English, over these key moments, spanning roughly a fortnight before and after to catch pre-event coverage and some trends in usage once the intensity of reporting the event had died down. The first search was from 14 June to 14 July 2014, with the group’s declared name change right in the centre. The second search was from 12 November to 12 December 2015: the parliamentary debate is a little more than a fortnight into this period, but I wanted to capture some coverage prior to the 13 November attacks. Finally, to see what impact the government’s endorsement of “Daesh” as the preferred term had on news language, I studied a third month of coverage. The first two periods are eighteen months apart, so my third search spanned from 13 June to 13 July 2017, eighteen months on from the second sample. In each of these three periods, I searched for news stories containing the term “islamic state”. I examined these stories for the term’s usage, noting the context and constructing comparisons. I noted articles that reported on the naming conventions themselves, examining who was advocating for a term and how journalists adopted or discussed it. I also searched these samples for cognate terms “isis”, “isil”, “daesh”, and “‘al dawla’ OR al-dawla OR ‘al dawlah’ OR al-dawlah” (see Table 6.1), paying particular attention to the adoption of “daesh”. Excluding the phrase “islamic state” from the searches for the cognate terms indicates the degree of overlap—it was common for news articles to use several of these terms in the same piece, further demonstrating uncertainty and the absence of a settled term. Also, journalists often write the group’s name out in full on the first reference, shortening it to an acronym on subsequent references. Some articles, however, eschewed this practice

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Table 6.1 Frequency of articles in Nexis UK newspaper search

“Islamic State” ISIS *Excluding “Islamic State” ISIL *Excluding “Islamic State” Daesh *Excluding “Islamic State” al-Dawla and iterations

14 June–14 July 2014

12 November–12 December 2015

13 June–13 July 2017

1,320 2,330 1,176

7,092 9,112 5,650

1,015 1,186 758

90 5

1,874 741

88 28

1 0

1,459 592

198 95

3

20

2

and simply included the shorter acronym throughout, assuming it to be recognised and well-understood by readers. I note briefly here the miniscule use of “al-dawla”, a term that some organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain favour as an alternative to the cognates that link the group with Islam. This is consistent with journalistic treatment of other group names, such as al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Hezbollah. However, we can see from scant journalistic use of the term that its likelihood of adoption is low. In the first sample, all three references come from updated versions of a Guardian story about an Israeli drone strike on Gaza: hotel worker Saad al-Dawla is quoted as an eyewitness. In the second sample, the term appears more often but always in explanatory features detailing the meaning of the acronym “Daesh”. In the third sample, the two references come from updated versions of an Independent story about fighting between Daesh and the coalition opponents: Seif al-Dawla Street is a main road into the city of Raqqa, where buildings were damaged in an airstrike. We shall see below that “Daesh” struggles to vie as an alternative term to “Islamic State”; these numbers indicate that “al-Dawla” would not be better positioned.

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First Sample—Summer 2014 The first sample of news stories with reference to “Islamic State” included 1,320 articles. The group’s declaration of the caliphate and its name change forms the central event in the period; earlier stories in the sample typically concern the group’s military progress, as well as reports about the death of British member Mohammed Emwazi or “Jihadi John”. Even before the group’s name change, we see evidence of confusion about what to call it. The phrase “Islamic State” is frequently part of a longer name. There is no consistency, however, in what longer name they use: we see references to “the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham”, “Iraq and the Levant”, “Iraq and Syria”, and even “Iraq and Greater Syria”, an attempt to translate the Arabic “al-Sham” into words more familiar to UK audiences. Despite the existence of house style for news organisations, none of the major newspapers had a perfect record for internal consistency, though the Express was close. Glasgow broadsheet, the Herald , was scrupulous until 29 June, when the group changed its name: consistency evaporated as several terms were used, until the newspaper settled back into either “the Levant” or the group’s shortened, preferred name “Islamic State”. Right-leaning broadsheets, the Times and the Daily Telegraph, aimed to keep a consistent editorial hand, though there was slippage; the Guardian was much more scattered, as even their regional correspondent Martin Chulov would use “the Levant”, “al-Sham”, and “Syria” in different articles over the month. Occasionally we see inconsistency within a single article, as with the example of Spencer Ackerman writing both “the Levant” and “Syria” in the Guardian (2014). Amongst the national broadsheets, the Times and Daily Telegraph preferred “al-Sham” whilst the Guardian and Independent opted most commonly for “the Levant”. Reading a political dimension into these choices is tempting but beyond the scope of this analysis. “The Levant” was also preferred amongst most major regional papers, such as London’s Evening Standard , Wales’s Western Mail , and Scotland’s Herald and, less consistently, the Scotsman. In the Western Mail , references to “Syria” increased with reports of three young Cardiff men who went to Syria to join the group; the turn may reflect language used by Cardiff sources such as family members, police, and imams. Amongst tabloids, the

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Mirror was messiest, oscillating between the three principal variations. The Daily Mail was evenly divided between “al-Sham” and “Syria” whilst avoiding “the Levant” almost entirely; the Sun and Express both preferred the latter term. “ISIS” remained the most popular acronym, regardless of where the newspaper stood on the “al-Sham/the Levant” divide; “ISIL” was used far less. This led to another kind of inconsistency, noted in a multi-authored feature in the Guardian on the group’s success: “Isis is the (slightly confusing) English acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant” (“Isis: How Did They Do It?” 2014). Reporting practices did not change dramatically in this sample after the declaration of a name change. After the initial wave of reports on the group’s declaration 29–30 June, the Islamic State became more visible in reports; by 4 July, these references were reducing again, though they did not disappear. By the end of the sample, 14 July, we see references to “Iraq and the Levant” in the Guardian and Independent and to “alSham” in the Daily Telegraph, Times, and Scottish edition of the Express. The Daily Telegraph and Independent were most willing to use the name “Islamic State” once the group declared it, though this was still minority usage compared to the popular acronyms. Comparatively, the Times was the most unmoved. This would change eighteen months later.

Second Sample—Autumn/Winter 2015 The second sample, encompassing the Islamic State-claimed attacks in Paris and the subsequent UK parliamentary debate about airstrikes, includes a much higher number of articles that reference “Islamic State”. Between 12 November and 12 December 2015, Nexis returned 7,092 articles in English-language UK newspapers using the term. Two things stand out from this sample: nearly all the newspapers swung decidedly over to “Islamic State”, and “Daesh” had a much higher usage. Though use of “ISIS” as an acronym still exceeds “Islamic State”, the gap is narrower (see Table 6.1), and all newspapers bar one shed the geographic limitations of the group’s former name(s) in the earlier sample. The holdout is the Daily Telegraph, which insisted on references to “the

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Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” in its own text, outside of quotations; when quoting a source, the paper would include the source’s terminology. It may not be surprising that, in the competitive UK news ecosystem, where news organisations position themselves against rivals, the Daily Telegraph would take an original stance. More surprising, however, is that the broadsheet had been a determined champion of “al-Sham” in the first sample. Somewhere in the intervening eighteen months, during which other titles swung to “Islamic State”, the Daily Telegraph swung, too, but in a different direction. Within the sample, the term “Daesh” appears 769 times, featuring in about ten per cent of articles. This is not evenly spread across the sample, however. Prior to the day of the Westminster debates, during which the prime minister urged politicians to use the term, “Daesh” averages to appear in seven per cent of the daily tally. During the immediate coverage of the debate between 2 and 5 December, the term appears in 30–40% of articles. For the remainder of the sample period, “Daesh” is used in an average of 15% of articles—double its usage before the debate, though still low compared to other cognates. To consider its lasting impact, we must look to the third sample, eighteen months later, to which we turn below. The surge in usage of “Daesh” is explained by source dependency. French political leaders were already referring to the group as “Daesh”, so when journalists quoted them about the Paris attacks and the political response, this was the term they used. As this increased, articles told readers that the Australian prime minister and the US secretary of state also use the term. Following the attacks and before the parliamentary debate, a set of MPs campaigned for its usage. On 17 November, Anne McLaughlin of the Scottish National Party urged MPs “to ‘stop using the name of Islam’ when discussing the terrorists”; the report continues that Home Secretary Theresa May “agreed. ‘I quite often use the term Daesh, though I haven’t done this afternoon’, she said, apologetically” (Deacon 2015). Politicians thus were finding their way through a changing rhetorical landscape alongside the news media. Conservative MP Rehman Chishti was portrayed as the lead, and when during the airstrikes debate on 2 December David Cameron determined to call the group “Daesh”, the Times reported it as a concession to Chishti’s

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campaign (Jones 2015). Insightfully, the article’s lead reveals both the internal contest on naming and the deliberate effort at characterising the group in the wider public imagination—an effort that may not succeed: “David Cameron bowed to growing parliamentary pressure today and tried to rebrand the extremists in Iraq and Syria” (Jones 2015, emphasis mine). That rebranding effort cannot be accomplished by politicians alone. As we saw in the literature review, the media are a key lever in effecting social change. Chishti, having won over the prime minister to his views, exhorted “‘the BBC and all media to follow, so together we can defeat this evil death cult’s propaganda and self-proclaimed legitimacy and appeal’” (Jones 2015). This article, alongside many others focused on the parliamentary discussion on naming, refers to a dispute from summer 2015 when Cameron urged the BBC to stop calling the group “Islamic State” in its reports; Cameron, following Obama’s lead, was using “ISIL” at the time. BBC declined to change its policy, suggesting that the pejorative connotations of “Daesh” meant using it would compromise the broadcaster’s requirement of impartiality (Smith 2015), and it repeated its decision during the December debates. The broadcaster also noted that whilst its naming decisions became a news story, other news organisations were not receiving the same scrutiny: “‘The BBC uses the name the group itself uses, using additional descriptions to help make it clear we are referring to the group… We also note newspapers including The Times refer to the group as Islamic State’” (Jones 2015). Throughout the reporting on politicians’ debates, references to the BBC’s policy, and explanatory features on what the different names mean, there was little reflection in the sample on news organisations’ own policies. The Times included comments from BBC and Chishti, quoted above; the Mirror concluded an article analysing the debates by noting, “The Mirror uses ISIS, ISIL, IS and Islamic State interchangeably” (Gripper 2015). And the Guardian, through its Readers’ Editor Stephen Pritchard, quoted the editor of its house style guide David Marsh that a change “‘would confuse our readers, who have become familiar with the terms Islamic State and Isis…’ So our style remains unchanged” (Pritchard 2015). That same day, the Guardian’s anonymous Media Monkey column tallied the naming practices of national news

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organisations, much as this chapter has done, finding that “Islamic State” prevailed, at least on first reference, despite the urgings of politicians; the column similarly identified the Daily Telegraph as the exception which “politely reproduces in full what the organisation calls itself, without shortening or caveat. Dave’s Daesh is uniquely dubbed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant at the start of each relevant article, and the paper is therefore also alone in plumping for Isil as the shorter form” (“Media Monkey’s Diary: The Archers, You and Yours, Who’s Who” 2015) This is the only explicit justification in this sample for the choices newspapers take regarding the name of the group. Otherwise, we are left to interpret their practice: predominantly “Islamic State” and “ISIS”. When “Daesh” is used, it frequently appears in source quotations, most often political ones. Outside of quotations, it is often in text paraphrasing sources, articulating a battery of terms, or discussing its meaning in an analysis or comment piece. Rarely does it manifest in regularised news practice.

Third Sample—Summer 2017 Despite the resistance to “Daesh” as a substitute for “Islamic State” seen in the second sample, newspapers might subsequently adopt the term. As we saw above, the unaccompanied phrase “Islamic State” was not widely taken up by news organisations in the first sample after the group changed its name. Most newspapers continued to use their preferred long-form title or rested on English-based acronyms. Yet, over the intervening eighteen months to the second sample, news language had shifted dramatically. This was not to be the case, however, with “Daesh”: in the third sample of news stories, between 13 June and 13 July 2017, “Daesh” remains a minority usage. My Nexis UK search returned 1,015 stories including “Islamic State” and only 198 using “Daesh”; of that latter figure, 103 appear in articles that also refer to “Islamic State”, which tracks to about ten per cent—the same proportion as in the second sample. This period included significant news events related to the group. Early in the sample period, we have news of the death of al-Baghdadi, and late in the period, the recapture of Mosul by Iraqi forces, supported

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by a US-led international coalition. We also see reports of terrorist attacks, or court proceedings for older attacks, for which Daesh is billed as an inspiration. The attacks on Manchester Arena and London Bridge occurred within a month of the sample, and references to these events surface throughout. These stories highlight the persistence of frames discussed in the literature review: a focus on the political and military activity of the group and the group’s implication in the dynamics of global terror. Within the sample, we see occasional references to “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”—usually in quotations, and these were not corrected by editorial insertions. The Daily Telegraph persisted in its commitment to “the Levant”. Journalistic preference for “Islamic State” is best seen in the treatment of “Daesh”, which again features largely in quotations from official sources. On 22 June, the Mirror corrected the statement of “a military insider” who referred to “‘a Daesh (Islamic State) attack on Iraqi security forces’” (Lion 2017); within a week of this story, the Times did something similar with an Australian government source and the Evening Standard with a UK government source. They reported the quoted term accurately but then modified it, providing the imprint of their house style. Despite copious reporting not only on the group’s activities but on public debates about what to call it, news organisations stood by their public argument that UK audiences are unfamiliar with the term. Additionally, it demonstrates their autonomy from state sources and narratives.

Discussion and Conclusion Surveying the language in news coverage of Daesh over three discrete periods between 2014 and 2017, we see evidence of both change and consistency as well as a demonstration of journalistic autonomy in the social web of discourse. Change is evident in the difference between the first and second samples: in the first, organisations used a variety of names for the group, not settling on one agreed term across news organisations or even, at times, within them. By the second sample, almost all major news organisations had adopted an agreed, singular term for the group: “Islamic State”, followed by acronyms “ISIS” or “IS”. This

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remained the case despite public debate about what, specifically, journalists should call the group; moreover, the journalistic decision was resilient to influence and pressure from high-ranking politicians, including the prime minister. In the third sample, their agreed terminology was maintained, so there was no indication of initially resisting calls to change and then, down the line, submitting to those appeals. The change from “the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant/al-Sham/ Syria” to “Islamic State” is understandable from a journalistic point of view. The latter term is shorter and sharper, and in a print economy disciplined into brevity, all those words matter. Further, some of the words in the former title are unfamiliar or in a different language: being free to shed those terms makes the news copy look recognisably English. The fact that news organisations could not agree on a term may have also influenced the decision, since a lack of consensus suggests a lack of verifiable facts. News organisations claim to offer the truth, so when faced with a legitimate “well, which is it?” question, it satisfies their professional expectations to provide a correct answer. Journalists can also satisfy themselves that they are inhabiting their notionally objective role, calling the group what it calls itself and not taking sides. This argument, however, is a red herring: the group refers to itself in Arabic, and journalists have had no problems incorporating Arabic terms in other cases. Opting for the translation makes transparent to UK audiences the group’s claim that it is an Islamic state. Arguably, then, these news media are, as Williams (2016) claims, acting as accomplices for the group. Whilst conferring legitimacy on a violent group, the decision can also cause harm in the UK. Baker and colleagues (2013) note the widespread use of “Islamic” as an adjective in news copy, linking the terms and events it modifies to the religion and its adherents. Scholars demonstrate that undifferentiated news writing about Muslims and terrorism can nourish Islamophobic attitudes in news audiences (von Sikorski et al. 2021), and Islamophobia in society has negative consequences for Muslims getting on with their daily lives, having no connection with the violent group (Samari et al. 2018). If there is something Islamic about murderous insurgents in Syria, British news audiences may wonder about their safety amongst Muslims on British streets. Journalists will argue, though, that their role is not to protect feelings but to report facts, and if a group

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anchors its name, justifies its actions, and articulates its ambitions in Islamic terms, they would be remiss to avoid mention of this. But just as undifferentiated news writing can feed Islamophobia, von Sikorski and colleagues (2021) note that differentiated copy can help journalists straddle the demands for accuracy and the appeals to avoid harm. The adoption of a different name, such as “Daesh” or “al-Dawla”, could aid this work, though it is not sufficient and, as sceptical commentators have noted, may be nothing more than a confidence trick. At any rate, arguments from MPs such as Rehman Chishti proved compelling for parliamentary colleagues but not for journalists. Eighteen months after heavy reporting on the very issue of nomenclature, journalists persisted with their preferred term and used editorial interventions to explain when sources used divergent terms. Though journalistic autonomy is not absolute, even in a democratic society with private, liberalised media, in this case journalists demonstrated their independence. This should give pause to those who wish to draft journalists as accomplices to state interests (cf. Smith et al. 2016; Williams 2016). Journalists, however, may wish to recognise their own position within society and that any choice benefits one or another side. There is no neutral ground to take. Recommendations on Using “Islamic State” in CfMM Style Guide CfMM suggest the replacement of “Islamic State” and “Isil/Isis” with the more commonly used Daesh or the more accurate “al-Dawlah”, given the group is neither “Islamic” nor is it a “state”. There are two main arguments used by proponents of using “Islamic State”, neither of which are persuasive. The first argument is “that is their name”, despite their name actually being “al-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah” or “al-Dawlah” for short. The names of other familiar groups such as Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, or Hizbullah are not translated and no argument is put forward why it should be different in this case. The second argument is that Daesh is not an impartial term given its negative connotations. Whilst irrelevant to using the term “al-Dawlah”,

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the argument does not seem to be consistent, given the willingness to use the pejorative “Boko Haram” term.

References Ackerman, S., 2014. Iraq’s Maliki: I Won’t Quit as Condition of US Strikes Against Isis Militants. The Guardian. Ahmad, J., 2020. Constructing the Islamic State: Analysing the Interplay Between Media and Policy Frames in the Aftermath of the November 13th 2015 Paris Attacks. Critical Studies on Terrorism 13, 568–590. Baker, P., Gabrielatos, C., McEnery, T., 2013. Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes: The Representation of Islam in the British Press. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Baker, P., McEnery, T., 2018. The Value of Revisiting and Extending Previous Studies: The Case of Islam in the UK Press, in: Scholz, R. (Ed.), Quantifying Approaches to Discourse for Social Scientists. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, Switzerland, pp. 215–249. Bell, A., 1991. The Language of News Media. Blackwell, Oxford. Boyle, K., Mower, J., 2018. Framing Terror: A Content Analysis of Media Frames Used in Covering ISIS. Newspaper Research Journal 39, 205–219. Bruscella, J.S., 2015. “It’s More Than Just a Name”: A Theoretical Approach to Eradicating Terrorism Through Propositions of Organizational Naming. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38, 759–775. Centre for Media Monitoring, 2020. How the British Media Reports on Terrorism. Centre for Media Monitoring, London. Christians, C.G., Glasser, T.L., McQuail, D., Nordenstreng, K., White, R.A., 2009. Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL. Courty, A., Rane, H., Ubayasiri, K., 2019. Blood and Ink: The Relationship Between Islamic State Propaganda and Western Media. The Journal of International Communication 25, 69–94. Crenshaw, M., 1995. Thoughts on Relating Terrorism to Historical Contexts, in: Crenshaw, M. (Ed.), Terrorism in Context. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA, pp. 3–24. Deacon, M., 2015. We Will Defeat the Jihadists, Vowed Mrs May. The Daily Telegraph.

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El Karhili, N., Hendry, J., Kackowski, W., El Damanhoury, K., Dicker, A., Winkler, C., 2021. Islamic/State: Daesh’s Visual Negotiation of Institutional Positioning. Journal of Media and Religion 20, 79–104. Fishman, B., 2021. The History of the Islamic State: From Abu Musab alZarqawi to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in: Sheehan, M.A., Marquardt, E., Collins, L. (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of U.S. Counterterrorism and Irregular Warfare Operations. Routledge, London, pp. 54–70. Gripper, A., 2015. ISIS Is Daesh—Or Is It ISIL? The Mirror. Isis: How Did They Do It?, 2014. The Guardian. Jones, C., 2015. Call Terror Group Daesh Not Isil, PM Urges. The Times. Lion, P., 2017. Sniper Kills ISIS Fighter from Two Miles Away in the Longest Confirmed Kill Shot Ever. The Mirror. Media Monkey’s Diary: The Archers, You and Yours, Who’s Who, 2015. The Guardian. Munnik, M., 2023. What Style Guides Tell Secular Journalists About Muslims and Islam. Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture. Pritchard, S., 2015. The Readers’ Editor on ... Terminology and Terrorism. The Guardian. Reese, S.D., Lewis, S.C., 2009. Framing the War on Terror: The Internalization of Policy in the US Press. Journalism 10, 777–797. Samari, G., Alcalá, H.E., Sharif, M.Z., 2018. Islamophobia, Health, and Public Health: A Systematic Literature Review. American Journal of Public Health 108, e1–e9. Siniver, A., Lucas, S., 2016. The Islamic State Lexical Battleground: US Foreign Policy and the Abstraction of Threat. International Affairs 92, 63–79. Smith, B.K., Figueroa-Caballero, A., Chan, S., Kovacs, R., Middo, E., Nelson, L., Palacios, R., Yelimeli, S., Stohl, M., 2016. Framing Daesh: Failures and Consequences. Perspectives on Terrorism 10, 40–50. Smith, D., 2015. BBC Rejects MPs’ Calls to Refer to Islamic State as Daesh. The Guardian. von Sikorski, C., Matthes, J., Schmuck, D., 2021. The Islamic State in the News: Journalistic Differentiation of Islamist Terrorism from Islam, Terror News Proximity, and Islamophobic Attitudes. Communication Research 48, 203–232. Williams, L., 2016. Islamic State Propaganda and the Mainstream Media, Analysis. Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney. Zelizer, B., 2018. Cold War Redux and the News: Islamic State and the US Through Each Other’s Eyes. Critical Studies in Media Communication 35, 8–23.

7 Islamification, Islamofascism, and the Ideation of Londonistan Laurens de Rooij

Fierke argues that ‘language use is part of acting in the world’ (Fierke 2009). The methodological basis for this analysis is the study of analogies; in this regard, the similes and metaphors surrounding Muslims and Islam in news discourse. Lakoff and Johnson describe metaphors as discursive devices allowing for understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). They order and make understandable complex phenomena by relating them to other more common phenomena. In turn, it makes them comprehensible by arranging certain facts, objects, and ideas in a specific way (Ghafele 2004). We can distinguish between conceptual metaphors (abstract general notions structuring discourse) and metaphorical expressions (defined as specific statements exemplifying a conceptual metaphor) (Barbé et al. 2014). As Drulak (2006) states, ‘the identification of the metaphors contributing to common sense helps us identify the patterns L. de Rooij (B) Toulouse School of Management, Toulouse, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_7

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which guide the practice of the members of the speech community’. In other words, the representation of Islam or Muslims in the media can bring with it certain conceptualisations and structures that define what Islam or Muslims are to an audience.

Islamification Islamification is defined as the action or process of making something or someone Islamic, or more strictly Islamic, in faith, culture, or character. This is often seen as a synonym or a subset of Islamisation. Whereby Islamisation is understood as the process through which a society shifts towards the religion of Islam and becomes largely Muslim. This is often part of a larger discourse aimed at positioning Muslims in Britain as a threat to the ‘British’ way of life. As such it is important to understand this debate through the lens of what Michel Foucault described as discourse. Here, discourses act as several statements formed into a system, consisting of objects, types of statements, concepts, and themes. A structure is brought to this system through the ordering of the statements according to the correlations and functioning of these statements (Foucault 2002). In turn, these statements constitute an object, and can transform it, based on the corpus of knowledge that underpins the way of looking at this object in accordance with the presupposed system of knowledge (Foucault 2002). This means that Islamification entails a change in the information that constitutes objects, that changes from its pre-existing system, into a system that is defined by Islamic codes and conventions. However, this is often accompanied by a subsequent counter discourse of Orientalism. Edward Said implements this as follows: I have found it useful here to employ Michel Foucault’s notion of discourse … to identify Orientalism. My contention is that without examining Orientalism as a discourse one cannot possibly understand the enormously systematic discipline by which European culture was

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able to manage – and even produce – the orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically and imaginatively during the post-Enlightenment period. (Said 1995)

The media is one method for managing and producing the image of Muslims, in a political, sociological, ideological, and imaginative manner. Because of the heterogeneity of discourse, ‘what may appear to be the unifying categories of a discursive field - categories such as “madness” or “biology”, or, in this case “religion”- in fact receive divergent interpretations and thus determine “spaces of dissension” (Foucault 2002). From this perspective there is no unifying schema or field that synoptically captures divergent discourses’ (Bowen 1993). Therefore, using this conception of discourse, the way that Muslims and Islam are discussed in the news is through a collection of statements formed by a system, through the ordering of those statements, per the rules that categorise those statements. The discourse of Muslims in the British Press is the result of political, sociological, military, ideological, scientific, and imaginative orientations. In turn, these are produced by the dominant group(s) in British society. As a consequence, these statements constitute how Muslims and Islam are perceived and can transform their understanding based upon the way of looking at Muslims and Islam in accordance with the presupposed system of knowledge. There is a subsequent Islamification of people in Britain with heritage from Muslim majority countries. As their identities become conflated and the only identity they are able to hold is one defined by Islam or their supposed Muslimness. Talal Asad argues that subsequently ‘Muslims are included within and excluded from Europe at one and the same time in a special way, and that this has less to do with the “absolutist Faith” of Muslims living in a secular environment and more with European notions of “culture” and “civilization” and “the secular state”, “majority”, and “minority” ’ (Asad 2003). In order to engage in a serious discussion of Muslims in Britain, we must begin not with the problems of Muslims, but with the problems of British society. What is considered problematic is a direct result of these particular notions and definitions. These problems are also located in flaws which are rooted in historic inequalities such as imperialism and have produced longstanding stereotypes. Media discourse sets up

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the parameters and terms for discussing Muslims and Islam. It shapes the perceptions and the responses to the issues presented as associated with Islam and Muslims. However, within this framework, the burden falls on the ‘other’ to do all the work necessary for integration. This also means that when those items are challenged, or an alternative way of life is presented, they are deemed as further indication of Islamification. There are Islamic or oriental effects noticeable in cities such as Bradford, in such things as house architecture for example. In addition, signposts appear in Urdu (Fig. 7.1), which suggests that enough people are unable to communicate in English in order to require signposting in Urdu. It is important to mention here that the signpost is for social services, especially the social services that may cater to those with a disability, or those suffering the effect(s) of ageing. Not all signposting is in two languages. Traffic or road signs are only in English for example. The possibility for people to have a lack of ability in English and a large enough constituency speaking a community tongue make it necessary to have signposting as above. However, the linguistic aspect has led to critique and division. There are those who feel that in England all signposts must be in English and some went further and equated the Urdu translation to Arabic and thought this was an example of ‘creeping sharia’ or Islamification. However, in Wales, signposts are in both Welsh and English, and there are areas that have signposts in Polish for example (Diez 2014; Hull 2007). There are other areas where signposting caters to other minority groups such as information tables that have their writing in Braille for example. However, it does raise questions related to place and privilege among other South Asian communities whose community language (Hindi, Bengali, etc.) was not on signposts. Even if in some areas, they are an equally large group.

Islamofascism Islamofascism as a term is used to link the ideological characteristics of Islamist or Islamic fundamentalist movements (or in some cases Islam in general) and European fascist movements or totalitarianism. This closely

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Fig. 7.1 Picture taken of Morley Street Resource Centre in Bradford showing both English and Urdu on the signs

resembles what William Cavanaugh describes in The Myth of Religious Violence: The myth of religious violence serves on the domestic scene to marginalize discourses and practices labelled religious. The myth helps to reinforce adherence to a secular social order and the nation state that guarantees it. In foreign affairs, the myth of religious violence contributes to the presentation of non-western and non-secular social orders as inherently irrational and prone to violence. In doing so, it helps to create a blind spot in Western thinking about Westerners’ own complicity with violence. The myth of religious violence is also useful, therefore, for justifying secular violence against religious actors; their irrational violence must be met with rational violence. (Cavanaugh 2009)

By and large, the presentation of Muslims and the Islamic faith in the news adheres to Cavanaugh’s description. But the foreign origins of Islam have meant that his comment about foreign affairs describes actions that are implemented domestically against Muslims in Britain. For example, in 2001, there were violent riots in Oldham, Bradford, Leeds, and Burnley. The riots were short but intense and were the worst

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ethnically motivated riots in Britain since 1985. They were apparently a culmination of ethnic tensions between South Asian-Muslim communities and a variety of other local community groups. According to one author, the consequences of the riots were that: ...[there] was a declaration of the end of multiculturalism and an assertion that Asians, Muslims in particular, would have to develop ‘a greater acceptance of the principal national institutions’ and assimilate to ‘core British values’ ... [Government had also] mistakenly presented this fragmentation as the result of an over-tolerance of diversity which allowed non-white communities to ‘self-segregate’. (Kundnani 2009)

Public discussions of Muslims in Britain are often engaging with if not asserting the notion that Asians, Muslims in particular, need to develop ‘a greater acceptance of the principal national institutions’ and assimilate to ‘core British values’. The above quote also highlights the demand for further regulation and surveillance of Muslims in order to manage nonwhite communities. The emergence of Islamist sentiments among young Muslims can be seen as a resistance against complying with this vision of what British society should be. An example of such sentiments can be found in what Innes Bowen describes as follows: ‘British-trained [Deobandi 1 ] seminary graduates returning to their community were at least as conservative and anti-integration as their foreign educated predecessors: “Many of them advocate a 100 per cent Deobandi lifestyle” ’ (Bowen 2014). Resistance identities emerge on the basis of values and ideas that are different or even opposed to the dominant discourse(s) (Castells 1997). In this regard, Islam is seemingly only engaged when it concerns incendiary topics, in mostly defensive positions, against a pre-scripted narrative of Islamic terrorism, veiling and women’s rights, sharia law versus democracy, and other binaries that highlight and enforce perceived differences and incongruences. An example of such constructions can 1

The Deobandi movement is a revivalist movement within Hanafi Islam. It originated in 1867 in Deoband, India, where the Deobandi Dar Al-Uloom is situated. The movement was started by Shah Waliullah Dehlawi as a reaction to British colonialism in India. For more information please see: Reetz (2007).

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also be found in Francis Fukuyama’s book ‘The End of History and The Last Man’. At the end of history, there are no serious ideological competitors left to liberal democracy. In the past, people rejected liberal democracy because they believed that it was inferior to monarchy, aristocracy, theocracy, fascism, communist totalitarianism, or whatever ideology they happened to believe in. But now, outside the Islamic world, there appears to be a general consensus that accepts liberal democracy’s claims to be the most rational form of government, that is, the state that realises most fully either rational desire or rational recognition. (Fukuyama 2006)

In this quote, Islam and democracy, Islam and rationality, and Islam and liberalism are put as opposites in binary constructions. This overlooks the power dynamics involved not only in making this claim, but also in the governance of what can be described as Islamic countries. The hegemony of Islamic countries is pressed upon nations as diverse as Indonesia, Iran, and Morocco. As a consequence, such a quote reflects what Said suggested in ‘Orientalism’, namely that Western political discourse: ‘defines and locates’ the political, sociological, ideological, scientific achievements, and development of oriental nations (Said 1995). Even though Arab Islam, and Wahhabism in particular, is not the most prevalent form of Islam in Britain or globally, there exists in the media a pervasive presence of Arab Islam as they are portrayed in their struggle for dominance in the Middle East in order to ensure the hegemony of their version of Islam. In turn, the descriptions of Islam that have become normative in the British press are reflective of power struggles in the larger Middle East, and Britain’s involvement in them. This greatly reduces the agency and vibrancy of Muslims in Britain, as the Muslims living in Britain are perceived as not having their own distinct practices, ideals, and heritages from those in the Muslim majority countries. The fact that the majority of Muslims in Britain are South Asian should act as a resistor to this process; however, the fact that it is hard to resist this process shows the asymmetry in power between the actors involved. Yet, the Guardian stressed in 2007, that ‘Britain’s Muslims are

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able to win the hearts and minds of the public, and distance themselves from the violent extremists’ (Bunting 2007). This places the responsibility on the wider Muslim population as being part of the problem because they should know what is going on in their own communities. Homogenising Muslims and relieving the political authorities of blame is the logical consequence. Constructing the discourse with a lack of complexity means that external settings are amplified as media coverage focuses on the juxtaposition of Muslims or Islam and Britain. For example, the conflict between freedom of speech constructed as a liberal value versus censorship as a product of Islam’s nature, resulting in a ‘clash of civilisations’ (Huntington 1997). This way of thinking serves to marginalise Muslim groups and reinforce adherence to a particular social order. The thought, ‘if they are not sufficiently rational to be open to persuasion, we must regrettably punish them for their unwillingness to comply’, is an important part of the folklore of British society and contributes to the presentation of Muslims within the British social order as inherently irrational and prone to violence. In doing so, it helps to distract audiences from Britain’s complicity in creating this context. This highlights the conflict between Britain’s belief as a tolerant, inclusive society and the level of dissatisfaction exhibited by some members of this society, not only Muslim extremists but for example the EDL also fall into this paradigm. It also shows a separation between the political elites and the media machine. As political elites try to engage in promoting cohesion, some more successful than others, the press are keen to follow the described narrative below: Muslims’ involvement in deviant activities threatens security in Britain. Muslims are a threat to British mainstream values and thus provoke integrative concerns. There are inherent cultural differences between Muslims and the host community which creates tensions in interpersonal relations and Muslims are increasingly making their presence felt in the public sphere. (Poole 2002)

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Londonistan Londonistan refers to how the growing Muslim population of London dominates the city landscape and is the product of increasing Islamification in the UK. This is mainly the consequence of how an increasing number of predominantly white people are uncertain as to what the makeup of Britain really is. In the usage of this term, the presence of ‘others’ in London is used as a marker to gauge to what extent the city is or is not British. This is often accompanied by the demand that what is needed is a change in the ‘moral behaviour’ of Muslims, especially poor disenfranchised men, who, the government says, are either radicalised or in danger of being radicalised, highlights the actions of a few while ignoring the possible government responsibility for the circumstances that created the conditions for radicalisation in the first place. Within this paradigm, Muslims are seen as a ‘problem’, rather than as fellow inhabitants of Britain with problems. Discussions about Muslim minorities or Islam in Britain are relegated to the ‘problems’ posed for the majority of people rather than what the treatment of Muslims says about Britain as a whole and how Muslims are affected by these dynamics. This framework encourages support to government initiatives directed at dealing with ‘problems’. This paradigm simultaneously denies Muslims the freedom to fail and blames the ‘problems’ on Islam or Muslims themselves. In this way, public discussion of the social injustices Muslims may be subject to is avoided. Muslims are to be ‘integrated’ into ‘our’ society and culture; they are to behave like us. This fails to recognise, however, that the presence, trials, and tribulations of Muslims are constitutive elements of British society. Metaphors unite experience and symbols (Ricoeur 1976). ‘The most salient characteristic of metaphor consists in an apparent violation of linguistic rules that results in the expression of a proposition that is either logically false’ (Basso 1992). For example, ‘Do not be scared of the filthy kuffar [non-believers]. They are pigs’ (Martin and Ledwith 2013). The key to understanding a metaphor is to interpret it as a comparative proposition (unbelievers are like pigs), rather than a declarative proposition (unbelievers are pigs) (Basso 1992). This allows for the same metaphor to be interpreted in multiple ways (which is beneficial to

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reporting as we will see later). Herbert Read wrote that: ‘A metaphor is the synthesis of several units of observation into one commanding image; it is an expression of a complex idea, not by analysis, or by abstract statement, but by a sudden perception of an objective relation’ (Read 1952) Therefore, its meaning and understanding are constituted by the system of discourse to which it is associated. Compare this with a simile, for example, the sheep was white as snow. Experiential evidence provides understanding and gives meaning to the symbol (the sheep), and it gives insight into reality by telling the receiver what it is like (snow). The key difference between a simile and a metaphor for their meaning is for the receiver to be able to focus on what similar thing they ‘do’ (metaphor) and how they look similar (simile) (Basso 1992). For example, ‘Stop acting like a baby!’ vs. ‘He has a babyface’. In articles about British Muslims, events abroad are frequently cited to link ideas about a worldwide Islam, and this has a homogenising effect. The Guardian, ‘a liberal newspaper that champions the rights of minority groups’ (Poole 2011), was more likely to feature Muslims in Britain than the conservative press with almost twice as much coverage. This can affect an audience by heightening awareness and making issues related to Islam and Muslims seem more important. At the same time, by using the term ‘Londonistan’, a combination of the word ‘London’ and the Persian suffix ‘stan’ meaning ‘land’ is made intelligible by the audience’s understanding of those two terms, but simultaneously encourages support of the notion that London has been taken over by Muslims. Melanie Phillips even used the term as the title for her book, where she argues that London has become a hotbed of Islamofascism due to the ongoing Islamisation. This is important because Londonistan is in many senses a sedimented type of metaphor, because it is so deeply internalised by speakers that it appears as natural and common sense within the speech community (Drulak 2006). The justification is often discursively rooted in local factors and personal experiences. This is explained away because the metaphor offers up a situation that entitles, obliges, or even demands projection of its own model onto other actors, regions, or international institutions. When it comes to news coverage, the desire to place familiar structures and approaches over new information or challenges as the solution is frequently justified in terms of the rightness of

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values and historical successes. This in turn creates an a-historical narrative that is common in ‘episodic’ news reporting. However, rightness, progress, or uniqueness do not hide the instrumental or protective logic behind the ideas represented or projected in the media. This is often a result of an individual’s strategic aims and interests that are pursued to extend their influence. While Poole argues that the images of British Muslims may have been more diverse than perhaps other nations because of the social relations within Britain (Poole 2002), the discourse surrounding Muslims is primarily divided into the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims. In describing this division, Said has noted: ‘in practice this notion has meant that when Orientals struggle against colonial occupation, oppose racial discrimination, and class interest, political circumstances, economic factors are [deemed] totally irrelevant ’ (Said 1995). This way of characterising Islam and Muslims has been described as ‘cheering fictions and useful lies’ by Hanif Kureishi (Moore-Gilber 2001). It was at first Muslims in Britain who were the migrants, exiled, refugees, and asylum seekers, who were deemed extremists. Members of these groups were accused of having links to political groups abroad. It is against this backdrop that the term Londonistan needs to be situated as this is still a dominant topic of coverage which seeks to distance the British in British Muslim from the source of terrorism. The trials of, and raids on, suspects, are a dominant feature of coverage. The culturally embedded use of the language has implications for interpretation. The press uses the terms fundamentalist, Islamist, or radical, as if they are interchangeable, and all are infused with connotations of terrorism and violence and used in articles as sources of terrorism. Muslims are also often associated with if not synonym for asylum seekers. Kundnani has discussed the construction of asylum seekers as scroungers, dependent on handouts and charity with nothing to contribute (Kundnani 2007). This viewpoint ignores the causes of asylum seekers in which Britain could be implicated. In addition, the asylum seekers are categorised based on the characteristics of the countries they come from and this allows the government to use quotas to limit their freedom and treat them as scapegoats rather than as individuals suffering from the injustices of a globalised world. For example, this way of thinking allows

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the government to legitimise welfare changes and extend them to other groups (Kundnani 2007). The discourse surrounding the immigration policy under which extremists entered Britain was mostly secondary to other issues. The media coverage following violent attacks engaged the Government on immigration and minority issues and created an environment in which repressive measures were implemented, as highlighted above following the terror alerts etc. Such discourses often harbour other dominant topics which emphasise Muslim ‘difference’ and issues of integration and a subsequent loss of British values and identity. Often this is seen as a threat to community cohesion and as institutional racism takes root it is often reformulated as separatism (Kundnani 2007). It is in the use of the term Londonistan, that all these tropes spring to mind, as if those are all problematic characteristics that need to be removed. This removal should at the very least be done through government legislation, such as more stringent immigration legislation, or prevention of asylum seekers settling on the shores of the UK. It is within this context that the asylum deal with Rwanda2 should be seen, as it is a way of removing those deemed as turning London into Londonistan from the UK, via a legal mechanism.

Reception by Muslims in Briain In the context of these terms, what is the role of the media? How do Muslims understand and interpret news reports about Muslims and Islam that use these terms and conceptualisations? Journalism in the mass-mediated communications age takes events and arranges them within frames that are relatable to the viewer (Altheide and Snow 1979). Largely unspoken and unacknowledged, [frames] organise the world both for journalists who report it and, in some important degree, for us who rely on their reports. Frames enable journalists to process large amounts 2

For more information on the deal see: Home Office (2022).

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of information quickly and routinely: to recognise it as information, to assign it to cognitive categories, and to package it for efficient relay to their audiences. Thus, for organisational reasons alone, frames are unavoidable, and journalism is organised to regulate their production. (Gitlin 1980)

However, this choice has the boundaries set by the producer and not the consumer, moreover, such programmes usually prefer one vision of reality over another and invite the viewer to engage the message in a particular way, despite such a ‘reading’ not being guaranteed (Hall 1981). However, the ‘active’ in ‘active viewer’ should not be seen as an individual that is continuously struggling against the structures of textual power (Curran 1990). But rather than in their own way, audiences are in certain aspects ‘active in their choice, consumption and interpretation of media texts, with recognition of how that activity is framed and limited, in its different modalities and varieties, by the dynamics of cultural power ’ (Morley and Robins 2002). One thing that is often overlooked in media studies and academic research is the media consumption by Muslims themselves (Ahmed 2006). Very often it is overlooked that Muslims can, and often do, have different media consumption compared to the rest of British society. This is not only because of their consumption of community language material disseminated in Urdu, Arabic, or Bengali for example, but also through specific publications aimed at their community. Yet, mainstream portrayals reinforce two primary things for their audiences. First, that Muslims are a threat because of their religion and culture; and second, that British people are not able to succumb to those irrational or psychological ills because they are superior in culture and status. However, public and private identity is a struggle of a sexual, religious, cultural, and political nature. Nobody is perfect by any means and relatability is needed, but it can only be achieved through a reporting of Muslim realities. Unfortunately, those who aim to bring these realities to the foreground are often either obscured, forgotten, or ignored by simultaneous forces of hard-line orthodoxy, public opinion, and media logic. There are indications from the local papers that the local press has a different perspective that leads to more inclusivity. This may be the result

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of their bottom line, where in contrast, national newspapers can overlook minority groups as consumers because they have enough other potential consumers to sell their product to. A minor newspaper is unable to do this. If you are a Birmingham, Luton, or Bradford based news outlet, for example, then you are not in a position to alienate Muslims because, not only are they your consumers but they are also your advertisers. This stance may also be a consequence of engaging with the local community in other capacities than only in community relations or interfaith capacities. The local reports also have a higher number of stories that depict Muslims as ordinary everyday community members. Such stories are rare to find elsewhere (Poole 2011) although outlets such as The Guardian, Channel 4, and the BBC do feature alternative or counter discourses. Occasionally, positive articles that sympathised with Muslims’ perspectives were used to criticise Government policy. We can analyse the debate about the British citizenship, identity, and a sense of belonging using what Ricoeur calls collective memory. ‘Collective memory simply consists of the set of traces left by events that have shaped the course of history of those social groups that, in later times, have the capacity to stage these shared recollections through holidays, rituals, and public celebrations’ (Ricoeur 1999). What is interesting is that the current dominant social group, not only defines their identity based on their collective memories, but also demands that minority groups share their values based on collective memories that they do not share. This is important, because as Jelin points out: ‘Identities and memories are not things we think about, but things we think with. As such they have no existence beyond our politics, our social relations, and our histories’ (Jelin et al. 2003). Therefore the identity, experiences, and then in turn memories, of Muslims are defined in the interaction they have with media. In turn, it is not surprising that those resources are used to constitute interactions, both in real and digital engagements. However, due to the fact that their collective memories are vastly different, the interactions will also be different. This is because the way Muslims in Britain engage with media reports about Islam and Muslims is a product of different discursive formations. It is reliant upon the three basic elements: (1) the role that the news and media take in an individual’s life; (2) the opinion a person has of Islam

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based on their pre-existent knowledge; and (3) the experiences a person has had. The role news media takes in the participant’s lives is different, and it has to do with their financial concerns, their ability to access the material, as well as their evaluation of the source or institution itself. If one is to believe that the Daily Mail provides the news in the best way possible for you, then you will engage it differently to someone who thinks it’s a disgrace to journalism. This is again the subject of discursive formation, exposure, education, upbringing, and social networks, can all influence the choice and evaluation of the source. The personal opinion of Muslims and Islam by an individual affects the reception of the material discussed in the press. If one were to hold a negative opinion about Islam in one’s life, you would be more likely to agree or interpret material that supported that perspective, than if you were positive about Islam. However, this is again subject to discursive formation, the narratives that surround Muslims are shared in a variety of social contexts, not just media. It is also conceivable that if the only place one feels accepted or welcome, is in the presence of other Muslims, then that could indicate it is more important to your identity than if you have a more diverse set of networks you are part of. However, as the scandal at Yorkshire Cricket Club (Falkingham 2023) shows, it is not easy for Muslims to participate and to be welcomed in arenas that do not have explicitely religious tones. Therefore, education, social networks, community engagement, etc. all have a role to play. One example of this is how sporting organisations are trying to develop more inclusive practices to promote equality among genders, sexual orientations, and ethnicities. It has been noted that these environments promote a type of engagement with equals (being one of the lads for example), but also shape engagement with wider society. By doing so, the opinions, stereotypes, experiences, etc. that are shared go beyond media broadcasts, but simultaneously do influence the reception of those broadcasts. As subjects, issues, and examples are taken from media reports in order to further support or challenge those opinions, stereotypes, experiences, etc. Therefore, if engagement on the whole is more widespread and equitable; and reporting subsequently reflects that, then the impact of news

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stories will be less, and they will be more in keeping with everyday lived experiences of people. The direct experiences an individual has inevitably shape the way an individual is to receive news reports about Islam and Muslims. Having positive experiences may shape the interpretation in such a way that one is critical of the way news reports on a certain subject. But this can affect the engagement with media materials, as well as be reinforced by the media materials as the reason why. As these three aspects combine in an individual they influence the interpretation one has of a media report. As shown above, these three elements are subject to discursive formation. But the way they intersect is also subject to discursive formation, the narrative one has of oneself will shape the way these join together. As a result, a complicated relationship exists between the discursive power of media institutions, historical antecedents, and individual agency. It is therefore important to consider that as no person lives in a vacuum and is shaped by their past experiences, social engagements, ideology, etc., media institutions also are subject to these influences. Therefore, the products they disseminate are subject to influences such as: past experiences of journalists, ideology of the outlet, economic constraints, and a tradition of journalism. However, as has been shown, in order to understand the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain, the discourse of Orientalism needs to be accounted for (Said 1995). This discourse has formed into a system, a structure that constitutes the way people engage with news reports about Muslims and Islam. This means that Muslims and Islam as an object of news reporting, are transformed, based on the corpus of knowledge that precedes them. The way of looking at this object is reliant on a system of knowledge that has produced Muslims politically, sociologically, ideologically, commercially, and imaginatively for the audience.

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Conclusion This perspective is driven by an ignorant media audience seeking to be informed, as well as a media structure that doesn’t reward inclusion. Unfortunately, the media’s priority is not to be accurate or nuanced about Islam and Muslims, but rather to make money and increase viewership. The tendency of the media to ignore diversity is also partially formed by the desire of people to conceal their imperfections and to appear unified and harmonious in the public eye. But by ignoring or regulating lived diversities, the values, joy, and elements of connection with reality are reduced and removed of all nuanced and real content by the mediacratic practices of society. Diversity when mentioned is not celebrated; it may be used as the stick to beat Muslims with, because of their perceived fear of pluralism and diversity. In turn, the presence of Muslims and their own demand for freedom and recognition, as well as the right to live according to their own ideals, is labelled as Islamification. This is then subsequently used as Islamofascism to denigrate and isolate many Muslims from civil society. The subsequent trope of Londonistan is used as a scare tactic and scapegoat to evoke sympathy for policies that further securitise and marginalise minority groups. Recommendation on Using ‘Islamification’ in CfMM’s Media Style Guide We recommend the terms Islamification and Islamisation should be avoided in news output, especially in the context of non-Muslim majority countries given it is often used in relation to the racist conspiracy theory about Muslims. When quoting the term, its racist connotations should be highlighted and explained. In the context of predominantly non-Muslim societies, ‘Islamification’ is often used by the far-right to describe the conspiracy theory of Muslims taking over a country (e.g. ‘the Islamisation of the UK’). This is despite there being no basis to such claims. The term is therefore used as a dog whistle to criticise immigration, conversion of non-Muslims to Islam, and multiculturalism.

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It implicitly also conveys the notion that Islam is a foreign invading force that is looking to subvert British values.

Bibliography Ahmed, S. “The Media Consumption of Young British Muslims.” In Muslims and the News Media, edited by Poole, E. and Richardson, J. E., 167–75 (London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2006). Altheide, D. L., and Snow, R. P. Media Logic (London, UK and Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979). Asad, T. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003). Barbé, E., Herranz-Surrallés, A., and Natorski, M. “Model, Player or Instrument for Global Governance: Metaphors in the Discourse and Practice of EU Foreign Policy.” In EU Foreign Policy Through the Lens of Discourse Analysis, edited by Morin, J.-F. and Carta, C. (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014). Basso, K. H. Western Apache Language and Culture: Essays in Linguistic Anthropology (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1992). Bowen, I. Medina in Birmingham, Najaf in Brent: Inside British Islam (London, UK: Hurst, 2014). Bowen, J. R. Muslims Through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). Bunting, M. “Hearts and Minds of Young Muslims Will Be Won or Lost in the Mosques” (The Guardian, 9 July 2007), https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2007/jul/09/comment.politics [Accessed 4/7/2022]. Castells, M. The Power of Identity. The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture (Cambridge, MA and Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1997). Cavanaugh, W. T. The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009). Curran, J. “The “New Revisionism” in Mass Communications Research.” European Journal of Communication 5/2–3 (1990): 135–64. Diez, T. “Speaking Europe, Drawing Boundaries: Reflections on the Role of Discourse in EU Foreign Policy and Identity.” In EU Foreign Policy Through the Lens of Discourse Analysis, edited by Morin, J.-F. and Carta, C. (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014).

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Drulak, P. “Motion, Container and Equilibrium: Metaphors in the Discourse About European Integration.” European Journal of International Relations 12/4 (2006): 499–531. Falkingham, K. “Yorkshire Racism Hearing: Azeem Rafiq Feels ‘Vindicated’ and Has ‘Closure’ after Verdict Delivered” (BBC Sport, 31 March 2023), https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/65139617 Fierke, K. “Constructivism.” In International Relations Theories, edited by Dunne, T., Kurki, M. and Smith, S., 187–204 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009). Foucault, M. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Translated by Smith, A. M. S. (London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge, 2002). Fukuyama, F. The End of History and the Last Man (London, UK: Penguin Books, 2006). Ghafele, R. “The Metaphors of Globalization and Trade: An Analysis of the Language Used in the WTO.” Journal of Language and Politics 3/3 (2004): 441–62. Gitlin, T. The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making & Unmaking of the New Left (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1980). Hall, S. “Encoding/Decoding in TV Discourse.” In Culture, Media, Language, edited by Hall, S., Hobson, D., Lowe, A. and Willis, P. (London, UK: Hutchinson, 1981). Home Office. “Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the Republic of Rwanda for the Provision of an Asylum Partnership Arrangement.” Home Office (2022). Published electronically 14th April 2022, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/memora ndum-of-understanding-mou-between-the-uk-and-rwanda/memorandumof-understanding-between-the-government-of-the-united-kingdom-ofgreat-britain-and-northern-ireland-and-the-government-of-the-republic-of-r [Accessed 4/7/2022]. Hull, L. “Signs of the Times—How Polish Drivers Are Kept on Track in Cheshire” (Daily Mail , 15 February 2007), http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/article-436334/Signs-times--Polish-drivers-kept-track-Cheshire.html [Accessed 4/7/2022]. Huntington, S. P. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (London, UK and Sydney, NSW: Simon & Schuster, 1997). Jelin, E., Rein, J., and Godoy-Anativia, M. State Repression and the Labors of Memory (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2003). Kundnani, A. The End of Tolerance (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2007).

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Kundnani, A. Spooked! How Not to Prevent Violent Extremism (London, UK: Institute of Race Relations, 2009). Lakoff, G., and Johnson, M. Metaphors We Live By (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1980). Martin, A., and Ledwith, M. “These Filthy Unbelievers Are Pigs, He Rants at Rally to in-Cite Youngsters” (Daily Mail , 30 May 2013), http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333039/Woolwich-terrorsuspect-Michael-Adebolajos-rant-rally-incite-youngsters.html [Accessed 4/7/ 2022]. Moore-Gilbert, B. Hanif Kureishi. Contemporary World Writers (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2001). Morley, D., and Robins, K. Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries (London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge, 2002). Poole, E. Reporting Islam: Media Representations of British Muslims (London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2002). Poole, E. “Change and Continuity in the Representation of British Muslims Before and After 9/11: The UK Context.” Global Media Journal—Canadian Edition 4/2 (2011): 49–62. Read, H. English Prose Style (London: Bell and Sons, 1952). Reetz, D. “The Deoband Universe: What Makes a Transcultural and Transnational Educational Movement of Islam?” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 27/1 (2007): 139–59. Ricoeur, P. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian University Press, 1976). Ricoeur, P. La Lectura Del Tiempo Pasado: Memoria Y Olvido (Madrid, Spain: Arrecife Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, 1999). Said, E. Orientalism (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1995). Sky Sports. “Azeem Rafiq: Timeline of Former Yorkshire Cricketer’s Racism Case Against County” (Sky Sports, 14 January 2022), https://www.skyspo rts.com/cricket/news/12123/12515279/azeem-rafiq-timeline-of-former-yor kshire-cricketers-racism-case-as-pressure-intensifies-on-county [Accessed 4/ 7/2022].

8 The Embedding of an Islamophobic Trope in the Media: Radical Versus Moderate Muslims Usaama al-Azami

Introduction How does the deployment of the label of “radical” to refer to Muslims and Islam operate within contemporary British and, more generally, Western culture as a way of governing, controlling, and policing Muslims? Taking this question as its starting point, this chapter explores the ways in which the very notion of radical Islam or Muslims is constructed in contemporary culture as a core facet of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and a key mechanism of othering Muslims as a threat or menace that needs to be brought to heel. Part of this chapter frames this discourse in light of the well-known “propaganda model” of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky first articulated in their 1988 classic, Manufacturing Consent . The construction of the “Muslim radical” or U. al-Azami (B) University of Oxford, Oxford, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_8

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“radical Islam” is a process that is ongoing, although it is possible to identify periods in which the imperative for it arose, and the construction of it in the public consciousness was accelerated. Important nodal points in this history include the 1979 revolution in Iran and the 2001 attacks on the United States. But the long history of anti-Muslim animus naturally predates these relatively recent events and may be viewed as intimately related to the phenomenon of Orientalism influentially explored by Edward Said in his 1978 book of the same name. In more recent years, discourses on Islam in the West have developed certain well-established grooves. Islam is seen as a threat, a danger, and a menace. The threat is alleged to Western civilisation as a whole, and it is frequently assumed that Muslims need to be kept under a watchful eye as a preventative measure against terrorist acts.1 This bare-faced articulation of the attitude may strike many as far-fetched as a generalisation about Western societies as a whole. The present chapter explores the case of one pair of ideas that are used to discursively discipline Muslims in our modern globalised public sphere, namely the notions of “moderate” as opposed to “radical” Muslim. The Islamophobic underpinnings of this distinction are often missed owing to the ubiquitous acceptance of this dichotomy within mainstream political culture. Over the course of this chapter, I will illustrate the ways in which the media and political classes work in concert to discursively construct the perception of a “Muslim problem.” I further highlight that there is nothing inevitable about the discursive construction of the socio-cultural perception that “radical Islam” is a threat. Rather it reflects an interpretive choice, given the available data. In this regard, I highlight how influential public figures like Tony Blair work alongside so-called terrorism experts and the media to construct a 1 Some scholars criticise using terms like “Islam” and the “West” or “Western civilisation” as essentialist. It is not my intention to suggest that either of these terms refer to fixed and unchanging essences not amenable to change or adaptation. Rather, I treat these ideas as socially constructed, that is to say, emerging out of discourse produced by human beings rather than naturally occurring phenomena that are studied in biology, for example. Following Kevin Schilbrack (2012, 100), however, I do not feel that a phenomenon’s social construction reduces the extent to which it feels real to people who deal in those phenomena. Money, national borders, and the national government are all socially constructed in this sense, but are inescapable realities of modern life. This is why I am content to keep on using these terms.

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sense of imminent danger. Over the course of the chapter, I draw on the Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model to frame this process of discursive construction and its far-reaching impact on the lives of Muslims. The conclusion offers a brief reflection on what it would take to move away from our current reality in which it is seen as perfectly acceptable to perpetuate Islamophobic prejudice against Muslims that views them as a threat.

Islamophobia from Left and Right In the first case, I should note that not every Islamophobe will be quite so explicit as describing Islam and Muslims as a threat. This Trumpian-style rhetoric is usually found on the political right. Donald Trump, who was simultaneously one of the most loved and loathed politicians in American history, famously stated: “Islam hates us” (CNN 2016). His British counterpart, the one-time prime minister, Boris Johnson, once wrote in a 2005 article reacting to the London bombings: To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia — fear of Islam — seems a natural reaction […]. Judged purely on its scripture — to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques — it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers. (Bienkov 2022)

Considering the way that Islam is routinely portrayed in the media in Britain and the West more generally, it should not surprise us that the average Westerner might find such gratuitous characterisations of the religion to seem entirely reasonable. After all, such a viewer may not have any experience of Islam other than the string of negative stories about extremism, terrorist violence, grooming gangs, misogyny, and a whole host of other tropes that are routinely purveyed in Western media as repeated studies have shown to be the distorted lot of Muslim media coverage in the West.

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But while such naked Islamophobia—generalised prejudice against Islam and Muslims—may seem to be the preserve of right-wing politicians, a cursory survey indicates that this is actually a matter of political consensus in places like Britain and the wider Anglosphere, particularly in light of the activism of figures like the former British prime minister, Tony Blair. Blair has cultivated a reputation for promoting the trope of “radical Islam” at all who would listen, describing it as recently as 2021 as a “first-order security threat” that was “getting worse” (France 24 2021). While these remarks are properly understood as a reference to violent actors like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, Blair has made clear over the years that he is particularly concerned about the ideology underlying what he calls radical Islam, which he characterises as widespread. In some large Muslim countries, he described the ideology in a 2015 interview on CNN as influencing three-quarters of the population (CNN 2015).2 In his 2015 interview, Blair argues that “religion” is a major part of the problem in relation to extremism. Although he uses the more general term of religion, it is clear from the rest of his interview, as well as the report he is trying to promote, that the concern is with Islam. This underlines my assertion that viewing Islam as a problem is a matter of political consensus in Western countries like Britain and beyond. However, there is an important distinction between Blair’s approach and that of figures like Trump. Specifically, Blair avoids saying “Islam is the problem” in a way that one might expect Trump to, or indeed, as Blair’s own words would quite clearly suggest. Thus, while he says that the problem of religious extremism arises from religion itself, when he speaks of Islam, he refers to the source of the problem as being a “perversion of Islam,” rather than Islam itself (CNN 2015). This apparently more tolerant willingness to countenance more moderate forms of Islam is undercut by Blair’s next assertion—that these supposedly widespread extremist attitudes must be confronted through attacking its “religious basis.” Thus, while it is a “perversion of Islam,” it has a religious basis. Of course, it is perfectly possible for a concept to be misunderstood. Muslims as a whole could legitimately argue and reach virtual consensus that terrorism is not to be labelled as legitimately 2

The discussion over the next few paragraphs draws on this interview.

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Islamic. What securitised discourses on Islam purveyed by Blair and other such figures in the West do, however, is divide up Muslims into those who uphold true Islam and those who promote a “perversion of Islam.” As I briefly note below, I do not have objections to those who would argue that a certain understanding of Islam is sound, and another is unsound. But the arbitrator of that cannot in principle be the likes of Blair. Blair cannot be the one who arbitrates the internal theological question that is ultimately a question for Muslims: what constitutes Islam. Of course, the nation-state, as a hegemonic institution also puts itself in a position of needing to organise and categorise entities called religions for its own regulatory purposes. If a form of charitable institution is religious, the state needs to identify ideas that count as religious so that they can be eligible for tax-exempt status, for example. Similarly, if a religion is securitised as a distinctly religious security threat, a state will categorise it as such. The “need” to categorise a certain form of Islam or certain Muslims in this way does not entail any kind of ontological necessity, of course. It is the sort of necessity that arises from certain contingent historical choices made by the state as it has grown into one of the hegemonic entities of our time. The state as an idea, constructed discursively in recent times by powerful actors, has over time encompassed more and more of the social space within its internal logic as people who populate its bodies view it as the prerogative of the state to regulate, and thereby gain control over, more and more of the public sphere. This is the context in which we should understand a figure like Tony Blair seeking to engage in an apparently theological exercise of identifying “radical Islam” as opposed to “moderate Islam.” The radical variety simply marks out the form of Islam that Western states find problematic in some way, and therefore wishes to legitimate the use of violence against. The term consequently must serve, within the infrastructure of the state, as well as the society which that state regulates and governs, as a term of opprobrium. It is a label whose substantive content is less relevant than its signalling that this form of Islam is a threat that must be viewed by the average citizen as fear-inducing, and which the state must respond to as an existential threat, often with deadly force.

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The rest of the interview makes this even clearer. Blair believes he knows what true Islam is, and what is a perversion of Islam. But it is clear from his remarks that what true Islam is, for him, is Islam as a privatised belief that expresses only enthusiasm for Western political and economic supremacy. Perversions of Islam, on the other hand, are those forms of the religion that express dissent towards Western attempts to dominate in the Muslim world. Indeed, a Muslim who upheld the notion of a Muslim world in any normative sense beyond the description of Muslim-majority parts of the world would likely be cast as an extremist in Blair’s typology.

Tony Blair and Policing Thought What is Blair willing to do about those Muslims whose ideas he casts as extremist because of their not conforming to an acknowledgement of Western supremacy? I stress that he is explicit that he is particularly concerned about their ideas, not their actions. This former statesman of one of the West’s leading powers, a land that ostensibly champions freedom of speech and thought, advocates in this CNN interview the use of Western “negotiating power and might” to force them to “reform the education systems that are educating millions of young people […] to a view of the world that is narrow-minded, bigoted and hostile to those who are different.” Imperialists have long declared the righteousness of their efforts to liberate people from their backwardness in the name of freedom. In this regard, little has changed from the age of high imperialism to our own day. Although it is, for the most part, no longer acceptable to physically occupy the lands of “backward” peoples, owing to the relatively high costs of doing so when compared to remote expropriation through unequal trade relations, there is a persuasive case to be made that colonialism continues in a remarkably rapacious form to the present.3 It never occurs to Blair in his self-righteous zeal, that he might himself be being “narrow-minded, bigoted and hostile to those who 3 Jason Hickel makes a case for something like this in his important study of inequality between the Global North and Global South (Hickel 2018).

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are different.” One wonders why, if the West’s core ideas are those of freedom of thought and expression, Blair is so unwilling to let nonWestern peoples to enjoy such freedoms? This conundrum is as old as liberalism itself, of course, with an influential strand of liberalism led by figures like John Stuart Mill (d. 1290/1873) and Alexis de Tocqueville (d. 1275/1859) championing imperialism as necessary to help civilise backward peoples (Pitts 2005). This racist form of liberalism which Blair inherits contends that less civilised peoples must be raised to the standards of the West. This racism is implied throughout Blair’s discourses on Islam which are interlaced with a distinctly liberal Islamophobia of this flavour. It helps us understand what Blair and others like him mean when they refer to moderate Islam. Moderate Islam is a form of Islam that is entirely aligned with Western liberal supremacy. It is a form of Islam which will not oppose illegal wars and occupations perpetrated by the West because it is a form of Islam that is ultimately an extension of liberalism rather than an extension of Islam.

Constructing a Concept: Radical Islam It is worth reflecting on the way in which the concept of radical Islam has emerged as a major arena of discourse and policymaking in Britain over the past two decades since 9/11. Threats on the part of groups like Al-Qaeda and the responses offered by Western governments reflect not a natural inevitability but a series of choices on the part of politicians, policymakers, media institutions, security services, and a host of other pressure groups whose interactions and interventions are liable to contribute to the construction of the conceptual framework through which the response will be made. At a fundamental level, the challenge of responding to an attack of the kind witnessed in 2001 in the United States, or London in 2005, is a conceptual and discursive one. How do we choose to understand such an attack? Should we think of the perpetrators as rational actors whose perspectives matter in the framing of their actions, or should we choose to ignore their own rationale for these appalling acts? Should we think of these primarily in terms of defence

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and security, or should we additionally think of such attacks as a consequence of policy and history? Should we address such issues by creating exceptional laws in the form of terror legislation that suspends the usual freedoms that can be expected in a free society, or should we treat these acts as regular crimes of murder and aggravated assault while studying their causes as we might for other causes of death in society, through systematic epidemiological research? In the case of terrorism, the choice made by the leading Western governments is to “securitise” the issue of terrorism. As articulated by the Copenhagen School of security studies, “securitisation” is the process by which a policy issue is taken out of other possible policy realms in which it could be addressed, e.g. health or criminal justice, and instead treated as a concern for a given state’s security infrastructure (Buzan et al. 1998). It is important to emphasise that this is not an inevitable concomitant of natural laws, but a deliberate and conscious choice by key players in the decision-making process. In a democracy, such a choice is only successfully implemented without effective resistance if enough members of the public are convinced that there is no choice and that the move to securitise is inevitable. This is where a carefully choreographed process needs to be engineered by the various advocates of securitisation. Tony Blair was a key player in this process in the UK, but he could not have done this alone. As the Prime Minister, and thus the most powerful individual in the state, his choices were naturally key. But in a democracy, where people are formally free to dissent from government choices, he would have also had to convince the public at large that there was an inevitability to his policy decision, i.e. it was not really a choice. By constructing the notion of “Radical Islam” as a broader framework within the then transforming field of “terrorism,” people like Blair were able to legitimate extraordinary measures against an amorphous enemy, thereby greatly empowering the state. Figures like Blair, or Dick Cheney in the United States, did not do this alone, of course. They participated in the process of constructing the concept of terrorism alongside others, most notably, “terrorism experts” often based at think tanks, sometimes in academia, often government funded, and sometimes working in the media. In both cases, there is often a cosy relationship between such terrorism experts, journalists, and

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other media representatives, and the government. All effectively work in concert to convey such a perspective to a mass public audience. Blair may make the policy speech that frames an attack in terms of “terrorism” or “Radical Islam,” but this statement is made as part of an ecosystem in which think tankers, journalists, and other commentators are writing books and other commentary talking about terrorism and “radical Islam” that give these framing devices greater currency. These will feed into the news cycle, documentary production, and even film and television dramas. As scholars have long observed, Hollywood and its British equivalent have regularly used the terrorist trope in their dramas and movies. These popular forms of media discourse help sediment notions about what constitutes terrorism, its dangers, and the appropriate response to it at a visceral, rather than a rational level. Taking the example of the phrase “radical Islam,” we see it in the title of several books from 2002 onwards, perhaps most notably, Jason Burke’s bestselling book, Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam. Originally published in 2003 as Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, the choice to rename it in 2004 is not explicitly explained. Whatever the reasons, the phrase “radical Islam” starts to gain currency around this time in published works that form the corpus of Google Books. According to Google Ngram, which allows one to track the frequency of words and phrases in books published up to the year 2019 as of late 2022, the phrase “radical Islam” predictably increased in usage after 2001.4 Between 2001 and 2004, the frequency of the term roughly tripled. After 2004 until 2008, however, it increased in frequency far more dramatically. By 2008, the phrase “radical Islam” was occurring with roughly three times the frequency of the 2004 rate of occurrence. When compared to 2001, however, it is roughly ten times as frequently found in published writing. Although there is some fluctuation after 2008, this high level of relative frequency of the term’s occurrence becomes the new normal after that year. Although this is not a strictly scientific survey of the occurrence of the term in the English language—Google Ngram does not take into consideration all forms of media—it is reasonable to 4 Google Ngram Viewer: ‘[radical islam]’, ‘[moderate islam]’, 1990–2019 in English, available at: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=radical+islam%2C+moderate+islam&year_s tart=1990&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&.

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say that this use of the phrase “radical Islam” undoubtedly grew considerably over the course of the past two decades. This development is best understood as the organic product of a movement within powerful Western institutions that are instrumental in producing the authoritative discourse that shapes public perceptions in the West. As noted earlier, political leaders like Tony Blair, influential journalists like the bestselling author Jason Burke, alongside academics who work closely with policymakers and politicians, and indeed, the entertainment industry that produces shows like Spooks in the UK, 24 in the United States; all of these shapers of discourse on a society-wide scale, contribute to normalising a securitised framework for understanding the criminal violence of those who are today legally designated as terrorists. These various groups offer a relentless mutually reinforcing narrative that only the most determined individuals will think to explore alternatives to. The ubiquity of such a narrative provides the illusion of its naturalness and inevitability. Plenty of reasonable people will think: surely if the overwhelming majority of respected figures in our societies recognise something to be true, it cannot plausibly be completely false. There’s no smoke without fire. Of course, such a seemingly reasonable position is undermined by the fact that a country’s leaders and opinion-formers will frequently make wrong-headed decisions that they come to recognise later as mistaken. The most striking example of this in recent years is probably the decision on the part of the UK government to participate in the 2003 Iraq War, and the cheerleading of this decision by commentators on all sides of the political spectrum. But there are plenty of such examples throughout history. Yet, given the relentlessness of what, when practised by official enemies like Russia, is called propaganda, it is difficult for the average citizen to gain a dispassionate perspective regarding such matters. These are, in essence, matters that the political classes and opinion-formers of our societies consider to be too important to be a realm of meaningful dissent.

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Radical Muslims and the Propaganda Model My use of the term propaganda in the context of the Western political and media nexus follows the well-established thesis argued by Herman and Chomsky first published in 1988 (Herman and Chomsky 2002). In Manufacturing Consent , Herman and Chomsky argued that the US media infrastructure was constituted of a well-integrated network of relations between the political elite who wished to promote a certain worldview to the populace, the business elite who shared this desire but also owned the major sources of media, and the actual media producers in the form of print and broadcast journalists and news producers. While Herman and Chomsky address US media, many of their observations are generalisable beyond the United States to other advanced Western economies. Chomsky notes elsewhere, however, that given the relatively subordinate status of European states in the US-dominated world order, there is greater possibility of dissent within the European press regarding US policy, since such dissent is ultimately inconsequential to the smooth running of the propaganda model domestically in the United States (Chomsky 2002). In their model, Herman and Chomsky speak of five filters that modulate news production in the context of a corporate media system like the one in the United States. These filters may be viewed as ensuring that the raw material of the news, as it passes through the filters, is adjusted by the filters so that only the appropriate kind of message is conveyed to the final recipient of this news, typically referred to as consumers, a telling label in itself. These five filters are: (1) ownership of the media; (2) The media’s funding sources through advertising; (3) The dependence on official sources; (4) Flak, or the techniques of disciplining those who fail to toe the official line; (5) A source of fear, such as communism, terrorism, immigrants, or the like, that can help induce fear in the consumer of the news, as well as justify certain choices on the part of the government or other social elites. These five filters work in concert with each other. The owners of media tends to be major media conglomerates that are for-profit companies rather than neutral providers of information. Profitability as a core component of the business model means that the messaging to be found

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in the news coverage needs to conform to the needs of advertisers. The leadership of these companies will tend to enjoy close ties with the political elites, and the journalists who produce the news also need to maintain ties with political circles, since these circles make up their main sources for much of the news. The cosy relationship between these various groups of people is naturally conducive to the production of a shared narrative—one not characterised by critical perspectives that can question the fundamental assumptions of politics or business in liberal capitalist societies. This is not, of course, universally sustained. There might be dissenters from the general consensus of seeing the world in the particular way that accords with the preferences of the political and business elites, and for them, Herman and Chomsky’s fourth filter applies, namely flak. Those journalists who get out of line receive flak, whether from their own superiors disciplining them, or their sources refusing to cooperate with them any further, or restricting access to briefings, or indeed, their being criticised by their fellow journalists for not adhering to the norms and expectations of their role as journalists. The final filter is the source of fear that can induce the audience to accept the government’s draconian policies or its foreign policy adventurism. Although Herman and Chomsky had originally expressed this as communism, in their updated typology after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they noted that this could be any entity that served a similar purpose. In the post-9/11 era, this filter perfectly applies to terrorism and its supposed sources. Such a fear was very effective in justifying the 2003 Iraq War as well as introducing draconian terrorism legislation on both sides of the Atlantic. With respect to the British context, one might argue that the most influential news source, the BBC, is not a corporate entity, but rather an independent body funded by the taxpayer. This is only partly true. As Alex Doherty has noted in his adaptation of the propaganda model to the BBC, with slight adjustments, the model applies remarkably well to this institution. Doherty persuasively argues that the notion that the BBC is somehow a genuinely independent body does not really hold up for two main reasons. Firstly, though tax-payer funded, the government of the day can and does wield threats to the licence fee as a means of disciplining the institution. This is in addition to the fact that the BBC’s

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governing board is appointed by the monarch on the advice of their government. In British constitutional practice, given the apolitical function of the monarch, government advice on such matters is effectively binding. This is hardly a recipe for encouraging the institution to serve as a check on government excesses (Doherty 2004).

Radical Islam in the Propaganda Model Herman and Chomsky’s model offers a useful framework for understanding the rise of “radical Islam” in the globalised discourse of Anglophone media. The “radical Muslim” or the “Muslim radical” serves synonymously with “terrorist,” “Islamist,” “Jihadist,” and “Islamic/ Muslim extremist” as terms that designate the fifth filter—the common enemy that society must fear. It has proven particularly effective to go after the “radical Muslim” or “radical Islam” since 9/11. It has helped galvanise the necessary support for engaging in imperial adventurism in Afghanistan and Iraq. Twenty years later, when Russia attempted to engage in comparable adventurism on a far less ambitious scale, the Western media response in its early days was telling in how frequently its correspondents associated war with Muslim countries. Even more striking was the clearly felt need on the part of some Western commentators to contrast the “civilised” European context as one in which it was outrageous that “people with blue eyes and blonde hair [were] being killed.”5 This reminds us that notions like “radical Muslim/Islam” are also inescapably racialised. Although Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa can at times look indistinguishable from the average white European, the trope of the “radical Muslim” that has been developed over the past couple of decades in particular—though it has a longer history—is one that serves to cement Muslim otherness. This marks the success of the propaganda campaign led in part by the likes of Blair who is periodically welcomed back to the media spotlight to replay his greatest hits on the threat of radical Islam. This is despite Blair’s being guilty of leading the UK into perpetrating an illegal 5

For examples of this in the form of a collection of video clips, see: MacLeod (2022).

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war in violation of the UN Charter, the bedrock of the international order since the Second World War. In doing so, Blair, following then President Bush’s lead, flagrantly undermined the apparently rules-based international order nearly two decades before untold numbers of Western commentators lamented the “unprecedented” Russian destruction of this rules-based order through its invasion of Ukraine. Blair’s use of the term radical, reflecting as it does the concerted effort on the part of one of the UK’s most influential politicians to embed the term in public discourse—and during his time in office, in policy and legislation—encapsulates a key mechanism through which Muslims are identified as guilty by association, unless and until they show themselves as not “radical.” The term occasionally used in contrast to “radical” is, of course, “moderate.” One might object that Muslims are not automatically assumed to be radical until proven innocent of the epithet. Rather Muslims are viewed as moderate until proven radical. I would argue, however, that the term “moderate” is inseparable from its relationship with the term “radical”. The average non-Muslim citizen of Britain is not usually described as a “moderate” non-Muslim, because there is no radical foil against which they are being evaluated. The use of “moderate Muslim,” however, necessarily juxtaposes such a Muslim alongside the radical whose ideas remain a seductive threat to the moderate, given their conceptual proximity to each other in this context. This is why when political violence or terrorism are discussed in the public realm, the association with Muslims is virtually automatic. This is not because Muslims are actually more likely to be guilty of engaging in political violence. The statistics dramatically show that this is not even the case in the United States, the very country that invented the GWOT. The United States has caused far more deaths in the name of the GWOT than Muslim groups it designates as terrorists have, probably by several orders of magnitude (Brown University 2021).6 But the association has been so systematically reinforced in public discourse over the past two decades that such conclusions seem inescapable for most people. This

6

For a less conservative estimate, see: Ahmed (2021).

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is illustrated by the occasional refrain found particularly on the political right that: “Although not all Muslims are terrorists, all terrorists are Muslim.” Notwithstanding this perception, or the fact that it is widely perceived that Muslims are sympathetic to terrorism, or that they are not vocal enough in their criticism of it, such a perception pervades much Western culture as a sort of perverse common sense, gratuitously reproduced in popular media and in news commentary across the political spectrum. Worse still, the purveyors of such views and attitudes are celebrated at the highest levels of our society. One may consider the way in which Hollywood movies like American Sniper, Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, or Top Gun: Maverick combine jingoism with the systematic vilification of Muslims or Middle Easterners, and are then richly rewarded with the highest accolades of their industries despite the flagrant racism and imperialism of their narratives. The fact that these films and comparable TV shows like 24, Homeland , and Bodyguard are celebrated with the most coveted accolades in the industry year after year illustrates the banal normality of the racism and Islamophobia that underlie contemporary Western social imaginaries. As suggested above, such an imaginary is not a natural reality in the world, but like any human idea, is socially constructed. It needs to be posited, conceptualised, and theorised by sufficient numbers of people until it becomes a relatively stable discursive reality in people’s minds. Its specific contours may be contested, but the core ideas should have sufficient stability, like any idea of social importance (e.g. democracy or freedom), for there to be sufficient recognition of the idea’s importance. In the case of radical Islam and radical Muslims, as with any of the words that make up the discursive vocabulary of the GWOT, those contours have been sufficiently articulated, disambiguated, and embedded within the wider culture through a variety of techniques already alluded to. These include their promotion by important voices in the public sphere repeatedly until they become widely accepted parts of contemporary discourse. Ideas like “radical Islam,” if they are actively promoted by the most powerful members of government, will end up in legislation, in official state records and policy briefs. They will be cited by judges in legal cases predicated around these ideas in which judges

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will have to pontificate on what counts as radical (i.e. unacceptable) vs moderate (i.e. acceptable) forms of Islam. This actually happens in British courts in interesting ways that can occasionally resonate with most Muslims’ own perceptions of what their faith demands, as was the case with the words of Justice Charles HaddonCave who criticised the failed bomber of Parsons Green station for failing to live up to the teachings of the Qur’an (Al Jazeera 2018). Of course, it also often happens in the reverse, where a judge adjudicates what counts as legitimate or illegitimate Islam in ways that conflict with how most if not all Muslims would interpret Islam. The same Justice Haddon-Cave is guilty of this in the Shakeel Begg case and appears to have been convinced by the “expert witness” brought forward by the defendant, Dr Matthew Wilkinson, an academic and “terrorism expert” who also notes that he is a convert to Islam on his university web page (Shakeel Begg v. British Broadcasting Corporation 2016; Cardiff University, n.d.). This “buy-in” on the part of select Muslims lends greater credibility to the notion that the view put forward by this Muslim expert is legitimate from an internal Muslim perspective, although its isolated nature in that context is deliberately papered over. This combination of expert witnesses and/or academics who are working alongside politicians, civil servants, members of the judiciary, journalists, think tankers, filmmakers, storytellers, that is to say, a wide variety of producers and shapers of the ideas that govern our everyday existences, is what makes it possible to police and otherwise control the radical potential of Muslims in Britain and Western societies more generally.

Labels for Disciplining Muslims The label “moderate” or “radical” is thus a part of a wider Western conceptual architecture for keeping Muslims under control. They are a mechanism for maintaining Western ideological orthodoxy in the public sphere. This is how all hegemonic thought systems maintain dominance. As I have briefly argued elsewhere, the ways in which modern secular ideological systems maintain orthodoxy is perfectly analogous to how religions maintain orthodoxy. In this regard, Blair ironically offers the

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correct analysis of his own position as religiously rooted, albeit in an arguably self-contradictory secularist religion. The point of framing it as a religion is to remind us that there is, structurally, little difference between the two dimensions of this divide, namely the Islamic and the secular. Both have their “extremists” looking for opportunities to use force in confronting the other. The “radical” Westerners like Blair and Bush were willing to take their misguided ideology all the way to Iraq in 2003 at the cost of potentially millions of lives, and according to the testimony of no less an authority than Barack Obama, contributing to the emergence of ISIS a little over a decade later (VICE News 2015). Blair’s denial about his own role in the rise of ISIS is quite remarkable, particularly in light of the widespread acknowledgement that the invasion created the sectarian milieu that gave rise to this deadly organisation in the region. Notwithstanding the wellworn and perfectly valid observation that ISIS is a deadly organisation, however, it is very important that we maintain perspective about such groups. The impact of ISIS has been miniscule when compared to the deadly force visited on the Middle East by Western imperial powers over the course of the last several decades. This includes everything from the First Gulf War which resulted from a one-time Western ally—Saddam Hussain, going rogue, to the sanctions visited upon Iraq in subsequent years. The notorious statement of the US secretary of state at the time, Madeline Albright, that the deaths of half a million Iraqi children were a price worth paying for maintaining sanctions against Iraq reminds us that, in a sense, just her legacy is far more deadly than that of ISIS and Al-Qaeda combined (Jackson 2022). As hated as Blair is in large sections of British and indeed global public life for waging wars in the Middle East that have likely led to millions of deaths and the complete collapse of entire states, contributing to the rise of groups like ISIS, he is regularly given a platform at prominent media institutions and treated like an elder statesman rather than a war criminal. This makes sense in light of centuries of Western colonial history, of course. As the Indian politician and writer, Shashi Tharoor has iconoclastically noted, “[Winston] Churchill is no better than Hitler” (Tharoor

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2017).7 Owing to his actions during the Bengal famine in particular, which directly caused millions of deaths, Tharoor considers Churchill to have “as much blood on his hands as Hitler does.” Yet, Churchill is a figure who is revered in British culture, who was knighted during his lifetime and celebrated after his death down to the present. The fact that he was a racist, an imperialist, and perpetrated genocide is brushed under the carpet by his modern-day champions. He has had a statue erected in his memory at Parliament Square; a college named after him at Cambridge University; dozens of films and television shows made celebrating his life’s work, and countless books written praising him. Indeed, in a 2002 BBC poll of tens of thousands of British people who were asked to identify a Briton who epitomised greatness, Churchill topped the list as the greatest Briton in history (Clennell 2002). Blair’s celebration is, by comparison, muted. But the inertia of British imperialism struggles to hold back from honouring its statesmen. Nonetheless, Blair’s regular presence on the airwaves and the fact that he is not treated as a war criminal who qualifies for a trial at the Hague, indeed, not even a pariah who is not welcomed to comment on any political matters of concern in modern Britain (or given a knighthood as he was in 2022), is illustrative of the success of the prevailing orthodoxy of normalising the kind of extremism he deals in. Killing other human beings is almost always a manifestation of extremism. To do so on an industrial scale in an illegal imperial venture that destabilises an entire region and leads to millions of deaths is an illustration of the kinds of behaviour that is seen as normal in our culture. More than normal, its chief perpetrator is seen as fit to offer advice on how to confront the problems that he has been instrumental in stoking. That someone who has literally caused hundreds of thousands of deaths through his deliberate and calculated decisions is held up as a paragon of wisdom, while British children in nurseries are threatened with referral to the UK’s counter-extremism programme, Prevent, is illustrative of how racist systems of coercion are integral to modern liberal democracies, especially as they pertain to the controlling of intransigent minorities who do not 7 Note, this turn of phrase is not used in the actual interview. Rather it is the title of the clip given on what is Tharoor’s official YouTube channel.

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conform to the norms demanded by the state on matters of religion and belief (Quinn 2016).

Prevent and the Myth of Liberty The UK’s Prevent legislation, the roots of which go back to the Blair years, but which finds support across the political spectrum, is quite clear about its concerns with policing the thought of Muslims in particular. This is one group of people to whom it is difficult to extend liberty, not because they pose an imminent danger to British society or the state, but because of the racist assimilation of millions of British Muslims to a tiny fringe of terrorists whose actions have been used as an excuse and opportunity to securitise an entire community. Prevent legislation in its current iteration clearly states its desire to fashion the thought of British children and young people. This is not a problem in and of itself, of course. Education is essential to any society’s growth and improvement. However, the racist thought policing that lies at the heart of the UK’s Prevent strategy calls the entire policy into question. The Prevent duty is grounded in the UK government’s definition of extremism. Statutory Prevent guidance notes that: “The Government has defined extremism in the Prevent strategy as: ‘vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs’ (Home Office 2021). This may sound perfectly reasonable at first blush. Who on earth would oppose the promotion of democracy, the rule of law, or mutual respect? However, given the historical context in which these ideas emerged, namely the context of the GWOT, such legislation is widely understood by its practitioners to apply particularly to Muslims. This, I submit, is not because Muslims are more prone to illegal violence than non-Muslims. The career of Tony Blair demonstrates this quite clearly. Rather, such legislation should be viewed within a neo-colonial framework in which Muslim-majority countries need to be invaded by the West for its own imperial ends, often simply to remind the world who’s boss, and the blowback that results in the form of terrorism in

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the West needs to be explained in a cognitively dissonant fashion, as arising from the nebulous problem of “extremism.” The problem is, of course, far from nebulous, if correctly understood. As Rob Faure Walker has thoughtfully illustrated in an excellent recent study, “extremism” is a term of opprobrium that is levelled at those opposed to powerful Western states’ imperial designs over the rest of the world (Walker 2021). Thus, funding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in a proxy war against the Soviets was not extremism, but 9/11 was extremism. The Iraq war that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths was not a manifestation of extremism, but ISIS, which resulted from the Iraq war according to Barack Obama, is extremist.

Conclusion: Contesting the Construction of Radical Islam This chapter has sought to illustrate how systemic prejudice is constructed in our societies in order to marginalise and demonise a religious minority in a manner that may be understood to plausibly contravene the stated values of Western societies. This is not dissimilar to the way in which women were systematically excluded from enjoying full legal rights in Western societies a century ago, or overt racism was seen as perfectly acceptable in society a couple of generations ago. It is a form of prejudice that society should be able to outgrow, at least in theory. Of course, we also know that systemic and structural disadvantage of various minorities continues in a variety of guises and is often minimised or denied altogether as a problem in modern societies. And if the foregoing demonstrates anything, it is that the most powerful forces in our society, from political leaders to the press, from filmmakers to academics; the opinion-formers of our societies are deeply invested in legitimating the construction of Muslims as a potentially problematic category susceptible to radicalisation, and therefore in need of surveillance to “prevent” the threat of terrorism. The securitisation framework that underlies current policy and mainstream thinking in these arenas sees it as absolutely normal that the response to this kind of violence and criminality on the part of a vanishingly small number of Muslims

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calls for special extra-draconian measures that fall under the rubric of terrorism. The usual rights afforded to criminals can be suspended, because terrorists require Western governments to eliminate the usual legal safeguards that have been established over the centuries for any judicial process, from the writ of habeas corpus to the use of secret evidence. Indeed, as the French academic Olivier Roy (2017) has noted, the irony is that the terrorists have indeed been successful in forcing the West to change their way of life and abandon the freedoms they so passionately claimed to cherish. Yet, to contest the story that major Western states and societies have told themselves, under the malign influence of politicians like Tony Blair and filmmakers working hand-in-glove with the military industrial complex, there needs to be a recognition of the propaganda upon which the mainstream narrative about terrorism is built. This is something that is undoubtedly going to be a struggle to achieve, but the gains of the past century that have helped render overt racism unacceptable, for example, are a mark of progress that illustrate that ways of seeing the world that are designed to dehumanise large sections of our society can be overturned with the appropriate and indeed, necessary, long-term struggle. Academics are perhaps a relatively minor part of this broader initiative, one which will need the development of an alternative cultural, social, and political discourse. Hence, everyone who opposes the systematic marginalisation and effective dehumanisation of Muslims on the basis of the intellectual architecture developed as part of the GWOT, including the labels of “radical” and “moderate” must join forces in our struggle to combat and deconstruct the dehumanising narratives of the GWOT in every sector of our societies. Recommendations on Using “Radical Islam” in CfMM’s Media Style Guide We recommend “radical Islam” be avoided in journalistic output, given how it associates the faith of Islam with terrorism. We recommend instead that the specific movement or ideology that is being discussed be mentioned. “Radical Islam” is predominantly used to refer to terrorism (similarly to the term “de-radicalise”), implying that the faith of Islam itself is

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inherently associated with terrorism, allowing those acting in bad faith to use the term as a dog whistle to spread fear of Muslims who believe in the faith of this “radical” religion. An alternative such as “a perversion of Islam” may be preferable, although this too can be weaponised as may be seen in Tony Blair’s usage cited in the chapter above. Any alternative thus needs to ensure that the racialised good Muslim-bad Muslim binary is not being reinforced. Some proponents of the term claim the term “radical” in “radical Islam” distinguishes it from “moderate Islam” which is peaceful. This binary framing of Islam as either moderate or radical is culturally loaded and does not distinguish the varying complexity of people and faiths.

References Ahmed, Nafeez. 2021. “Up to Six Million People: The Unrecorded Fatalities of the ‘War on Terror’.” Byline Times. September 15, 2021. https://byline times.com/2021/09/15/up-to-six-million-people-the-unrecorded-fatalitiesof-the-war-on-terror/. Al Jazeera. 2018. “‘You Have Violated the Quran’: UK Judge’s Rebuke of Tube Bomber.” Al Jazeera. March 26, 2018. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/ 2018/3/26/you-have-violated-the-quran-uk-judges-rebuke-of-tube-bomber. Bienkov, Adam. 2022. “Boris Johnson Said That Islamophobia Is a ‘Natural Reaction’ to Islam and That ‘Islam Is the Problem’.” Business Insider, accessed November 2, 2022. https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-joh nson-islam-is-the-problem-and-islamophobia-is-a-natural-reaction-2018-8? r=US&IR=T. Brown University. 2021 “Costs of the 20-Year War on Terror: $8 Trillion and 900,000 Deaths.” News from Brown. September 1, 2021. https://www. brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar. Buzan, Barry, Ole Wæver, and Jaap de Wilde. 1998. Security: A New Framework for Analysis. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Cardiff University. n.d. “Prof Matthew Wilkinson.” https://www.cardiff.ac. uk/people/view/2604379-wilkinson-matthew. Archived at: https://web.arc hive.org/web/20221102121146/https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/260 4379-wilkinson-matthew.

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Chomsky, Noam. 2002. Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda. New York: Seven Stories Press. Clennell, Andrew. 2002. “Churchill Wins BBC Battle of Britons.” The Guardian. November 25, 2002. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/ nov/25/bbc.artsandhumanities. CNN. 2015. “Tony Blair: ‘Perversion of Islam’ Behind Middle….” YouTube. October 6, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGbHawXpNIs. CNN. 2016. “Donald Trump: ‘I Think Islam Hates Us’.” YouTube. March 9, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Zj0tfZY6o. Doherty, Alex. 2004. “The BBC and the Propaganda Model.” (n.p., 2004). http://lists.stir.ac.uk/pipermail/media-watch/2004-March/001030.html. France 24. 2021. “Jihadist Threat ‘Getting Worse’, Says Ex-UK Pm Blair.” France 24. September 6, 2021. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/202 10906-jihadist-threat-getting-worse-says-ex-uk-pm-blair. Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky. 2002. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books. Second edition. Hickel, Jason. 2018. The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and Its Solutions. London: Windmill Books. Home Office. 2021.“Revised Prevent Duty Guidance: For England and Wales.” GOV.UK , accessed November 2, 2022. https://www.gov.uk/govern ment/publications/prevent-duty-guidance/revised-prevent-duty-guidancefor-england-and-wales. Jackson, Jon. 2022. “Watch: Madeleine Albright Saying Iran Children Deaths ‘Worth It’ Resurfaces.” Newsweek. March 23, 2022. https://www.newsweek. com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-iraqi-kids-deaths-worth-it-resurfaces1691193. MacLeod, Alan. 2022. “[Thread] the Most Racist Ukraine Coverage on TV News.” Twitter. February 27, 2022. https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/sta tus/1497974245737050120. Roy, Olivier. 2017. Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State. Trans. Cynthia Schoch. London: Hurst Publishers. Pitts, Jennifer. 2005. A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Quinn, Ben. 2016. “Nursery ‘Raised Fears of Radicalisation over Boy’s Cucumber Drawing’.” The Guardian. March 11, 2016. https://www.the guardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/11/nursery-radicalisation-fears-boys-cuc umber-drawing-cooker-bomb.

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Schilbrack, Kevin. 2012. “The Social Construction of “Religion” and Its Limits: A Critical Reading of Timothy Fitzgerald.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 24, 2. Shakeel Begg v. British Broadcasting Corporation, [2016] EWHC 2688 (QB). https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/shakeel-beggv-bbc-judgment-final-20161028.pdf. Tharoor, Shashi. 2017. “‘Churchill Is No Better than Hitler’—Dr. Shashi Tharoor.” YouTube. August 31, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= fUjtxHFGUrg. VICE News. 2015. “President Obama on the Islamic State: The Vice News Interview.” YouTube. March 27, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= QOnKM2a7Nok. Walker, Rob Faure. 2021. The Emergence of ‘Extremism’ Exposing the Violent Discourse and Language of ‘Radicalisation’ . London: Bloomsbury Academic.

9 The Practice of Dissimulation (Taqiyya): Between Islamophobia and Sectarianism Seyfeddin Kara

Introduction Taqiyya or dissimulation is a very controversial theological doctrine in Islam. It appears to be warranting Muslims to lie about their faith in dangerous situations at will. There is no clear-cut definition of “dangerous situations”; thus, it is often perceived as an unchecked licence for Muslims to lie and deceive non-Muslims for their ultimate goal of seeking domination of the non-Muslim world. In this sense, taqiyya has been feeding the imagination of conspiracy theories of Islamophobes who consider Islam and Muslims an essential threat to the Western world. Especially in the backdrop of 9/11 and other high-profile S. Kara (B) Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, University of Lund, Lund, Sweden © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_9

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terrorist attacks against Europe, the concept of taqiyya has been seen as the main Islamic tenet that justifies disguising Muslim’s “hatred and despise” against non-Muslims. It has surpassed its intended theological purpose as some anti-Muslim individuals and groups politically loaded the concept and presented it as a source of legitimacy for terrorist groups like al-Qaida to disguise their operatives to harm North American and European civilians. It is a universal human value and common sense that when members of a religious or ethnic group commit an atrocity, appropriate action will hold only the perpetrators accountable, not the innocent member of the same group. Or blame the entire religion or ethnicity, which may be the only common trait between innocent people and hardened terrorists. However, there is nothing rational about bias and anti-Muslim hatred. Such hatred seems to be blinding people to universal human values and rational thinking. Elsewhere, I studied (Kara and Merali 2020) hate and its effect on human thinking about the nature of hate crimes. It is one of the most primitive learned human emotions that help people defend themselves against outside threats. It operates on the premise that “one did it/they all did it,” once this emotion is triggered in a group context, the entire membership of the out-group is generalised and blamed for the actions that they have not committed. Therefore, people are prone to lose their rational thinking and give in to their primitive feelings in blaming innocent people or their religious conviction for the actions of unrelated individuals. The best way to understand the current discourse related to taqiyya and the hysteria surrounding it is to consider it a part of a wider Islamophobic attack against Islam and Muslims. Such context tolerates people to consider taqiyya not a way for Muslims to practise their religious freedom under oppressive environments but a malicious religious principle to harm non-Muslim societies. This chapter aims to uncover such an Islamophobic context, in which taqiyya is misinterpreted and misrepresented as one of the main culprits helping Muslims to achieve their sinister plots. However, the very fact that throughout the history of Islam, minority Muslim groups mostly resorted to taqiyya to avoid the sectarian persecution perpetuated by fellow Muslims of different religious denominations. Its use in the non-Muslim context has been very

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limited; minority Muslim groups such as Twelver Shicis, Ismailis, Alevis, and Alawis resorted to it to escape the persecution of some Sunni rulers concerned with it their political ambitions. Further, taqiyya has historically coexisted with intolerance, persecution, and oppression. Therefore, its current use and debates surrounding it are a dangerous sign that taqiyya has become a major point of attention in modern liberal democracies that take pride in its freedom-loving attitude. It is an indication that liberal democracies may not be tolerant of Islam on equal terms; hence Muslims feel the urge to conceal their religious identity to avoid paying the price for being Muslim. This chapter will briefly examine the roots of taqiyya in Islam and then will study how it was used within the contemporary Islamophobic discourse. There is also another important aspect to the taqiyya: while it is used by anti-Muslim and right-wing ideologies against Muslim minorities, among Muslims, it has been used to launch a sectarian attack against minority groups such as Shicis, Alevis, and Alawis. The chapter aims to examine the use of taqiyya in sectarian discourse briefly as well.

What is Taqiyya, and Why is It Problematic? Devin Stewart provides one of the best definitions for taqiyya in the English language (Also see Walker, 2009): Literally “caution” or “wariness,” taqiyya, the technical term for dissimulation, is an Islamic legal dispensation that allows the believer to commit an act that would ordinarily be forbidden or to omit an act that would ordinarily be required in cases of danger from a hostile or potentially hostile audience. The term is related to but distinguished from other legal dispensations such as d.ar¯ura (dire need), which derives from a general, impersonal situation, and ikr¯ah (coercion), which, like taqiyya, is caused by a hostile party but is not necessarily related to questions of religious identity. (Stewart 2013a, p. 135)

Although it appears to be a pragmatic religious warrant for believers to survive under oppressive regimes, from moral theology, the concept

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is very problematic because lying is one of the vilest moral vices as it is often used to deceive others. Further, sources of Islam are known to condemn lying in the strongest terms, and lying is considered one of the major sins. Yet, taqiyya is firmly established in the Qur’an and Sunna (sayings and practices of the Prophet) allows it in some cases. This apparent contradiction in Islamic theology becomes more problematic in the face of prominent Western moral philosophers such as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Immanuel Kant’s strong position against lying under any circumstances. Aside from the theological awkwardness of the doctrine of taqiyya, there is also a practical aspect of it. Societal cohesion is built upon trust and honesty. If a group of people justify deceit for the interest of the group, it will create mistrust and suspicion. Such environments often harbour hatred and enmity and are unsuitable for peace and security. Especially given that religions are supposed to hold high moral standards, and the practice of dissimulation is often associated with political pragmatism, which has no regard for morality. In this vein, Perez Zagorin points out the unethical connection between dissimulation and political pragmatism: Machiavelli’s famous chapter 18 of The Prince (1513), “In What Way Princes Should Keep Faith,” has been rightly regarded as a classic endorsement of deception for reasons of state. The ruler is to imitate the astuzia or cunning of the fox and to violate his promise whenever it suits his interests. Because most men are bad and do not observe faith, the prince is not obliged to keep faith with them. But the prince must know how to disguise his faithlessness and should therefore learn to be a “great feigner and dissembler” (gran simulatore e dissimulatore). (Zagorin 1990, p. 6)

Thus, there is ample room for misunderstanding: by warranting dissimulation, it seems Islam behaves like a political ideology rather than a religion. There are many examples of this misunderstanding in the contemporary climate of Islamophobia. Many views are attributed to Islam, and Muslims defame Islam to consider it an inherently intolerant, violent, and backward deceitful religion. Consequently, it is incompatible with Western ethical and legal norms. Taqiyya is one of the

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most frequently mentioned concepts in this deliberate discourse, and certain individuals make a deliberate effort to exploit such concepts in their unholy war against Islam. In this vein, Melanie Phillips, a British columnist and public figure who is unapologetically Islamophobic, misrepresents the importance of taqiyya in Islam: “taqiyya, the command to deceive for Islam … is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practises it” (Phillips 2019). Accusing vulnerable outsider groups with hidden and harmful agendas that they are concealing their real intention until they gain supremacy has no defence from the perspective of the accused. Because the accusation is based on the intentions and actions of some marginal groups. It also goes against every principle of reason.1 Because it is not possible to convince someone that they do not intend to harm others, as a principle of reason and law dictates that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Further, it is a primitive idea to generalise certain attributes and then alienate an entire race or religious group. Nevertheless, these kinds of allegations have been carried out against minorities, including the Jews, throughout history, and it was an effective propaganda tool at the hands of powerful and malicious groups to alienate targeted minorities.

Taqiyya in Islamic History In Islamic history, taqiyya is mostly associated with Twelver and Ismaili Shici practices.2 As a matter of fact, Twelver Shicis adopted the concept as one of the main tenets of their faith (Kohlberg 1975). This was due to Shicis being an underground or secretive movement; they needed to operate under secrecy to protect their members, organise their revolts, and protect their Imams against oppressive Umayyad, Abbasid, and 1

For a detailed argument against Phillips, see Hellyer 2019. Keddie contends that taqiyya first emerged out of Kh¯arijite movement. She argues that as the first sectarian group among Muslims and they were considered disbelievers by the others. To avoid persecution, they concealed their true identities. However, this is dubious, Kh¯arijites were well-known to the early Muslims and they played crucial roles in historical events such as the Battle of Siffin. They clearly expressed their unorthodox views about other Muslims. However, the Ibadis who are an extension of the Kh¯arijites thought to be concealing their true views (Keddie 1963, p. 51).

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Seljuk rulers. As Etan Kohlberg contends, taqiyya emerged as a structured Twelver legal and theological concept during the Imamate of the fifth Imam Muh.ammad al-B¯aqir (d. 114/731) and sixth Imam Jacfar al-S.a¯diq (d. 148/765), both of whom made the decision to abandon their right to political authority and decided to focus on education and survival of the Shici community (Etan Kohlberg 1972, p. 396). To avoid the brutal Umayyad and Abbasid persecution, they made good use of taqiyya which enabled them to navigate through some of the most turbulent and dangerous periods of Shici history. Further, Maria Dakake makes a case for an esoteric aspect of Shici faith, which makes taqiyya inevitable for learned Shicis. Based on the study of Shici reports, she contends that Shicis believed that the Imams only hold the true knowledge of faith, and this knowledge should be hidden from the others (Dakake 2006). However, this idea is in open conflict with the universality claims of Islam and the Qur’an in general. It may also be difficult to establish the historical veracity of such reports ascribed to the Imams. Based on the teaching of the Imams and scriptural evidence, Shicis equated taqiyya with being faithful in times of danger to life and, on some occasions, danger to property. However, Shici jurists clearly defined the scope of taqiyya; even if their lives were at stake, Shicis are not permitted to obey the commands of oppressors to kill innocent persons. No Twelver Shici is permitted to kill a person or cause another person’s death while concealing their identity (Kohlberg 1975, p. 400). In order words, the sanctity of life has always trumped the importance of taqiyya in Shici teachings. Further, although historically, it was a more structured concept within Twelver Shicis justified within theological and jurisprudential writings, taqiyya is mostly associated with the Ismailis in popular culture.3 Most notably with followers of the enigmatic religious and political leader H . asan S.abb¯ah. (d. 518/1124), founder of the mediaeval Nizari Ismaili state. His hand-picked elite assassins used dissimulation effectively to infiltrate into the high echelons of the mighty Seljuk state and carried out a long campaign of assassinations to eliminate high-profile Seljuk 3

For a recent study of taqiyya among central asian Ismaili communities see, Beben 2019.

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leaders. Owing to the works (Lewis 1967) of Bernard Lewis, one of the most well-known yet controversial historians of the twentieth century, for his notorious bias (See, Said 1997) against Islam and Muslims, H . asan S.abb¯ah. (For an accurate description, see Daftary 1996) and his followers became associated with taqiyya in the popular culture.4 But, it is safe to state that no past or present political group simply adopted taqiyya, thinking that it is a fundamental core of the Islamic faith. It is probably more of the case that political or religious pragmatism led them to justify their way of thinking with a religious concept. Any underground movement needs a level of secrecy to survive or succeed, so minority Muslim groups or those who had a political agenda did not hesitate to use or sometimes exploit taqiyya. But in its essence, it is nothing but a concept that enables Muslims to practise their religion in the context of religious persecution. Other forms of dissimulation should be discussed under the political pragmatism or opportunism of Muslims (not Islam) as they are not related to the fundamentals of the Islamic faith. Within the Twelver Shici context, to avoid persecution, Shicis practised taqiyya in Sunni majority communities such as praying like the Sunnis; by way of removing small differences in the format of prayers and or softening the tone of some of the Shici rituals such as Karbala commemorations which often involves in cursing the perpetrators or on more extreme instances cursing of the Sunni caliphs. Sometimes, taqiyya may involve concealing the Shici identity altogether, and pretending to be a Sunni (Stewart 2013a, p. 136). Perhaps the most important Shici figure in the modern era who concealed his identity through taqiyya was Jamaladdin Afghani, a famous pan-Islamist, anti-colonialist, and forefather of modern Islamic political thought. In order to unite Sunni and Shici Muslims against colonialism and Western political domination, he

4

The sectarian discourse in some Muslim countries was not exception to this. During the aftermath of the coup attempt, orchestrated by obscure character Fettulah Gulen, Turkish President and pro AKP media, labelled the Gulenist group as neo- “Ha¸sha¸si” due to similarity in their “systematic” use of taqiyya their primary methodology. “FETÖ Yapılanması—15 Temmuz’un Dijital Kütüphanesi,” 2016).

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concealed his birthplace, which was Hamadan, Iran, and Shici identity. Instead, he pretended to be a Sunni originating from Afghanistan (Keddie 2008). Devin Stewart rightly notes that taqiyya has been well justified by the Sunnis theologically. But because they have been the majority historically, there was no need to practise taqiyya.5 However, there were exceptions. Stewart gives the example of “Muslim communities in Sicily and the Balkans, and, most famously, the Moriscos of Spain all resorted to dissimulation in order to maintain adherence to Islam while outwardly adopting Christianity” (Stewart 2013a, p. 127). To divorce the practice from the negative connotations as it was associated with the Shicis, Sunnis avoided the use of taqiyya and instead adopted the term ikr¯ah (lit. coercion under duress). Yet, both terms referred to the practice of dissimulation (Stewart 2013b, pp. 441–42). In this vein, Patrick J. O’Banion (O’Banion 2016, pp. 204–205) studies a very interesting experience of the Moriscos who, under the State-initiated Catholic Persecution, made elaborate efforts to hide their Muslim identity from inquisitors. Ah.mad b. Ab¯ı Jumca¯ (d. 917/ 1511), better known as Mufti of Oran (see, Stewart 2006), gave religious instructions to avoid their Muslim identity being detected, which warranted the relaxation of the Islamic law and adaptation of Christian practices to the surface. The core of the edict6 ( fatw¯a ) was that Muslims are allowed to fulfil Christian religious obligations “in a land where practising Islam overtly would result in the loss of life or property.” In accordance with religious advice, Moriscos performed one of the most sophisticated taqiyya in Islamic history. According to the edict, the Moriscos may drink wine or eat pork if forced; they may pray with the Christians, utter blasphemous Christian creeds, or insult the Prophet Muhammad if they are compelled to do so; they may dispense with the ordinary obligations connected with ritual ablutions and prayer if circumstances require; they may even marry their daughters to Christians 5 Stewart documents that many prominent Sunni scholars also warranted dissimulation in their works. See, Devin J. Stewart, ‘Dissimulation in Sunni Islam and Morisco Taqiyya’, Al-Qant.ara 34 (2013b): 439–90. 6 The original text of the edict can be found in Rosa-Rodriguez 2010.

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if coerced, as long as they retain the conviction that this is ordinarily forbidden. (Stewart 2013b, p. 443)

However, an earlier and more striking example of taqiyya took place during the infamous Abbasid Inquisition or commonly known as mih.na, which refers to the policy of enforcing the idea of the createdness of the Qur’an. It was initiated during Abbasid caliph al-Ma’m¯un’s reign from 218/833 until two years of al-Mutawakkil, who reversed it in 234/848 234/848. As a result of this policy, al-Ma’m¯un asked for seven prominent figures who had rejected the idea of the created nature of the Qur’an to be sent to him at Raqqa. The group was comprised of the historian and traditionalist Muhammad b. Sacd (d. 230/845), Ab¯u Muslim (d. unknown)—the scribe of the famous commentator and traditionalist Yaz¯ıd b. H¯ar¯un (d. 206/821)—the famous traditionist Yah.y¯a b. Mac¯ın (d. 233/847), the traditionist Ab¯u Khaythama Zuhayr b. H . arb (d. 234/848), Ism¯ac¯ıl b. D¯aw¯ud (d. unknown), Ism¯ac¯ıl b. Ab¯ı Mascu¯ d (d. unknown)—the scribe of famous historian al-W¯aqid¯ı (d. 207/823)—and traditionist Ah.mad b. Ibr¯ah¯ım al-Dawraq¯ı (d. 246/860). The group were highly terrified by the edict, and upon interrogation by al-Ma’m¯un, they all accepted the Qur’an out of taqiyya (dissimulation) that the Qur’an did have created nature. Shams ad-D¯ın al-Dhahab¯ı (d. 748/1348) reports that Yah.y¯a b. Mac¯ın and others explicitly mentioned that they accepted the idea under the sword (al-Dhahab¯ı 1993, p. 21). These are some of the earliest instances of the practice of dissimulation in Islam. However, dissimulation was not unique to Islam. Perez Zagorin’s pioneering research Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution, and Conformity in Early Modern Europe documented a masterly investigation into dissimilation in non-Islamic Europe.7 In parallel with the rising religious persecution, for European Christianity and Judaism, “dissimulation was a significant reality in the culture of sixteenthand seventeenth-century Europe. The widespread existence of doctrines authorising dissimulation sheds a profound new light upon the mentality of the age. The phenomenon of dissimulation rationalised by doctrine 7 Stewart presents a mild criticism of Zagorin’s work for his omission of Moriscos from the study of dissimulation. Stewart, 2013b, pp. 440–41.

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was so extensive that it was like a submerged continent in the religious, intellectual, and social life of early modern Europe” (Zagorin 1990, p. 13). In this vein, Zagorin notes that the Shici practice of dissimulation is not very different from the Christian doctrine of dissimulation under state persecution (Zagorin 1990, p. 5).

Taqiyya in the Muslim Sources Mohammad Hossein Tabataba’i, one of the most prominent Twelver Shici scholars of the twentieth century, upon noting that taqiyya is “one of the most misunderstood aspects of Shicism” refers to two verses of the Qur’an as the quranic justification for the taqiyya: The believers should not make the disbelievers their allies rather than other believers- anyone who does such a thing will isolate himself completely from God- except as a precaution (tuq¯atan), when you need to protect yourselves from them. God warns you to beware of Him: the Final Return is to God.8 (Q. 3:28) With the exception of those who are forced to say they do not believe, although their hearts remain firm in the faith, those who reject God after believing in Him and open their hearts to disbelief will have the wrath of God upon them and a grievous punishment awaiting them. (Haleem, 2008) (Q. 16:106)

The Qur’an 3:28 cautions believers to prefer non-Muslim allies over Muslim allies, which risks isolation of the believer from God. However, there is an exception to this rule, which is to the protection of one from possible harm. In this case, it becomes permissible for Muslims to form alliances with non-Muslims that have a direct impact on their lives. The word tuq¯atan refers to taqiyya thus, this verse has been used for the Qur’anic justification for taqiyya (Stewart 2013b, p. 452). Since the element of protection may grant justification to taqiyya, it is self-evident that the verse does not refer to normal friendships that may 8

Translation is mostly from Abdel Haleem with a slight intervention from the authour (Haleem, 2008).

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occur as a result of a natural connection. Instead, it seems to be referring to a form of alliance that is based on mutual interest. This mutual interest may be protected from harm. The second verse is more cited justification for the concept of taqiyya, because the verse explicitly allows believers to deny their faith with their tongue while remaining faithful in their hearts. In other words, it enables them to lie about their conviction to avert an imminent danger or harm. Muslim scholars relate this verse to a historical event that occurred in the early period of Islam: when cAmm¯ar b. Y¯asir, a very prominent companion of the Prophet, along with his parents, were subjected to torture to denounce his faith by the Meccan polytheist elites. He gave in; thus, Meccan elites spared his life. But his parents were refused to denounce their faith, thus were killed brutally. When he was released, cAmm¯ar narrated the incident to the Prophet Muhammad, who then asked cAmm¯ar about his heart when he denounced his faith. He replied by saying that his heart was firm in his faith. The Prophet then approved cAmm¯ar’s denouncing of his faith under duress and advised him to do the same in a similar situation. It is believed that this verse was revealed to justify the action of cAmm¯ar and the Prophet’s support for his action. Thus, this episode and verse gave legitimacy to the concept of taqiyya both from the Qur’an and Hadith, or the sayings of the Prophet. There are some other verses and traditions from that Qur’an and Muslim history,9 but these two verses are the backbone of the concept. There is consensus among Muslim scholars that there should be an imminent danger to life and, on some occasions, to the property for taqiyya to be justified. It is a practical tool for the survival of believers and religion to survive in hostile conditions.

Islamophobia and Taqiyya In the current climate of Islamophobia, it is inevitable that a controversial topic like taqiyya would not escape the attention of Islamophobic circles. In his short article taqiyya entitled Islam’s Doctrine of Deception, a 9

For a detailed study of the Sunni sources see, Ibid.

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notoriously Islamophobe, Raymond Ibrahim begins his attack on Islam from the start: “‘Common sense’ or ‘universal opinion’ has little to do with Islam’s notion of right or wrong” (Ibrahim 2008, p. 2). He aims to develop his argument that Muslims are non-sensical opportunists who are not bounded by any legal or ethical values.10 By presenting examples from the life of the Prophet, he aims to prove that there is no difference between Prophet Muhammad and al-Qaida leader and notorious terrorist Usama bin Ladin. Thus, in his own way, he promotes the view which was adopted by the US intelligence apparatus11 that “America’s real terrorist enemy was not al-Qaeda – but the Islamic faith itself ” (Hosein 2013, p. 79). A view that was adopted by the US security establishments after 9/11, including the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Justice, and FBI. But while he misreads and misinterprets early Muslim sources to make a case for his agenda, he cannot hide the inconsistencies in his way of thinking. In a couple of paragraphs later, he self-defeats his ideologically charged statement against Islam: According to the sharia, in certain situations, deception -also known as ‘taqiyya’, based on Quranic terminology, -is not only permitted but sometimes obligatory. For instance, contrary to early Christian history, Muslims who must choose between either recanting Islam or being put to death are not only permitted to lie by pretending to have apostatised, but many jurists have decreed that according to Qur’an 4:29, Muslims are obliged to lie in such instances. (Ibrahim 2008, p. 2)

Nothing is more rational for individuals to conceal their faith in situations where their lives or their families’ lives are in danger. This is a natural human reaction to survive and adapt, and it is doubtful that second-century Christians who crumbled under the Roman Empire’s policy of persecution did not choose to conceal their faiths (Mullin 2014, p. Section one). Or as Zagoring documents in detail that sixteenth- and

10

He further expands his arguments in Ibrahim, 2010. It is not coincidence that Raymond Ibrahim’s article was published by Janes which describes itself as a global open-source intelligence company: https://www.janes.com/.

11

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seventeenth-century Christian Western Europe heavily adopted the practice of dissimulation12 : “The phenomenon of dissimulation rationalized by doctrine was so extensive that it was like a submerged continent in the religious, intellectual, and social life of early modern Europe” (Zagorin 1990, p. 14). One of the natural human reactions to persecution and oppression is to either fight against it, which is costly, painful, and often has no chance of success against a greater adversary, or to conceal the cause of the persecution to avoid it. In this sense, dissimulation should be understood as a natural result of persecution, thus an irrefutable example of its existence in society. History has shown that dissimulation has emerged among minorities such as Jews, Christians, and Muslims who have strong group identities. For this reason, they are under threat of persecution or already being persecuted (Nussbaum 2012). As opposed to the dominant narrative represented in the words of Raymond Ibrahim and many other anti-Muslims, dissimulation is not an integral part of Islam. It was developed as a response to existential threats which aims to eliminate their religion and religious identity. It is a community reflex to protect itself against external threats. When/ if the threat goes away, there is no need to conceal it. This natural and common human wisdom has been practised widely in different traditions and geographies. In this sense, the existence of dissimulation should be associated with the existence of persecution of minority groups by powerful outsider groups. One of the striking examples of this narrative wrongly targeted Barack Obama for allegedly practising taqiyya. Since 2008, many Americans believed that Barack Obama was a secret Muslim. His political opponents adeptly exploited his fathers’ Muslim background and the time he spent in Indonesia as a child. Particularly senior members and supporters of the Republican party, including John McCain, the Republican nominee for president of the United States in 2008 and then Donald Trump, then the US President openly used it against Obama. The allegation was that Obama was a “secret Muslim” and had a covert 12 In addition to Zagorin’s work, the twentieth-century Armenian and Greek minorities of Turkey are the important examples of the practice of dissimulation in Christian communities in the face of state sponsored persecution.

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religious agenda to control the US political establishment.13 This political campaign targeting Obama was so effective that at the time, 17 per cent of Americans believed he was a Muslim (AFP 2012). This number reached 54 per cent among the Republican supporters in 2015 (Theodoridis 2015). This propaganda was so successful that even the state-run Iranian newspapers were convinced that Obama was a Shici Muslim during the 2008 elections. Further, former Iraqi MP Taha al-Lahibi, who was one of the strong supporters of this conspiracy theory, went so far as to claim that the failed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement that took place between Iran and P5+1 in 2015 as a result of Obama’s hidden Shici faith (Taylor 2015): due to his concealed Muslim identity, Obama did a favour to Iran. Taha al-Lahibi might have been processing the sympathy of the Iraqi Shici population who were sympathetic to Obama because of his pro-Shici middle name. His middle name was Hussein, the name of the grandson of the Prophet and the symbol of the Shici faith. There was ground to allege that he was a secret Shici and was favouring Shici Iranians and Iraqis. Iraqi Shicis also shared the same sentiments that common Iraqis believed that Obama was a Muslim too: “When Obama won, it was a big day in Sadr City. Many people felt, now we have a brother in the White House” (Ghosh 2008). This was despite Obama’s strenuous denial that he was a Muslim. He was a committed Christian. The Time article suggested that “they simply reasoned that he must be practising alTaqqiya, or dissimulation; Shi’ite jurists say believers may conceal their faith from infidels in order to protect themselves from harm” (Ghosh 2008). It is not clear if the respondents made the claim that Obama was practising taqiyya or if the author of the article Bobby Ghosh offered his own explanation. Another stark example of the utilisation of the taqiyya in the antiMuslim discourse took place in Canada. An 11-year-old girl in Toronto made up allegations that she was attacked by a stranger on her way to school. Thanks to the serious efforts of the school, local law enforcement officers, and politicians to tackle the apparent anti-Muslim attack, the 13

See Layman et al. 2014

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imagination of a small girl spiralled into nationwide news that stormed the social media. The public and politicians, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, united against their condemnation of an apparent hate crime. Soon later, however, it became clear that she had made up the story, and the parent apologised unreservedly. What came next was a backlash against Canadian Muslims; hardened anti-Muslims took advantage of the scandal to question the motives of the Muslim minority in Canada. The most prominent of them was Ezra Levant, founder of the far-right website, the Rebel News.14 He twitted, “There is a Muslim word for this: taqqiyah. It means deliberate deception of infidels, to promote an Islamic goal.” In reference to the false anti-Islamic attack (Daro 2018), he considered an 11-year-old girl’s lie as a pre-meditated effort by Muslims to deceive Canadians. In a sense, Ezra Levant took advantage of the incident to attack Muslims blatantly. Similar references were made in Norway, where there have been increasing anti-Islamic sentiments. Sindre Bangstad provides an important study of the use of taqiyya by the extreme right-wing movements in Europe, including the monstrous far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 youths in Norway in 2011 (Bangstad 2016). On the day of the attacks, Breivik released a very long manifesto “in which he outlines a theory supporting his actions, based on the idea that Europe must fight against the scourge of Islamicization” (Nussbaum 2012, p. 6). Breivik was a member of the Fremskrittspartiet (FrP) or The Progress Party (PP), one of Norway’s most popular political right-wing groups in Sweden. It was well-known and perhaps relatively popular for its anti-Muslim and anti-immigration policies (Bangstad 2016, p. 231). Bangstad also notes that the prominent anti-Muslim Robert Spencer who is the co-founder, with Pamela Geller, of “Stop the Islamicization of America,” was the most influential ideological influence on Breivik.(Bangstad 2016, p. 243) Both the PP and Robert Spencer15 had been building their inflammatory discourse around the paranoia of 14

https://www.rebelnews.com/ Disturbingly, Nussbaum points out how Robert Spencer also influenced the FBI: “In the aftermath of the Breivik incident, it emerged that the FBI has been assigning, as recommended reading about Islam, a book by extremist Robert Spencer, The Truth about Mohammed: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion” (Nussbaum 2012, p. 52).

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“silent jihad.” It prophesies that Muslims have the hidden agenda of taking over the world which Martha Nussbaum noted that and they are planning to achieve through exploiting the weakness of Western democracies. Muslims have established legitimate and non-violent establishments and have adapted some Western values to freedom, equality, and multiculturalism to execute their agenda (Bangstad 2016; Spencer 2008, 2005). They are indeed referring to taqiyya which has become a dominant discourse among the anti-Muslim groups. This mindset assumes that regardless of what Muslims do to integrate into their host societies, these efforts are a part of concealment efforts to hide their ultimate objective of conquering the West. They propose that the West preempt the major Muslim conspiracy by significantly curbing immigration from Muslim countries. In a sense, they are using taqiyya to push their anti-immigration and anti-Muslim agenda: This rhetorical trope also stands in debt to Islamophobic and Eurabia literature, in which a central tenet is that to the extent Muslims publicly abhor violence, terrorism, and so forth, they are being disingenuous about ‘real Islam’, that is, the Islam of violence and terrorism, and in fact practice dissimulation, or taqiyya. (Bangstad 2016, p. 245)

Similar views were also echoed in Britain. Lord Pearson of Rannoch, a member of far-right UKIP (UK Independence Party), went so far as to associate taqiyya with terrorism. In 2017, he asked the UK government to pressure British Muslim leaders to revisit the Islamic concepts of taqiyya, abrogation, and al-Hijra as a part of its strategy to fight against “Islamist terrorism.” In Order Paper, which is issued daily and lists the business that will be dealt with during that day’s sitting of the House of Commons, he stated that “taqiyya is more controversial but in its aggressive interpretation holds that Muslims living outside the Muslim world are encouraged to deceive their hosts in order to further Islam” (Pearson 2017). Perhaps the starkest example of British media’s and public’s fall into the trap of suspecting the “hidden agenda” of British Muslims surfaced in the case of the Trojan Horse scandal. It started with an anonymous letter

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sent to Birmingham City Council in late 2013 alleging that Islamists were running a secret plot to take over the schools in Birmingham and Islamicise schools in England and Wales. The four-page letter provided the Islamists detailed plan to implement their secret agenda by way of ousting non-Muslim head teachers and staff at state schools in Muslim neighbourhoods and replacing them with Muslims who would run the schools according to rigid Islamic principles. Upon detailing the five main stages of the plot, spelled out the tactics: ...totally invisible to the naked eye and allow us to operate under the radar. I have detailed the plan we have in Birmingham and how well it has worked and you will see how easy the whole process is to get the head teacher out and our own person in. [We have] caused a great amount of organized disruption in Birmingham and as a result we have our own academies and are on the way to getting rid of more head teachers and taking over their schools. Whilst sometimes the practices we use may not seem the correct way to do things you must remember this is a ‘Jihad’ and as such using all means possible to win the war is acceptable.16 (Kern 2014)

The letter contains an obvious reference to the hidden agenda of Muslims to plot the unsuspecting British nation, and thus, it was music to the ears of anti-Muslim elements in Britain. The letter was leaked to The Sunday Times 17 which relished on the idea of the plot being “the work of ‘disaffected parents’ belonging to the Salafist branch of Islam who want to Islamize British society” (Kern 2014). A local paper, The Birmingham Mail claimed that it was a test case to expand it to Bradford, where Asian Muslims are densely populated:

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(Here is the original document: https://www.scribd.com/document/211508398/Trojan-HorseOriginal). 17 The news was removed from their website when the news was exposed as hoax but here is the original link. https://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Education/articl e1382105.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2014_03_01

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Operation Trojan Horse has been very carefully thought through and is tried and tested within Birmingham, implementing it in Bradford will not be difficult for you. (Oldham 2014)

Soeren Kern (Kern 2014) provides a detailed media response and biased coverage of the Trojan Horse scandal which provides an insight how British media is readily available to accept unverified stories about Muslims who are trying to take over Britain by way of taqiyya. The news caused a major uproar in public; the Office for Standards in Education, the Police, and the Department of Education launched their own investigations into the matter. Teachers in four schools were charged, headteachers were removed, and teachers and parents were threatened. The letter was taken for granted to launch a vicious attack on British Muslims. The long investigations yielded no result, yet the blame game continued. In the end, no one was found guilty. Finally, a podcast called The Trojan Horse Affair by the New York Times exposed that the letter which started the Trojan Horse scandal was a hoax (Syed and Reed 2022). In 2012, France came under heinous attacks in Toulouse and Montauban. Mohammed Merah, an al-Qaida sympathiser and terrorist, caused a nationwide fear campaign that led to the death of seven people, including himself. In the aftermath of the terrorist attack, which led to a substantial increase in anti-Muslim incidents, the French security establishment held Islam responsible for the atrocities committed by a petty criminal and terrorist who should have been confronted and confined by the security services a long time ago. An article published by state-owned France 24 titled “Taqiyya, or the terrorist’ art of deception’” connected to this heinous crime with taqiyya, revealed that “French counterterrorism experts are monitoring the practice of “taqiyya”—or deceiving society by concealing one’s faith—and its uses in jihadist circles.”(Louarn 2013) This was based on Mohammed Merah’s statement before the French police killed him; he reportedly said: “It’s not the money, it’s the deception that’s critical,” French anti-terrorism judge Marc Trévidic was in tune with the state media in connecting taqiyya with terrorism:

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No country is truly equipped against concealment. What we know today is that practices such as taqiyya require a deep infiltration of our territory, in-depth knowledge of groups and individuals, as well as an effective system of recovering and retrieving information in the field... (Louarn, 2013)

Conclusion and Suggested Approach to Taqiyya Despite their nuances, all these events lead to the conclusion that taqiyya is one of the most misused and abused concepts in the current climate of Islamophobia. The element of genuine ignorance misses the point of the necessity for dissimulation in Islam and other religious traditions. In Islam, it emerged in response to the persecution of the early Muslims by polytheists of Mecca for their conviction. Since then, it has been mostly employed by minority Muslim groups to conceal their true religious identity to escape persecution. Occasionally it was used to conceal Muslim identity under Catholic Spain. Christians and Jews also developed similar practices to escape from persecution. Because the first priority of any religious view is the survival of its followers. In this sense, the practice of dissimulation is a rational reaction to persecution and oppression. Therefore, it naturally emerged and coexisted in the suppressive environments and regimes. The current resurgence of the concept and its constant exploitation in anti-Muslim circles is alarming as it indicates that Muslims are yet again facing the prospect of choosing survival over practising their religion freely. Recommendation on Using “Taqiyya” in CfMM’s Media Style Guide We recommend that when the term “Taqiyya” is used, it is done so accurately and with the full context, in particular, to avoid the false impression that it is a religiously sanctioned allowance to lie or distort the truth without qualification.

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“Taqiyya,” often translated as dissimulation, refers to a legal dispensation which allows Muslims to conceal and/or deny their religious beliefs at a time of danger to save oneself from injury, death and damage to the property. This reasonable usage is significantly different from that implied by the far-right and Islamophobes. They misrepresent the term “Taqiyya” to give the impression that ordinary Muslims should not be relied upon because they regularly lie to deceive others, and thus to justify their racism and bigotry towards Muslims. Journalists and editors who wish to refer to the concept of Taqiyya must take care to distinguish between the correct usage and the misrepresentation of the far-right.

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Ghosh, B. 2008. Baghdad Scuttlebutt: Pssst! Obama’s a Shi’ite. Time. Haleem, M.A.S.A. (Tran.). 2008. The Qur’an. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Hellyer, H.A. 2019. Are Muslims Commanded to Deceive? Why Melanie Phillips Should Know Better [WWW Document]. Carnegie Endow. Int. Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/12/05/are-muslims-com manded-to-deceive-why-melanie-phillips-should-know-better-pub-80521 (accessed 25 Feb 2022). Hosein, R. 2013. The Polemical Use of Islamic Law in the Education System of the United States Military and Federal Law Enforcement. American Intelligence Journal 31, 79–85. Ibrahim, R. 2010. Taqiyya: War and Deceit in Islam, In: Gallagher, J., Patterson, E.D. eds. Debating the War of Ideas. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp. 67–81. Ibrahim, R. 2008. Islam’s Doctrines of Deception. Janes 2–5. Kara, S., Merali, A. 2020. Is “Vicarious Retribution Model” Sufficient to Analyse Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes? Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 40, 671–693. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2020.1848152 Keddie, N.R. 2008. Sayyid Jamal Ad-Din Al-Afghani: A Political Biography. ACLS History E-Book Project, New York, NY. Keddie, N.R. 1963. Symbol and Sincerity in Islam. Stud. Islam. 27–63. Kern, S. 2014. UK: Plot to “Islamize” British Schools [WWW Document]. Gatestone Inst. http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4242/uk-schools-islamisttrojan-horse (accessed 2 Jun 2023). Kohlberg, I. 1975. Some Im¯am¯ı-Sh¯ıc¯ı Views on Taqiyya. Journal of the American Oriental Society 95, 395–402. Layman, G.C., Kalkan, K.O., and Green, J.C. 2014. A Muslim President? Misperceptions of Barack Obama’s Faith in the 2008 Presidential Campaign. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 53, 534–555. Lewis, B. 1967. The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam. Basic Books, New York. Louarn, A.-D. 2013. Taqiyya, or the terrorist ‘art of deception’ [WWW Document]. Fr. 24. https://www.france24.com/en/20130313-taqiya-france-islamdeception-favoured-terrorists-jihad (accessed 3 Jul 2022). Mullin, R.B. 2014. A Short World History of Christianity, Revised Edition ed. Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky. Nussbaum, M.C. 2012. The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England.

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10 “The Myth of Jihad”: Examining the Multivalent Nature of the Term Saarah Bokhari

Introduction Jihad is a key tenet of Islam, anchored in a vast spectrum of spiritual, jurisprudential, ethical, social, and political interpretations. The Arabic word is often translated to mean ‘exerted striving,’ ‘struggle,’ or ‘determined effort’—implying any struggle with spiritual significance. The term jihad was present in media discourse in the twentieth century. However, the word and its associated derivatives, “jihadist,” “jihadism,” and “islamist,” which allude to extremist conceptions of political jihad movements, entered into prevalent media following 11 September 2001 (Cook 2005). In traditional Islamic discourse, combative jihad is only a singular element of its holistic and complex notion. This chapter seeks to demonstrate that jihad is a multivalent term. It is adaptable S. Bokhari (B) University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_10

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to context, rooted in Islamic literary traditions, subject to vast scholarly interpretations, and has evolved over time. A myth of jihad emerges when it is oft equated exclusively to violence and terrorism in the media. As Karipek (2020) argues, “When we think of jihad , what comes to mind? Holy war? ISIS? Violence? Terrorism? These are very common conceptions of jihad due to Western media portrayals of the term.” A British National Corpus (2022) search of the word jihad frequently associates it to “violent,” “fight,” “global,” etc. Pun (2013) suggests a Google Images search of the word jihad shows a plethora of digital photos, illustrations, and works of art appear in a number of disturbing depictions. Arguably, the fusion of jihad with violence is also due to terrorist declarations against ‘infidels.’ In doing so, they have monopolised and misconstrued the word jihad to equate to violence in the name of socio-political motivations, as opposed to representative of Islamic belief (Nasr 2009). Rabil (2018) writes for The Washington Institute on how misperceptions arise when there is an assumption that these limited definitions of jihad broadly reflect Sunni and Shia conceptions of the term. Corpus Worldwide (2022) illustrates that the second most affiliated term to the word jihad is “Islamic”— inherently impeding upon public understanding of Islam as a diverse religion. Misrepresentations fuel the notion that Islam and Muslims are prone towards extremism and values that are antagonistic to Western democratic values (Brooks et al. 2020). Crest Advisory (2020) found a key qualm amongst Muslims is the media’s conflation between Islam and extremism, and ‘a lack of balance’ in media coverage. After all, media reporting about jihad deeply impacts the broader image of Muslims in British society (Moore et al. 2008). This is problematic since, (1) it oversimplifies the multivalent notion of jihad by limiting it to combative interpretations alone, and (2) it distorts traditional combative jihad by equating it to vehement forms of terrorism, as opposed to a legal affair operating within jurisprudential Islamic frameworks. The media is responsible for educational responsibilities to the public, thus broadening the term jihad is pivotal in portraying the authentic practice of Muslims. Acknowledging the diversity of Islam and jihad is imperative to successful journalistic reporting. IPSO (2020) in their Guidance on

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Reporting of Muslims and Islam states, “There is no ‘one Islam’. Muslims are not a monolithic community and come from diverse backgrounds, cultures and communities and make individual choices about how to interpret and practise their religion and its relevance to their lives.” Thus, the inherent integrative nature of the term jihad is interpreted in accordance to context and must be presented as such. This chapter argues that jihad is a multivalent concept encompassing a broad mindset of striving towards God. Exerted striving applies both metaphysically and physically. The metaphysical comprises of mental and spiritual intentional processes of combating evil inclinations towards virtue. Spiritual intent also underlies physical jihad, enacted through religious rituals, worship, or combat under legalistic guidelines. At times, analyses portray jihad as either combative or spiritual. This chapter seeks to contribute to literature suggesting that jihad exists as a holistic concept and thus manifests within the nuances and combination of both. Combative jihad is only a singular element of the multivalent essence of jihad , which unites both spiritual and physical processes. The key determination of this chapter is to firstly trace the diverse meanings of jihad and to secondly explore the scope of jihad representations in popular news headlines. This chapter postulates, (1) jihad in Muslim practice is a multivalent term, (2) jihad is not presented as a multivalent term in popular discourse, (3) in accordance to orientalist theory, a myth of religious violence perpetuates pertaining to the jihad , which flattens the concept and fails to present Islam as a diverse religion. This chapter proposes a multivalent notion of the jihad is essential in accordance to IPSO (2020) guidelines. By expanding jihad in the media and offering nuanced interpretations, it could be beneficial in avoiding the othering of Islam which deeply correlates with Islamophobia, and a myth of jihad .

Theoretical Framework As identified, depictions of jihad in the media are (1) excessively monolithic representations and (2) suggest Muslims are averse to Western values. Thus, elaborations of orientalism are a useful framework to

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explore the effects of over-simplifying jihad through binaries which formulate ‘us vs. them’ narratives. The objectivity of the Western media in reporting on jihad is questionable. Edward Said (1997) in his renowned work on orientalism argued Islam is positioned in an ‘us-them’ relation with the West. He states, “[it is] the idea that Islam is medieval and dangerous, as well as hostile and threatening to ‘us.’” (Said 1997) One expansion on orientalist theory is “The Myth of Religious Violence” by William Cavanaugh (2009), which specifically addresses the formulation of myths that suggest violence is exclusive to religion. Thus, this theory is useful in assessing to what extent a myth of jihad as exclusively violent has been propagated by the media. Foremost, there is a significant link between orientalism and media portrayals. Iwamura (2011) contends, “[Virtual Orientalism] relies heavily on new technologies and visual media that allow a constant steam of images that propagates stereotypical notions regarding the [Orient].” The simplistic portrayal of jihad in headlines reinforces false binaries that distinguish Islam as the Other. Esposito and Mogahed (2007) claim this occurs within categories such as religion versus secularism, violence versus peace, oppression versus liberation, and tradition versus modernity, amongst others. Yet in reality, its consequences perpetuate in manifold ways. Tell Mama (2018), a British organisation aiming to counter Islamophobia, distinguishes, “where before, anti-Muslim attacks could be explained (although not justified) as a ‘backlash’ fuelled by perceptions of ‘us vs. them’, ‘Britain vs. Islam’, now we are seeing attacks inspired and influenced by other anti-Muslim attacks.” Secular-religious dichotomies fuel notions of what is deemed legitimate and illegitimate violence—this then justifies violence against the Other (Cavanaugh 2009). Despite ‘us vs. them’ narratives, many British Muslims still feel well integrated within British identity. A Policy Exchange (2016) poll on three thousand British Muslims found, “they broadly share the views and priorities of the wider population” and “ninety-three per cent feel a fairly or very strong attachment to Britain.” This postulates how social identity exclusion often operates within a socio-political security paradigm stipulating ‘contradictory values’ as the reason behind the othering of

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Muslim identity, whilst there may be far more shared values than that which is portrayed. It is imperative to distinguish between the sociopolitical motivations of terrorist groups, and that of the broader identity and vast cultures of societally integrated Muslims.

Methodology This chapter explores the following questions: What is the scope of the multivalent term jihad ? Secondly, what does a media content analysis implicate in regard to media depictions of jihad , and Islam as an extension? Lastly, what is the link between painting jihad as a monolithic concept and forms of othering? This chapter is split into four sections. The first section broadly explores the lexical diversity of the term jihad ; its nuances in application as highlighted within the Qur’an, Islamic theology, and Muslim practices, as well as identified within a survey of academic literature. The second section examines spiritual dimensions of the jihad to identify areas in which the term could be broadened. Third, a media content analysis is conducted, utilising the Nexis (2022) database, and exploring articles pertaining to the word “jihad ” from 1 January 2022 to 1 April 2022. The news articles will be critically examined for key themes and elements pertaining to its normative portrayal. Finally, in bringing together the first three sections, this chapter evaluates the results from the lens of a theoretical framework of orientalism and associated concepts such as social identity exclusion, othering, and marginalisation.

Jihad: Lexical and Semantic Diversity This segment presents a broad survey of literature which deciphers various interpretations of the word jihad . We will explore traditional Islamic views, academic writings, and what Muslims may mean when referring to jihad . By elucidating its multivalent nature, it will enable us to compare and contrast contemporary media depictions of the term.

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Jihad in the Qur’an is a diverse term and cannot be reduced to militaristic meaning alone. Derivatives of the Arabic root jhd occur in forty-one places in the Qur’anic text, where the meaning of jihad depends upon context (Quran.com 2022). Firestone (1999) states the root word jahada means, “exerting one’s utmost power, efforts, endeavours, or ability in contending with an object of disapprobation.” The most accentuated theme on jihad implicates an individual’s internal strife in exercising God-consciousness and self-discipline. This involves overcoming internal and external challenges with a mindset of striving, in order to perform righteous acts. Exerted striving is a prerequisite of attaining the enlightened guidance of God: “And those who struggle [ jihad ] in Us, We will surely guide them to Our paths …” (Qur’an 29:69). Yet Sunni and Shia tafs¯ır (interpretations) of the Qur’an, such as al-Tabari and Tabatabaei, also offer diversity in understanding each of the jihad verses.1 Thus, jhd in the Qur’an is a testimony of the commitment to faith in striving towards goodness, further elucidated by context and interpretation. The word jihad is associated to charity, education, spiritual attainment, and social reform (Kirchner 2010). The Qur’an’s messages regarding jihad and fighting are inseparable from stipulations pertaining to humanitarian efforts such as caring for the poor (Bonner 2008). This is in part due to unspecific verses, such as how the true believers “strive hard in Allah’s cause with their possessions and their lives.” (49:15). One of the key verses which illustrate the encompassing nature of jihad is (22:78). By alluding to prayer and charity in conjunction with jihad , it demonstrates diverse dimensions in conjunction, as opposed to singular actions: “ And strive for Allah as you ought to strive … So, perform the prayer, give charity and hold fast to Allah.” Hence, Jihad can be used to 1 Sectarian nuances are evidential in understanding Qur’an verses, emphasising the many ways the term jihad is understood amongst Muslims. al-Tabari, a prominent Sunni tafsir interpreter, understands this verse to be military (vol. 21 p. 11). Thalabi takes the the same stance: Ahamd ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi, al-Kashf wa al-bayan an tafsir al-Qur’an, Beirut, Dar ihya’ al-turath al-arabi, 1422 aH, vol. 7 p 290. Tabatabai cites in prominent Shia tafsir work, the different types of jihad in to three: (1) against outward enemies (2) against Satan (3) against the self. This same distinction is made in Zamakhshar, a Sunni Mutazili (Abu al-Qasim Mahmud b Umar al-Zamakhshari, al-Kashshaf an haqa’iq ghawamid al-tanzil, 3rd ed, Beirut, Dar al-kutub al-arabi, 1407 aH, vol. 3 p. 465). Baydawi (Sunni) says this verse means both inner and outer jihad—vol. 4 p. 200.

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describe three different kinds of struggle: (1) a believer’s internal struggle to be a good Muslim, (2) communal struggle to build a good Muslim society, and (3) the struggle to defend Islam. The Qur’an emphasises jihad as encompassing both quietest and militaristic struggle, often categorised by Meccan and Medinian verses (Moghadam 2003). Military jihad did not feature in the Qur’an during the first 13 years of revelation, when the Prophet and his followers lived in Mecca; persecuted for belief (Bin Mohammed et al. 2013). Rather, there was a dominant emphasis for patient endurance of persecution. Medinian verses were later sanctioned to pre-emptively and defensively protect the Muslim community. Armed combat with a precisely defined enemy became permissible in certain contexts (Esposito 2002). In mainstream Islamic teachings, jihad is legislated in accordance to authorised rules, mandating ethical and humane conduct considered a priori appropriate (Afsaruddin 2005). The first war verse revealed was (2:190), which states: “Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors.” Indicatively, the Qur’an prohibits transgression in warfare in the form of resorting to anger, or unjust actions arising from a desire for revenge (5:8) (ibid ). Hence there is not a sharp categorisation between spiritual and militarist verses, as elements of spiritual jihad are present within Medinian verses. Specified terms in the Qur’an too support jihad’s diverse meanings. Whilst jihad can implicate “fighting,” other words explicitly refer to the act of war such as h.arb, or qit¯al for killing (Mostfa 2021). Afsaruddin (2013) argues .sabr, translated as ‘patient forbearance,’ is also associated to exerted striving. Pun (2013) believes at times the use of the term jihad in prophetic traditions is so broad, that it is not clear which specific form of jihad is being referred to. As the broadness of jihad comprises differential terms such as qit¯al and .sabr, it is inherently contextually adaptable. Islamic social and military ethics necessitate individual consciousness for the believer, highlighting adaptability of the term in explicit circumstances. Parallel to other religious legal theories, military jihad is also to be approached in line with Qur’anic principles, the consensus of scholars, and with consideration for generalised Islamic law (Bakircioglu 2010). For example, according to Hallaq (2009), most jurists agree that:

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Jihad cannot be launched without prior notice. It is forbidden to kill anyone who is not trained in the use of weapons. Torture and mutilation are forbidden. It is not permitted to kill prisoners without first presenting them before the im¯am.

Yet, some argue a ‘new’ form of jihad meaning has evolved, seeking to mobilise individuals through social and political movements (Esposito 2010). Globalised groups such as al-Qaeda, the Taliban, al-Shabab, and ISIS, are regularly featured within the news. The Carter Centre (2016) found that verses of the Qur’an from Chapter Nine are most frequently utilised by ISIS to justify violent jihad , for example (9:14), “Fight them, and Allah will punish them by your hands…” The Qur’an (9:5) is quoted as ‘the sword verse’ and one of the verses most utilised by terrorists to justify actions against the ‘disbelievers.’ However, as Karipek (2020) argues, “The problem with ISIS’s justification of violent jihad using these two verses is that these verses allow violence in certain contexts, not as a general practice.” Al-Tabari specifies the conditions of these verses, citing how following the lapse of the sacred months, the believers were not free to ‘kill any idolater.’ The verses also refer to the conditions of a treaty, thereby the verses are contextual when issuing commands of warfare. Sonn (2016) notes, the jurisprudential requirements of combative jihad are equivalent to a “just war theory underpinning military jihad according to Islamic law.” One may dispute that it is definitional misrepresentations of jihad equating to terror that are utilised to define Islam more broadly and spread Islamophobia across media platforms. In Europe and North America, a problematic translation of jihad is “holy war.” The rejection of this prevalent media term by Muslims is a common theme in academic literature (Cook 2005). After all, the word for war in Arabic is h.arb and holy is muqadassa (Knapp 2003). Arguably, the ‘holy war’ translation is due to its juridical application in Islam, as opposed to a more comprehensive depiction as reflected in the Qur’an and h.ad¯ıth (Nasr 2009). Holtmann (2014) claims the canonised body of Islamic law texts that surrounds the concept of “jihad ” is much more

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extensive than similar concepts of holy war in other religions. This signifies a weakness of legitimacy in over-simplifying and restricting the term’s translation. It is, hence, essential translational errors monitored in media coverages of the term. Some consider the semantic purview of the term jihad as a divide amongst Muslims. The Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School (2022) conveys, “Muslims are sharply divided among themselves in their understandings of the term.” Yet notably, the differences are naturally rooted in the diversity of Islam; a cosmopolitan religion, comprising a multitude of nationalities, ethnicities, and sectarian differences. A Gallup poll (2002) surveyed 10,004 adults of predominantly Muslim countries and concluded the definition of jihad has many nuances. In Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, and Indonesia, the majority believed jihad meant “sacrificing one’s life for the sake of Islam/God/a just cause”—with not much further elaboration in what the term sacrificing means here. In Lebanon, Kuwait, Jordan, and Morocco, frequent descriptions consisted of “duty to God” or “a divine duty,” with no military allusion. Further replies included “promoting peace,” “achieving one’s goals in life,” and “assisting others.” This signifies a correlation between Muslim social identity and one’s comprehension of jihad . The poll emphasised there was no limitation to the full diversity of verbatim responses and concluded that “the concept of jihad is considerably more nuanced than the single sense in which Western commentators invariably invoke the term.” Evidentially, understandings of jihad are unique to human experiences, as well as respective societies, emphasising the need to avoid monolithic presentations of the term. In conclusion, Muslims may mean many things when the term jihad is utilised, and it is beneficial to consider this when portraying jihad within the media. As the Harvard Divinity School (2022) states, “it is vital to remember the core principles of religious literacy: religions are internally diverse, they change over time, and they are embedded in culture.” The next subsection will explore spiritual elements of jihad to advance the depths of semantic consideration.

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Discussions on the Spiritual Jihad A hadith attributed to the Prophet upon his return from a military campaign, “You have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad ,” sets the premise for spiritual conceptions of jihad , implicated as the ‘greater’ jihad in this tradition. The greater jihad is a mental, spiritual, and internal process of self-accountability, where the greatest battle is against one’s own evil inclinations from the devil and the internal self. According to Nasr (2009), the greater and spiritual jihad are the primary and traditional meanings of jihad . The greater jihad obliges many forms of jihad in application, and most have nothing to do with warfare (Firestone 1999). For example—jihad of the heart against sinful inclinations e.g. stealing, or jihad of the tongue, which requires speaking good and forbidding evil. The term ‘greater’ jihad implicates that spiritually striving to conquer oneself is more significant in a Muslim’s journey to God, than an enemy in combat. This is because the spiritual jihad underlies rituals of faith, on both an individual and communal level. It is considered a spiritual consciousness against generic evil, in order to establish alignment to the Oneness of God. The ‘greater’ jihad terminology is repudiated within some Sunni orthodox accounts, Ibn Taymiyah being one example. The Prophetic hadith is considered authentically weak, da’if (Pickens 2015). Cook (2005) asserts, “[the greater jihad ] is a patently apologetic device designed to promote a doctrine that has little historical depth in Islam.” Whilst the term may have been a later coinage, the principle of spiritual striving in Islam traces back to its origins. As Pickens (2015) emphasises, ‘the rejection of text is equal to rejection of concept’ is not compelling enough for Muslim scholars to dismiss the greater jihad theory, as commonly quoted Qur’anic verses depict the conceptual essence of the greater jihad .2 Alternate verses do not mention jihad , but suggest the same notion of striving against the low desires of the soul—“But as for one who feared to stand before His lord, and denied his soul its desires,

2 Such verses include, “And whoever strives ( jahada), strives (yajahidu) only for their own benefit; indeed, God is not in need of His creation.” (29:6).

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indeed paradise is his abode’ (79:40–1). This is supported by the referring to Islamic practices such as ramadan and h.ajj as forms of jihad in hadith literature (Moller 2005). The above arguments indicate that whether coined ‘the greater jihad ’ or not, spiritual striving in jihad is essentially at the heart of the concept. Classical Islamic works also depict the greater jihad . Al-Ghazali, a prominent Sunni scholar, considered the ‘greatest jihad ’ a spiritual, internal struggle for each Muslim to train in daily. Sufi mystics such as al-Muhaisibi (d. 857) and Ibn Abi al-Dunya’s (d.894) considered combating one’s desires and moral self-examination as the key to worldly success. In Shia hadith, Imam Ali articulates, “struggle against yourself in Allah’s worship just as one fights one’s enemy, and overcome it just as one overcomes one’s opponent, for the strongest of people is he who has triumphed over his self ” (Rayshahri 2008). This indicates that the spiritual jihad is superior to combative struggle, however, combative jihad is neither negated. Thus, Sufi, Sunni, and Shia concepts are unitive in certain principles, whilst sectarian nuances may emerge pertaining to specific applications of the term. For example, Shias place emphasis on the return of the infallible imam and his role of guidance pertaining to spiritual striving (Moghadam 2003). Hence, the interpretational fluidity of jihad adds weight to the term’s diversity. To conclude, despite variances in terminology, the spiritual notion of jihad is encompassing of an internal process which is applied to the physical elements of jihad in practice, be it through worship, religious ritual, or combative war. The following section will conduct a survey on media headlines pertaining to the jihad , now placed within the context of its semantic diversity.

Jihad: A Media Content Analysis This section will present a content analysis of media headlines, polls, and commentary which indicates the relationship between the media and the portrayal of jihad . The Nexis database has been utilised as a tool in order to extract key themes from news articles and transcripts in the UK that refer to the concept. This section evaluates themes identified within the

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657 news articles and features on the word ‘jihad ’ on the Nexis (2022) database, from 1 January 2022 to 1 April 2022, and filtered to apply only to the UK. The aim of doing so is to paint a contemporary landscape of the portrayal of jihad in the British media. Violent jihad infiltration into British society is a key theme identifiable in the sample. The BBC (2022b) states, “English-language jihadist magazine incites prison attacks.” Further, a highlight in the Daily Telegraph (2022b) was in regard to a mosque preacher who has been found guilty of preaching violent jihad in Brighton Mosque. Another instance is of a fifty-two-year-old primary school teacher from Durham who is banned for teaching for life for her strong views of jihad , who believed that violent jihad was the “correct interpretation of Islamic teaching” (Mail Online 2022a). Another article cites, “Islamist on trial for MP’s murder” (The Daily Telegraph 2022a). Sensationalist language in the articles highlights fear regarding the Muslim Other, who could be a normal citizen, and represent a realistic threat posing to cause in-group annihilation of the British identity (Jaspal and Cinnirella 2010). The advocators of violent jihad are perceived as seeking to bring the destruction of the ethno-national ingroup (ibid.), emphasised by statements such as, “one imam [in Didsbury mosque] gave a sermon praising Libyan terrorist groups, while another imam was side-lined for speaking out against violent jihad .” (BBC 2022a) This depicts how ordinary Muslims living in British civil society could be easily susceptible to violent interpretations. This is echoed in a Muslim Council of Britain’s (2022) report that analysed 230,000 articles published in 31 mainstream British news outlets. More than half of the stories which mentioned terrorism, terrorists, or terror, also referred to Muslims or Islam. This was almost nine times more than offenders who were identified as “far-right,” “neo-Nazi,” or “white supremacist.” By discounting multivalent accounts of the jihad , it would appear that jihad is an exclusively violent phenomenon, and terrorism is exclusive to Muslims who thus pose a threat to British values. However, there have been examples of media accountability regarding Muslims as terrorist sympathisers. For instance, IPSO instructed The Sun to admit a contentious story that said one in five British Muslims had sympathy for ISIS, due to being “significantly misleading” (The

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Guardian, 2016). This was consequential of an unprecedented number of complaints for portraying Muslims as sympathetic to “jihadis” (Independent 2016). One may nonetheless question whether damage control is sufficient effort enough. Tell Mama (2017) suggests two separate issues drive anti-Muslim sentiment: (1) terrorism and (2) inflammatory headlines. They comment, “we have seen this when headlines are emblazoned across front pages, only for minute retractions to be printed after IPSO complaints.” The multitude of articles referring to Islam and jihad as only violent, in addition to the absence of positive amendments and reporting on multivalent jihad values, such as charity, education, and humanitarian efforts, leads to an imbalance in reporting, and negative consequences on Muslim identity. The terms “Islam” or “Islamic” are utilised in conflation with jihadist stories, which indicates militants and terrorists are linked directly to the religion. To highlight this troublesome trend, examples include, “the militant Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement,” “an Islamic Jihad gunman,” (BBC Monitoring 2022) and “Hamas also praised that attack, as did the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad militant group.” (Mail Online 2022b) Islam is linked to words which all point to the same notion, ‘jihadist,’ ‘islamist,’ ‘jihadism’ ‘jihadi,’ ‘islamic jihad,’ etc. Repetitive statements lead to sustained social constructions, suggesting as Rizwana Hamid says, that “religion is always the motivator” (Middle East Eye, 2020). Further, Fazio (2022), who specialises in the Science of Misinformation, states, “Repetition does not change the actual truth of a statement, but it does create an illusion of truth in our minds.” This leads to the reinforcing of extremist, binary categorisations: (1) jihad is the enemy of the West, (2) militant jihad is the only element of jihad , and (3) militant jihad is a broad Islamic and Muslim concept, thus a clash with British values. Whilst debatably, this may be a partial consequence of Muslim socio-political mobilisation in the name of jihad , it is the framing of the subject as broadly representative of Islam which is problematic. This reinforces the myth of jihad , of Islam equating to extremism, and categorically representative of being anti-Western values. The geographical diversity of jihad -related stories is another key finding in the media sample. Between January and April 2022, stories regarding militant jihad infiltration were highlighted from Nigeria,

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Sudan, the UK, Russia, Ukraine, Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Iran, Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Somalia, West Africa, Afghanistan, and more. This is reinforced by the multitude of jihadist groups enlisted within the media headlines—fractions of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, etc. One may argue this substantiates evidence for the globalisation of militant jihad , and thus a natural security threat arises in having to protect state values. However, this depiction of jihad is at odds with a Gallup Poll (2002*) that illustrates the variances of views from Muslims in different countries pertaining to their understanding of the meaning of jihad . The abundance of these articles, however, insinuates that jihad is a prevalent threat posed by Muslims as the violence has globally infiltrated. This places a question mark over everyday Muslim practice, due to the fact that the only diversity of jihad mentioned in news stories is its geographical outreach across nationalistic borders. Wordplay with jihad results in sensationalism and insinuates something highly undesirable. For example, ‘jihadi John’ and ‘jihadi George’ became the titles coined to two infamous British men who went to join ISIS militant activity in Syria. In addition, the term ‘jihadi bride’ is utilised to determine females who fled Britain to marry ISIS militants (Mail Online 2022c). This extends violent jihad as even reaching the institution of marriage. Yet, the paronomasia of a very serious societal threat is questionable. On this, Faisal Hanif, the report author of “How The British Media Reports Terrorism” (MCB 2022), stated, “Newspapers and online sources are driven by a commercial imperative to constantly produce clickbait and use algorithms and metrics to work out what sells, making the reporting of terrorism more of a science than an art.” Media sensationalism seeks to stimulate audiences by carefully selected words in order to attain the highest level of consumerists, which can distort the presentation of facts. Another example of wordplay on the term jihad is the words of the President of Hungary, “Brussels is waging a “jihad ” on governments it does not like.” (The Daily Telegraph 2022c) This is a noteworthy statement, which extends jihad to be independent from Islam entirely, exemplifying how the use of the term is ever-evolving. This is ironic, given “Islamic” is a word otherwise most commonly used to associate to jihad in the media. Seemingly, the usage of jihad correlates to actions deemed highly undesirable.

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Further, the searching of the term “spiritual jihad,” within the UK in the same time period, only produced one news article by The Times (2022), which distinguished the “harsh end” of Islam, from spiritual forms of jihad . A search of the term “greater jihad ” produced no results in 2022. Searching the “keywords” associated to the term “jihad ” in the Nexis database (2022) also resulted with the following associated terms: “leader,” “fight,” “kill,” “RELIGION,” “MUSLIMS & ISLAM,” “god,” “website,” “enemy,” “military,” “resistance,” “terrorism,” “TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS,” and “mosque.” This is a troubling find, which Dr Chris Allen (2019) declared in his submission to The All Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia: The [report’s] evidence shows an overwhelmingly negative picture, where threat, otherness, fear and danger posed or caused by Muslims and Islam underpins a considerable majority of the media’s coverage. Given that 64% of the British public claimed that what they know about Muslims and Islam is acquired through the media, then it could be that such a stream of negativity… has the potential to then ensure stigmatisation, marginalisation and intolerance.

To conclude, out of the 657 news articles and transcripts examined, each focused on an aspect of militant jihad , and exclusively emphasised extremism, terrorism, or violence. Overall, the content analysis indicates the term jihad exists in the context of anti-Muslim sentiment or insinuations, as opposed to holistic theological concepts. The findings of the media content analysis shall further be elucidated within the next section, utilising the framework of orientalism.

Discussion: Jihad, Othering, Muslims, and the Media This section is concerned with the emergence of myths of religious violence, which formulate from orientalist notions. Said’s (1997) renowned definition of orientalism is “a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’

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and (most of the time) ‘the Occident.’” Cavanaugh (2009) describes, “A story takes on the status of myth when it becomes unquestioned” and society is conformed to believe in the proposed truths that the myth establishes. The more the myth is left unquestioned, the more the reality of society reflects it. The more the Other is justifiably marginalised due to the myth, the more Other they become. Zerilli (1998) says a mythology is groundless, hence it cannot be defeated through logic or evidence. Myths elude standardised norms of refutation and verification, requiring sustained efforts to unmask it (Cavanaugh 2009). Critics of Cavanaugh (2009) present a compelling case pertaining to the history of secularism and examples of its interrelation with the Church, thus casting inconsistency upon his methodology (Anderson 2011). The dichotomies which interpret secularism against religion are not necessarily accurate portrayals of the relationship of Muslims with Britain. For example, nine out of ten Muslims consider themselves a part of British society (IPSOS 2018). Perhaps, Muslims consider the media as an outlier in terms of the British institutions they can trust.3 Yet, pertaining to the definitional notion of what a myth of religious violence entails, Cavanaugh’s (2009) trenchant analysis provides a useful lens pertaining to the effects of presenting jihad as a monolithic phenomenon, as illustrated by the findings. Arguably jihad becomes a myth when depicted only as a violent concept broadly attributed to Islam as a whole. Tajfel’s (1979) Social Identity Theory identifies the psychology of simplistic group categorising as a form of othering. Unmasking the metanarrative that jihad as only combative is important, in order to expand the term, and avoid extreme categorisations that lead to binaries. A study conducted by Liht and Savage (2013) on ‘being Muslim being British’ found that overly simplistic reductions of worldview resulted in an increase of extremist views. Alternatively, increasing the complexity and broadness of shared representative values, results in more moderate and cohesive relationships (ibid). Tell Mama (2017) highlights how Islamophobic abuse pertains to 3

The media (at 36%) was an anomaly in comparison to the trust that British Muslims have in public institutions such as the NHS (84%) schools (75%), in expecting them to treat them fairly. See: https://www.crestadvisory.com/post/response-listening-to-british-muslims-policing-ext remism-and-prevent

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Muslims being associated to terrorists. This is consequential of associations of jihad to violence, and the absence of its spiritual and ethical notions. Arguably, the relationship between Islam, Muslims, the West, the media, and the public is more convoluted than simplistic binaries of ‘us vs. them.’ However, when nuances are not sufficiently considered, and dichotomous categorisations are adopted above holistic representations, the projected binaries then become a reality that solidify insecurity and fear regarding the Muslim Other. The content analysis indicated the reporting of Islam and jihad as extremist or violent conflates with reporting Muslim values as incompatible with the West. This is illustrated by a Cardiff University (2008) study, which found roughly two thirds of media stories focused on Muslims as a threat, (1) in relation to terrorism, (2) as a problem in terms of differences in values, or (3) both, highlighting Muslim extremism as general. This phenomenon indicates a troubling othering that results from partial media reporting. Despite how British Muslims feel integrated with British identity, restrictive media framings of the concept of jihad and its derivatives are strongly intertwined with marginalising the overall values encompassing Muslim identity. Yet arguably, there is a history to the portrayal of Islam and jihad as inherently violent. Quinn (2008) believes this basic image of Islam in the West was present by the Middle Ages and continues to be. Cavanaugh (2009) claims scholarly disciplines give different elucidations as to why religion is inherently violent: because “religion is absolutist, religion is divisive, religion is irrational.” Whilst the secular is deemed rational, religion is deemed dangerous and irrational—this juxtaposition is the lens through which militant jihad is framed. This is evidenced by the Great British Corpus (2022), where the majority of words associated to the word jihad are of a violent or militant nature—“waging,” “martyrdom,” violent” to name a few. Critics of orientalism may argue it is the British media’s right to depict jihad as the Other, as it is normative in relation to security priorities. Arguably, Muslim presence in the stage of history over the last century has also eclipsed the inner and spiritual significance of jihad (Nasr 2009). Yet one may ask, are such media framings merely a construct of the socio-political insecurity of nation-states towards religion more broadly? Jihad is a deeply theological concept

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embodied within Muslim practice beyond contemporary socio-political motivations, and it is thus imperative to unmask a more rounded picture of jihad for successful reporting. The media association of jihad to violence has significant impact on how populations perceive Muslims. A Pew Research Poll (2017) demonstrates that fifty-eight percent of the median of people across the United States, Russia, and four Western European countries associate Islam to the word ‘fanatical’—the highest percentage of the ten words associated to Islam as presented, closely followed by fifty-per cent who associated Islam to the word ‘violent.’ This is arguably the result of a secularreligious dichotomy intact, and a myth of religious violence working simultaneously with the notion on jihad . Almond (2007) believes that whilst writing about the Other, we rather “invariably end up delineating and writing about ourselves.” To exemplify, Kundani (2012) writes, “since 1990, at least 249 persons have died in incidents of farRight violence in Europe, compared to 263 who have been killed by jihadist violence, indicating that both threats are of the same order of magnitude.” Thus, to reiterate Almond’s (2007) findings, “the Islam of the writers and thinkers covered in this book… remains invariably an Islam-for-others, an Islam-pour-l’Occident, an Islam-pour-l’Europe, and never an Islam-en-soi, an Islam for itself.” Mutman (2019) debates, this is a result of a new image of Islam being presented in accordance to New Orientalism, one which is synonymous to terrorism, fanaticism, and violence. However, Cook (2005) argues that jihad is in its origin, a primarily militant concept, and attempts to depict otherwise are a Western-centric or apologist’s response. Yet Kundani (2012) suggests that Islamophobia can be categorised as five major ideas that delineate “Muslims” and “Islam”—the first of which is: “Muslims are prone to violence.” Essentialist and reductive representations of cultures and their people, conflate them into the binary relation of The Orient and The Occident (Cuddon 1991). This highlights the link between secularist biases of what is and is not violence, what is and is not jihad , and how Islamophobia can be a consequence of such framings. Yet the media is not the only driver for anti-Muslim sentiment in this regard—the reality of terrorism is significant within itself (Tell Mama 2017). Afsaruddin (2013) highlights how it is not surprising that jihad

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is oft equated to violence, given that militant Muslim groups use the word jihad to describe their undertakings in the name of Islam—as do policymakers, and media headlines refer to terrorists and extremists as ‘jihadists.’ Some may position themselves to disregard the lasting impacts it has on both communities and individuals due to the association with Islam. Tell Mama (2017) holds a neutralised position of committing to challenging hatreds and extremisms of all kinds, against those who seek to cause division through terrorism and violence. There have also been key Muslim displays of unitive social action to publicly denounce terrorism. 70,000 Indian Muslim clerics signed a fatwa against ISIS and terrorist groups, unequivocally stating they were “not Islamic organisations” (Independent 2015). Another example is the MCB, who articulates, “since its inception in 1997, the Muslim Council of Britain has consistently condemned terrorism and looked for meaningful ways to challenge terrorism” (MCB 2022). These two examples illustrate work in the international sphere, national efforts, leadership, and grassroots levels in order to educate, inform, guide, and reiterate the notion of Islam and Muslims standing firmly against terrorism. Yet arguably, Muslim efforts are still primarily on the defensive, to prove what Islam and Muslims are not pertaining to the jihad , yet with little space available to declare what jihad is. As far as this is the case, the term jihad within the current framework remains intimidating due to globalised militant jihad , as opposed to its holistic essence. Spiritual jihad , when considered in its ethical and moral derivatives, is in line with notions of internal rectification and privatised religion perpetuated by secularist ideals. Cavanaugh (2009) argues myths of religious violence arise from non-Western, especially Muslim cultures, who have ‘not yet learnt to privatise their faith,’ and thus are deemed absolutist, irrational, and divisive. Yet, this sharp dichotomy is the essence of the myth, for the majority of Islamic scholars agree to the essential element of spiritual, ethical, and internal striving associated to jihad . Hence, broadening the notion of the jihad also broadens discussions pertaining to misconstrued dichotomies of Islam as the Other.

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Conclusion This chapter concludes that jihad is a multivalent umbrella concept, grounded in a mindset of exerted and determined striving, which permeates every aspect of Islam. It is very diverse, in terms of lexical variety, the process of enacting it, its multiple objectives, its categorisations, and different ritualistic manifestations. Jihad is an internal process encompassing patience, strife, and self-accountability. In alignment to Islamic traditions, its terminology could be applied to rituals such as pilgrimage and fasting, of which combative jihad marks a singular element. Jihad is an essential mindset outlining how Muslims strive to be engaged in ethical self-cultivation, good worshippers of God, and good communal members. Therefore, to depict jihad as exclusively militant or limited to action, as opposed to an essence and mindset that is all-encompassing is constricting and limiting. It is hence important to highlight and ensure further efforts by the media to frame the concept of jihad as multivalent. Secondly, whilst the terminology of the greater jihad is at times disputed, there is substantial evidence that the concept of spiritual striving within the umbrella term of jihad is an essential definition of the word. This paper recommends media outlets to broaden the concept of jihad to be inclusive of spiritual striving, in order to educate and propagate a fair and more nuanced representation of Islam which is relatable to the practice of Muslims. Thirdly, the media content analysis illustrated that the scope of jihad is only present within headlines as far as geographical, international globalisation of the term. Depictions of jihad only consist of negative implications, and within the category of extremist military ideologies as opposed to a holistic concept. This formulates a myth of jihad , whereby jihad , Islam, and Muslims are portrayed as inclined to violence. However, this coverage of militant jihad is not necessarily in proportion to the reality of functioning extremist groups. Research suggests far right extremism is far more prevalent and of a greater threat than terrorism in the name of Islam. Jihad , however, as well as Muslims and Islam more broadly, are regularly associated to violence and extremism, and as a natural consequence cultural values of Muslims and their compatibility with the West are repeatedly portrayed as problematic. To add

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to this, an absence of reports which highlight any element of the spiritual notion of striving, leads to disproportionate reporting. Therefore, this paper concludes that the lack of nuanced, balanced, and accurate representative reporting on jihad in the media does not reflect the multivalent nature of the term as depicted in Islam or by Muslims. Secondly, the absence of spiritual notions leads to positioning Muslims as defensively defining what jihad and Islam are not, as opposed to having the opportunity to define what it is. Lastly, Muslims in Britain have regularly sought to integrate within British society, counter-terrorism and consider British values as their own. Therefore, the threat of jihad is an othering myth grounded in security threats regarding socio-political versions in the name of Islam, as opposed to the genuine cultural value integration of British Muslims. In order to ensure the British media is fair and representative to its Muslim citizens, there must be a paradigm shift. As it stands, democratic values pertaining to Muslims in the media are enacted upon in the instance of individualistic media cases, where Muslims have complained to IPSO prior to action undertaken towards reframing othering narratives. It could be beneficial to now proactively integrate the broader multivalent notions of jihad , as depicted within the Qur’an and Islamic traditions within media discourse. This chapter illustrated that the jihad is a term utilised in Islam for both spiritual and combative notions, as well as an array of categories which encompass striving towards God, including humanitarian, ethical, and educational efforts. Finally, this paper concludes that extremism breeds from monolithic categorisations of identity and therefore diversifying the scope of values is essential to ensure a de-escalation of portraying Islam and jihad as inherently violent, which leads to cases of Islamophobia. Recommendations on Using ‘Jihad’ in CfMM’s Media Style Guide We recommend any journalist provides context when using the term “jihad” especially when related to violence because it may falsely imply the act is religiously sanctioned and because it has a different meaning for many ordinary Muslims. Terror attacks should not be described as unqualified acts of “jihad” given they breach the rules of any religion-sanctioned jihad.

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Furthermore, context should be provided. For example, there are many works that detail how acts of Daesh and al-Qaeda are not a legitimate “jihad.” As such, it would be possible to say a terrorist has claimed he is engaging in jihad in line with the principles of Islam but this claim has no standing amongst ordinary Muslims. Finally, given “jihad” is often understood amongst ordinary Muslims with a non-violent meaning as part of their everyday struggle to become a better Muslim, conflation of jihad with violence without an explanation is not recommended.

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11 The Perceptions of Sharia: Beyond Words and Intentions Kamran Khan

Introduction This chapter deals with the usage of the word and concept, Sharia. In theological terms, ‘Sharia’ translates as the way or correct path. While it is a form of religious law or guidance, there is no singular book or text of sharia. Its usage often draws on Islamic jurisprudence in providing Muslims with ways of living often using scholars for guidance within changing social conditions. This chapter is less concerned with the theology of the concept and more concerned with how it is used through language socially. In many respects, the concept of sharia touches the heart of anxieties about co-existence with Muslims. This often draws on concerns around imposing ways of living akin to the most violent forms of governance through groups, such as the Taliban and Daesh. This often belies ways in K. Khan (B) University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_11

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which sharia has been used historically through matters such as managing finance, diets and even how to deal with social issues which may not have been present during the beginning of Islam such as smoking, for example. The point is not to underplay the significance of sharia, but to demonstrate how multifaceted it is and to shift away from an overdetermination of its usage that primarily centres on interpretations that, first and foremost, may oppress Muslims. By focusing on oppressive forms of interpreting sharia, the complexity and nuances around it are solely viewed in political and ideological terms. This has often led to deep fears that its aim is to impose a way of life on non-Muslims, or even replace it. This has led to forms of moral panics. Choudhury explains, ‘Sharia is, thus, reduced from a complex and heterogenous body of religious principles that governs prayer, diet, family relations, and property rights, among other things into a political/military doctrine with the force of law behind it’ (Choudhury 2022: 45). Thus, sharia occupies a highly ideological space which has come to symbolise wider concerns about Muslims and their compatibility within broader society. The aim of this chapter is to outline how the term is used. What does language do? What social effects can it have? I will first situate the role of language and (in)security before examining the role of difference using the idea of ‘indexicality’. To better understand how sharia is understood, I will focus on notions of perception. Regardless of the theological roots of sharia, there are certain meanings that appear to be shared during moral panics. I will then draw upon examples of moral panics around sharia before analysing examples of the term being used less polemically in the other sectors such as finance and what lesson can be taken from this.

Language, Threat and Risk This section is primarily concerned with language and how words distribute risk. To better situate these societal risk and anxieties, it is worth drawing on contemporary theories in relation to (in)security. Husymans (2014) argues that insecurity is created through the diffusion

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of risk, with some deemed more risky than others. Therefore, insecurity creates not only fear and anxiety between citizen and state but also among the polity. As such, anxiety is distributed horizontally along with more top-down forms of establishing dominant discourses. Language is intimately tied with notions of (in)security. Threats and risk are discursively constructed. In other words, while some threats are material in nature, perceptual threats are shaped by how they are presented through the language which is used to describe them. Security studies has undergone a ‘linguistic turn’ in better understanding the language-security nexus. While much has been made of how elite, political actors use their status to shape security threats (Blackledge 2005; Husymans 2014), much can be drawn from applied linguistics to underlining how language and society are mutually shaping (Blommaert 2005). Risks can also be manifested through language and discourse in everyday life. Khan (2020) demonstrates how language and words used by Muslims can invoke fear among others. For example, this may include the use of Arabic on airplanes leading to ejection prior to take off. In more sinister cases, languages used by Muslims can become a precursor to hate crimes as the use of language associated with Muslims elicits hostility among others in public spaces leading to violence towards them (Khan 2019). It is not only the language itself but who and what language in each case is associated with. This means there are particular ways in which insecurity manifests itself by exacerbating pre-existent fears and tensions.

Symbols of Difference Particular markers of difference have come to symbolise the discord between Muslims and Western societies. This does not necessarily mean all members of society are equally affected, or affected at all by these markers but they have come to signify how Muslims are incompatible with the West. In ordinary life, these may be particular words, behaviours or actions which alert others to difference.

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One such example is halal food. The availability of halal food has often provided evidence of a Muslim ‘takeover’. This has ranged from halal Easter eggs (The Daily Mail 2017) to the threat of non-pork food menu being removed as was the case in France (The Guardian 2015a). In the case of Denmark, ritual halal and kosher slaughter were effectively banned (The Independent 2014). In the UK, there were concerns that the chain restaurant, Pizza Express, was secretly serving halal chicken unbeknownst to the customers (Ali and Whitham 2018). This is all relevant as food becomes a site where societal anxieties are projected through tangible evidence of a Muslim takeover. What the halal example, in conjunction with other social issues connected to Muslims such as educational school takeovers and wider ‘replacement’ fears (Ali and Whitham 2018), serves is to embody perceptual fears. This includes fears about sharia and its function in Western societies. Words like ‘halal’ and ‘sharia’ contain qualities which immediately possess a double meaning in that they at once establish the presence of Muslimness yet can also be weaponised as evidence of a takeover and replacement. The various areas of social anxieties are to be seen as interconnected. Ali and Whitham (2018: 401) argue that this unease is juxtaposed with the idea of the ‘conceptual Muslim’. They refer to this as ‘not simply a source of societal anxiety in Britain today, but is also constructed to manage a range of societal anxieties’. In other words, a particular image is created of Muslims against which wider social concerns are projected. They use examples across society including halal food and education. In essence, words and concepts like sharia possess qualities which create fear. Lemons and Chambers-Letson (2014: 1069) state, ‘What’s extraordinary about the sharia panic is the economy with which it consolidates traditions of racial and religious discrimination while simultaneously rendering this practice invisible. That is, sharia comes to stand in as a signifier of Islam and, by extension, the Muslim body’. Prejudices and anxieties are grafted onto Muslim populations. Choudhury (2022) notes how these prejudices work in conjunction to strengthen other forms of stigma associated with racially minoritised groups, with each form of discrimination working to strengthen other forms of discriminations such as anti-Black racism (Nguyen 2019; Choudhury 2022).

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Regimes of Perception While individuals and groups may be able to take responsibility for what is expressed, they are not necessarily in control of how these articulations are understood and perceived. In order to better understand this, I use the term ‘regimes of perception’ (Lo 2020). These regimes have power invested in the relations between the perceived and perceiver. This allows the perceiver to exert power through judgement with the possibility for harm. This allows us to shift the emphasis from language and concepts towards the conditions in which they are perceived. Various theorists have argued how what is expressed and understood can be very different. Derrida (1985) argued that language lives in the ‘ear of the other’. That is to say, perception can challenge the intentions of the writer or speaker. This leads to an inherent fragility within communication since the writer/speaker can never be sure that their words are interpreted as they are intended to be interpreted, and they are, therefore, vulnerable to potentially harmful judgements (McNamara 2012). It effectively means that no one person is responsible for interpretation and other factors beyond the words themselves enter the fray. Similarly, Bakhtin uses the notion that language is ‘half-ours’ and belongs half to the other (2010). In this respect, languages are alive with no static meaning and always open to interpretation. Put simply, meaning does belong to the speaker/writer but shared with the Other. This may mean coherent or even conflicting understandings of the same concept or word depending on a variety of social conditions. Perception is also conditioned by wider sociocultural, political and historical forces. McNamara (2012) argues that language and, more specifically, the interpretation of language meaning are saturated with social and cultural discourses. McNamara continues that these discourses may work against vulnerable groups in that meaning can be interpreted by more powerful groups. This may lead to potential harm. In the case of sharia, this means that the essence of how it is understood in terms of theology and jurisprudence may not be interpreted by others who may interpret it in more nefarious ways. Rosa and Flores (2017) use ‘raciolinguistic perspectives’ to demonstrate how racialised understandings can

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influence perception. They argue that discourse drawing on particular colonial and racial orders and perceptions can permeate interactions in the present day. In their work, they seek to denaturalise how racialised perceptions are positioned. As such, seemingly common-sense positions can be interrogated in different ways. In the case of sharia, there can sometimes be a discrepancy between how the term is understood. These perceptions can be shaped by prior discourses and histories. The perceptions in wider society can draw on wider anxieties about Muslims despite the myriad ways the term and concept are employed. As much emphasis is required on perception as there is on the usage of the term.

Examples of Sharia Panic The following section picks out various examples in mainstream news of ‘sharia panic’. These examples are from different global contexts which demonstrate both continuities about sharia concerns globally with distinct localised nuances.

Example One In 2015, Fox News invited Steve Emerson and Nolan Peterson to a programme hosted by Jeannie Pirro. Controversially, Emerson stated, ‘So in Britain there are not just ‘no-go zones’ there are actually cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in….[In parts] of London there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn’t dress according to Muslim religious attire.’ The guest, Nolan Peterson stated ‘ Nolan Peterson: “There are areas called ‘no-go zones’ where apparently the French police will not go [and] Sharia laws [are] imposed. These are dangerous areas in the ghetto [Peterson indicated his agreement]. What can you tell us about those?” Peterson replied: “There are basically portions of the banlieues, which are the French ghettos that the French authorities have abandoned. They

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don’t provide an ambulance service, they don’t provide police service”. (The Guardian 2015b)

There was significant backlash to the comments thereafter. The responses ranged from ridicule for which Emerson himself described as ‘brutal’ and merited. Emerson was referring to a concerted campaign of ridicule, particularly on social media, aimed at his assertion that Birmingham was a no-go zone. This included to the then-Prime Minister Cameron referring to him as a ‘complete idiot’ (The Guardian 2015c). Eventually, he was forced into an apology and correction of his original erroneous comments. Noticeably, there was criticism from the press watchdog in the UK, Ofcom. They stated ‘The regulator, in its ruling published on Monday, said the programme was “clearly misleading” and said it was “particularly concerned about the context in which these statements were made at a time of heightened sensitivity in the wake of the Hebdo attack” (The Guardian 2015). Fox News was also forced into an apology. In relation to the comments about France and sharia, the Paris city council threatened to sue Fox News. The laws around defamation in the USA do not extend to foreign territories. However, the comments about the imposition of sharia in Paris were sufficiently defamatory for the city council to take offence and sufficiently incorrect for Fox News to apologise.

Example Two Since the mid-200 s, several states in the USA have introduced antisharia legislation. Choudhury (2022) notes how 43 states have attempted to introduce some form of anti-sharia bill in the USA. Shanmugasundaram (2018) notes how since 2010, over 200 anti-sharia bills have been introduced and in 2017 alone, 14 states introduced anti-sharia law bills. All of this outlines a particular emphasis at dealing with sharia on some level through US legislative means. Perhaps of particular interest is the climate and intensification of such attempts at legislation. Noticeably, this has occurred in the post-9/11

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climate. The particular focus on Muslims and their practices, therefore, requires some level of state intervention to pre-emptively avoid concerns about conviviality with Muslims. In the above cases, there is a ‘force of law’ (Derrida 2002) which governs how sharia may be positioned, especially with those who may not otherwise have contact with such concepts as sharia. This is not only evidenced in the above volume of legislative moves but also through discourses which accompany such moves. Lemons and Chambers-Letson (2014: 1051) outline the intensity and breadth of antisharia political sentiment, In the 2011 build up to the Republican presidential primary, for example, the New York Times (Dwyer 2011) reported that many of the front runners campaigned on a platform that would stop a perceived invasion of sharia law: former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty campaigned on ‘his commitment to rooting out Islamic law’ from the Minnesota public sphere, entrepreneur Herman Cain announced that he would not appoint Muslims to administrative or judicial positions because they might ‘force their Sharia law onto the rest of us’, and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich expressed similar positions. Tennessee congressional candidate Lou Ann Zelenik (Lou Ann for Congress 2012) campaigned on a platform that would ‘prevent Sharia Law from circumventing our laws and our Constitution’. The online conservative talk show PolitiChicks (2012) has repeatedly focused on the notion that sharia law is infiltrating US law and government, a position commonly raised by cast member and former Saturday Night Live star Victoria Jackson.

The basis of the anti-sharia concerns was rooted in fears that sharia would uproot and replace American law. ‘The amendment’s [to the legislation] implication is clear: US law will remain supreme until and unless it is displaced by another legal system. Because the law of the USA ought to be upheld as supreme, other legal orders must be legislatively excluded. Perhaps even more interesting, the amendment implied that without such intervention, the US judiciary was in danger of inadvertently becoming the instrument of invasion by foreign law. Central to this and other political and legal comments about sharia, it is Islamic

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law and not Islam that is identified as the object of concern’ (Lemons and Chambers-Letson 2014: 1049).

Discussion What emerges are two particular anxieties. The first concern is of separateness. That is to say, that a separate legal system emerges emanating from Muslim communities which run both distinctly and against the ROL (Rule of the Land). This leads to a second concern which is that this separateness leads to replacement. In this sense, there is a dissemination of fear that Muslims will pledge allegiance to a legal system which is not ROL. The following section analyses these two concerns. In example one, the Fox News indexes various versions of separateness. They refer to spatial separateness through their usage of ‘no-go zones’. This is not only referenced in the context of Birmingham, which has one of the highest percentages of BME populations in Europe but also through the banlieues of Paris. In both cases, not only are these areas separate but they signal to the audience that they have been taken over completely given that non-Muslims are at minimum, made to feel uncomfortable and at most, not permitted to enter. Therefore, the role of implementation of sharia in such a context means that there is a different legal system at work and therefore the justificatory purposes for punishment under this alternative legal system. In example two, there is a fear that sharia runs separately to US law. Given that Muslims may be positioned with questionable and conflicting loyalties through which their allegiances to their religion is assumed to be more important than ROL. The anti-sharia bills build off these assumptions and serve to provide the legal intervention to avoid this ‘separate’ legal entity from infiltrating the US legal landscape. This infers that the legal balance may be overturned through allowing sharia law to remain untouched and growing. These cases point to wider societal concerns about separateness and replacement which use sharia as a concept which instils fear and anxiety. Separateness and replacement are key to fears propagated through theories such as ‘Replacement Theory’ which posits that Western populations

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will be infiltrated by Muslim immigrants who will eventually replace them and impose their imagined way of life on the once white majority (Obaidi 2022). What concepts such as sharia, and other everyday Islamic concepts, do is to provide indexical qualities to provide evidence of a takeover. In other words, these concepts and, more specifically, the words used to describe them alert others to potentially harm to society. The original meaning of the words may not be interpreted as such but instead meaning may be conditioned by how society understands these words. The question then is what happens for words to be interpreted in these ways. It is worth pointing out too that concepts and words such as sharia, and halal, for example, are often maintained in Arabic. This opens the way for the original meaning and usage to be ‘translated’. This inevitably means that meaning can change. Sharia is often interpreted as ‘law’ meaning that it is endorsed and followed by all. However, as noted earlier sharia is often heterogenous in how it is applied particularly in highly localised contexts. As such, there is no single set of sharia that Muslims adhere. Consequently, sharia is only ever viewed as an overarching form of law rather than localised set of guiding practices. Therefore, any misapplications and egregious implementation of such principles are seen as though law for all Muslims. Furthermore, maintaining the words in Arabic also indexes a sense of outsiderness that is distinct to certain societies. There is wider evidence of how such words can raise anxieties especially when associated and/or uttered by those perceived as Muslims (Khan 2020). The point here is not to change the meaning but to question why such words are perceived in the ways that they are. These ‘regimes of perceptions’ (Lo 2020) require more scrutiny in understanding how meaning is constructed and how large areas of society converge on these meanings. This requires a far greater project than space here permits but if, as Bakhtin (2010) argues, words have histories. Then the historical formations that create meaning must be interrogated further. For many people, their only contact with these concepts is through sensationalist stories and moral panics. The volume of anti-Muslim discourse means that these concepts are rarely viewed in terms of beyond negative events. As such, it is inevitable that this creates anxiety. This

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ties into longer, more established histories and mistrust around Muslims (Said 1978). Concerns and a lack of coherence with how Muslims themselves may understand Islamic concepts are understandable given how history shapes how we understand language while the present perpetuates these meanings. These concepts also play a role in indexing fears of separateness and replacement in other ways. While theories of replacement may centre on demographic change, which may not always be identifiable in tangible ways, these Islamic concepts and their established roles in society provide evidence that areas of society are undergoing undesirable change. The presence of such co-existence of practices of Muslims with a ‘host’ society is not necessarily viewed as such but instead requires on set of practices to subordinate the other. Whether they do or not is less important than the anxieties that this causes.

The Future This chapter has highlighted the power of perception. These ‘regimes of perception’ (Lo 2020) are not necessarily neutral nor are people empty vessels. We share meaning in how we understand language. To denaturalise understandings it is necessary to challenge how we concur on meanings together. It is worth pointing out that while ‘sharia panic’ was created through the news in example one, it was quickly ridiculed and resisted. While this is rarely the case, it is indicative of potential areas for resistance. In the same way that a sense of perception can be shared to create meaning, it can also be challenged. It is no way a small task due to the volume and breadth of negativity around Muslims and Islam. That said, there are few other choices but to resist and to challenge incorrect assumptions about Muslims. Language and discourse are key terrains in how perception is shaped. This is often overlooked and acknowledging this significant area is essential. Given that sharia is often conflated with notions of law, it loses its heterogeneity of meaning. Derrida (1998) argued that the flattening of multiplicity through the imposition of singularity is a major

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site of violence. He also argues that language is inherently violent in granting authority over other forms of language. Therefore, any challenges requires a certain kind of force to challenge the dominance of particular narratives. It is, therefore, worth keeping in mind where the use of words and concepts such as sharia and halal have achieved some form of normality with little stigmatisation. One such site is in the finance sector. It has been established for some time how Islamic forms of finance can coexist within wider society. For example, the Bank of England has the following section on their website entitled, ‘What is Islamic Finance?’ where it states: A Shari’ah-compliant current account doesn’t pay interest. Instead, in return for having ready access to your money, the deposit you give the bank is used as an interest free loan. This loan is known as a ‘qard’. If you open a savings account, the bank will invest the money you deposit. But they won’t invest it in anything the Shari’ah says is harmful. (Bank of England 2022)

This is an interesting example in that the Arabic terms are explained clearly. It could be argued that ‘the Shari’ah’ represents a singular form of law. However, it provides some small proof of how language and concepts can be normalised without stigmatising Muslims and appealing to anxieties. Similarly, Islamic finance has been considered in consultations on university student finance. The Government suggested a ‘Takaful system’. Below is an example, A Takaful fund would be established and managed by the Student Loans Company (away from other student loans to ensure full Shariacompliance). Students would receive monies from the fund to attend higher education. Following their graduation, they would repay a contribution to the Takaful fund, through the tax system, to ensure future students can also benefit. (House of Commons 2022)

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I underline these examples because it appears that there may be lessons to take where concepts and words such as sharia do not evoke fear while maintaining a sense of how it functions in the lives of Muslims. Going forward, the singularity of how sharia is understood through articulations around the multiple ways it is applied in often practical terms for Muslims. This may shape alternative understandings that draw upon everyday practicalities rather than ideological assertions. This may aid in breaking the ‘singularity’ of meaning and providing necessary repair through ‘mulitplicity’ of meaning (Derrida 1998). However, as argued by Derrida (1998; 2005), meanings can be inverted in on itself in potentially harmful ways. While meaning can be challenged, this needs to be balanced with the damaging ways in which terms can be used to weaponise anxieties and fears against Muslims. Implementing sharia in highly oppressive forms does little to serve Muslims, and therefore, this needs to be challenged in providing how these cases tend to be damaging while also maintain how sharia can be used in more useful and practical ways. For example, the cases of finances are built through ways that most people can understand particularly in how beneficial it can be. It requires frames of understanding that make human needs central. This is a far cry from fear of ‘takeovers’. On a deeper level, the examples of finance demonstrate some notion of co-existence. The perception is of benefit and practicality aligned with spiritual adherence. The word ‘sharia’ is not necessarily mired in replacement and separateness. Instead, its normalisation in the finance sector suggests it’s not ‘either’ ‘or’, but rather ‘with’. This is part of a wider debate in how we are with each other. Understanding perception is conditioned as well finding ways to connect across lines of commonality. All of this while acknowledging differences is essential. The power and history of language are always present in how we use words and shapes how we communicate and share meaning to understand each other. This is important in how we construct futures together.

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Conclusion The usage of sharia is highly insightful. On the one hand, it is a symbolic term to denote the imminent replacement of law and order. It can be weaponised to index particularly societal fears. In fairness in the case of Fox News, there was an unusual resistance to notions that Birmingham and Paris had no-go zones. Nevertheless, that there were terms to appeal to wider fears is not without significance. The case of passing anti-sharia laws in the USA makes provision for the highly unlikely usurping of American legal systems. However, this only serves to solidify concerns about Muslims and their inherent incompatibility with the US society. In contrast, the usage of sharia in everyday has been normalised somewhat less politically in the sector of finance. Without such ideological baggage and no threat of a takeover, financial institutions are able to provide services which openly refer to being sharia compliant. This means it is not necessarily the concept that induces fear by virtue of the Muslims in specific contexts. It is this inversion of meaning which contains the seeds for both belonging and discrimination which is embedded within language itself (Derrida 2005; McNamara 2012). Focus must be paid to the role of perception beyond the meaning and words and concepts. How perception is constructed and how we inherit meaning should be key points of departure for future work, especially when contributing to the marginalisation of potentially vulnerable groups. Words and language have histories which are invoked during the present usage. They are also informed by how we anticipate they will be interpreted. These are important considerations for better understanding how concepts and their meanings are mobilised with potential to do harm. Recommendations on Using ‘Sharia’ in CfMM’s Media Style Guide We recommend the term “Sharia” to be used only when genuinely relevant and when used, it should (in its broadest sense) be used to refer to the aspiration of Muslims to live their lives according to God’s wishes. It is inconsistent to use the term “Sharia law” when referring to a harsh penal code, but not when referring to other aspects of Sharia, such as charity, being good to one’s neighbour or even rituals such as fasting.

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The usage of the phrase “according to Sharia law” should always be carefully caveated to reflect the diversity of Muslim opinion on what constitutes “Sharia law”. Terms such as “Sharia marriage”, or “Sharia law husband” to refer to a religious wedding that was not registered in British law, should be avoided, given their lack of clarity and how they are likely to be misunderstood. The term “Sharia court” with “judges” should be avoided and replaced with “Sharia council” with “Islamic scholars” or “mediators”, given their role as being limited to specific issues (often marriage and divorce), subordinate to the court system and limited to arbitration with agreement from all impacted parties.

References Ali, N. and Whitham, B. 2018. The unbearable anxiety of being: Ideological fantasies of British Muslims beyond the politics of security. Security Dialogue, 49 (5), pp. 400–417. Bakhtin, M.M. 2010. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. University of texas Press. Bank of England. 2022. What is Islamic finance? | Bank of England. Available at: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/what-is-islamic-financ Blackledge, A. 2005. Discourse and power in a multilingual world. Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World , pp. 1–262 Blommaert, J.M.E. 2005. Discourse: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge University Press. Choudhury, C.A. 2022. Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence of Islam as a Race. University of Cincinnati Law Review University of Cincinnati Law Review, 91, p. 1. Derrida, J. 1985. The ear of the other: Otobiography, transference, translation: Texts and discussions with Jacques Derrida. Derrida, J. 1998. Monolingualism of the Other: Or, the Prosthesis of Origin. Stanford University Press. Derrida, J. 2016. Force of law: The “mystical foundation of authority”. In Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice (pp. 3–67). Routledge.

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Derrida, J. 2005. Sovereignties in question: The poetics of Paul Celan (No. 44). Fordham Univ Press. House of Commons. 2022. Sharia-compliant alternative student finance (parliament.uk). https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/sharia-compliant-alt ernative-student-finance/ Huysmans, J. 2014. Security unbound: Enacting democratic limits. Routledge. Khan, K. 2019. Hate crimes: language, vulnerability and conflict. In The Routledge Handbook of Language in Conflict (pp. 417–432). Routledge. Khan, K. 2020. What Does a Terrorist Sound Like? The Oxford Handbook of Language and Race, p. 398 Lemons, K. and Chambers-Letson, J.T. 2014. Rule of law: Sharia panic and the US Constitution in the House of Representatives. Cultural Studies, 28(5-6), pp. 1048–1077. Lo, A. 2021. Whose hearing matters? Context and regimes of perception in sociolinguistics. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2021(267–268), pp. 153–162. McNamara, T. 2012. Language assessments as shibboleths: A poststructuralist perspective. Applied Linguistics, 33(5), pp. 564–581. Nguyen, N. 2019. Suspect communities: Anti-Muslim racism and the domestic war on terror. University of Minnesota Press. Obaidi, M., Kunst, J., Ozer, S. and Kimel, S.Y. 2022. The “Great Replacement” conspiracy: How the perceived ousting of Whites can evoke violent extremism and Islamophobia. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 25 (7), pp. 1675–1695. Shanmugasundaram, S. 2018. Anti-Sharia Law Bills in the US. Anti-Sharia law bills in the United States | Southern Poverty Law Center (splcenter.org). Available at: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/02/05/anti-sharialaw-bills-united-states Said, E. 1978. Introduction to orientalism. 1978, pp. 1279–1295. The Daily Mail . 2017. Are your Easter eggs halal certified? Daily Mail Online. Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4400444/Are-Eastereggs-halal-certified.html The Guardian. 2015a. Pork or nothing: How school dinners are dividing France. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ 2015a/oct/13/pork-school-dinners-france-secularism-children-religious-int olerance The Guardian. 2015b. Ofcom criticises Fox News for calling Birmingham no-go zone for non-Muslims | Fox News. The Guardian. Available

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at: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015b/sep/21/ofcom-criticises-foxnews-for-calling-birmingham-no-go-zone-for-non-muslims The Guardian. 2015c. Fox News man is ‘idiot’ for Birmingham Muslim comments—David Cameron | Fox News. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015c/sep/21/ofcom-criticises-foxnews-for-calling-birmingham-no-go-zone-for-non-muslims The Guardian. 2015d. Paris moves to sue Fox News for false reporting on Muslim ‘no-go zones’ | Paris. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.the guardian.com/world/2015d/feb/12/paris-lawsuit-fox-news-reporting-no-gozones-non-muslims The Independent. 2015. Denmark bans kosher and halal slaughter as minister says ‘animal rights come before religion’. The Independent. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/12/paris-lawsuit-foxnews-reporting-no-go-zones-non-muslims

12 Reclaiming the Spiritual Meaning of ‘Allahu Akbar’ from Media Misrepresentation Salman Al-Azami

Introduction The Muslim culture of saying Allahu Akbar is known as ‘takbeer’, which means glorifying the greatness of God. Allahu Akbar, which literally means ‘God is Greater’, is one of the most expressed terms in the life of a practising Muslim due to its repeated use in the rituals of everyday prayer that one has to perform five times a day. It is also uttered six times in the Adhan—the call to prayer chanted in every Mosque before each of the five daily congregational prayers. Besides its intrinsic links with the prayer rituals, this term is often used by Muslims as an exclamatory expression when receiving good news, viewing some beautiful scenery, or even for simply praising God. Not only that, when a baby is born in a Muslim family, the culture of chanting the Adhan softly into the ears of the newborn baby is widely practised around the world. However, in the S. Al-Azami (B) School of Humanities, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3_12

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post-9/11 world, this deeply spiritual Muslim expression has become a symbol of terrorism in the non-Muslim world, thanks to some terrorists using this term before committing a crime, and the subsequent overemphasis of the term by the Western media as an integral part of an act of terrorism. This correlation between Allahu Akbar and terrorist attacks has become so prominent in the media that for many non-Muslims, this term is nothing but a by-word for terrorism. The impact of the media’s over-emphasis of this term as a terrorist slogan can be consequential. In 2016, the Greater Manchester Police admitted that they intentionally used the phrase Allahu Akbar in a terror training exercise in Trafford Centre—one of the UK’s biggest shopping centres, in which a fake suicide bomber shouted this term during the simulated terrorist attack (Perraudin 2016). Although the police force later apologised for ‘vocally linking this exercise with Islam’, the very fact that it was a part of the police planning demonstrates how deeply ingrained this stereotypical association between the term and a terrorist attack has become. The impact of this video could also be found in the comments section of the YouTube video of this exercise uploaded by Al Jazeera where people assumed this to be the true nature of Islam and some comments showed how terrified people felt about the term, though many condemned the police for doing such an exercise. Ahmed (n.d.) questions the media emphasis of ‘Allahu Akbar’ as a terrorist slogan by comparing between terrorists’ use of the term and how common Muslims around the world use this everyday: Those committing terrorism in the name of Islam are part of a messianic cult who twist sacred texts to comport to their parochial view of religious supremacy and eschatology. ……… An average Muslim will say “Allahu Akbar” well over 20 times a day, which translates to over 20 billion “God is Great” a day! So why is its misappropriation by terrorists normative of Islam but the billions of peaceful expressions not?

The two words in this term consist of Allah (God) and Akbar (greater). As a monotheistic religion, the significance of the omnipotence of God is reflected in the morphology of the word Allah where the definite article Al ‘the’ (meaning ‘the only one’) precedes ilah

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(worthy of worship) meaning that Allah is the only entity that can be worshipped. Therefore, its literal English translation ‘God’ does not include this monotheistic aspect of the Arabic word. Semantically, a componential analysis of the two words will show that Allah has + MONOTHEISM while ‘God’ includes ± MONOTHEISM. Question may arise why a comparative adjective Akbar (greater) is used to collocate with Allah instead of an Arabic counterpart of ‘greatest’. As Drissner (2016) explains, in Semitic linguistics, this word is a ‘noun of preference’ (Ism tafdheel in Arabic), which refers to a stage of gradation that can be both comparative or superlative. Most scholars suggest that Allahu Akbar implies Allah being most great, i.e. greater than any other being (ibid). This has been explained by Ibn al-Qayyim (2002) as follows: Allahu Akbar literally means, ‘Allah is Greater’, with the comparative mode. Yet, this does not mean that He . . . is not the Greatest, nor does it mean that there is anything that is put in comparison with Him. This is because when the Muslim says it, he means He is “Greater” than anything else, which, consequently, means He is the Greatest ..... (in Ghazanfari et al. 2019, p. 96)

Ghazanfari (2019, p. 98) calls Allahu Akbar as “…..a text, as a linguistic unified whole, which may convey different underlying discourses as well”. Unays (2017) summarises the term as a tool for Muslims to purify their faith in God through recognising that the utmost greatness is for Allah alone, and is a declaration of refusing to accept that He has any partners. Although the term has a deep spiritual root and connotation, it has also been used for political purposes, and also during religious wars, and in recent past, during the non-violent revolution against the Shah regime in Iran in 1979 (Ghazanfari et al. 2019, p. 96). It is often used as a political slogan by Islamic political parties around the world, and in some countries, like Afghanistan, the term is repeated in the national anthem. There is no doubt that terrorists or extremists have used this term before committing an act of crime, but as Wignell et al. (2016, p. 4) claims, “….. such extremist factions’ ideological and theological beliefs are totally different from the true nature of Islam”.

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This chapter aims to linguistically analyse how the British media represent this term and compare it to its actual meaning and usage by Muslims in Britain through an audience response study focusing on how British Muslims feel when a phrase that they use in their everyday life is hijacked by terrorists and misrepresented in the media. Three media articles consisting of news reports and opinion columns will be linguistically analysed, which will then be compared with how the Muslim community react to the same media articles through three focus group studies with Muslim professionals, young Muslims, and Islamic scholars and Imams. Critical Discourse Analysis will be used to analyse the media representation, while Hall’s (1981) audience response theory of Encoding/ Decoding will be applied to look into the views of the three focus group participants.

Literature Review Although the Western media demonstrated misperceptions about Islam and Muslims before 9/11 (Said 1997), the media landscape in the last two decades has changed significantly with negative portrayals increasing manifold leading to Muslims in the West stereotyped as troublemakers and often seen as a threat to Western civilisation. As Hoover (2006) points out, media is the gateway for wider population’s perception about minority religions and religious groups, and continuous news coverage has increased this interaction between religion, the media, and the public with Islam being the most prominent religion in public domain (Al-Azami 2016). Since former US President George W. Bush declared the ‘War on Terror’, there is a common trend in the media to create an intrinsic link between terrorism and Muslims leading to fear reactions among the nonMuslim Western public (von Sikorski et al. 2017, p. 829). Powell (2018) observes that a terrorist attack is immediately identified as perpetrated by Muslims even before the detailed information of an incident is clear. The stereotype of ‘All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims’ is deeply ingrained in the way terrorism is represented in the media. This division between the backward Muslims of the Orient and the civilised

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non-Muslims in the West is deeply rooted in what Said (1978) termed as ‘Orientalism’ (Corbin 2017; Al-Azami 2021). The role of ritual language can often be obfuscated due to the complexities in terms of its function beyond the religious realm. How far a particular religious term goes beyond the spiritual context depends on how religious adherents use the term. Religious verses recited during rituals of a marriage or death can be specific and those particular verses may not be used in any other worldly contexts. For example, particular Quranic verses are recited when a dead body is buried, which is not uttered in any other contexts. However, there are some religious terms, which are used by Muslims around the world in regular everyday contexts for expressing gratitude, surprise, happiness, grief, etc. In terms of the Speech Act theory (Austin 1962), the intention behind an utterance (illocutionary act) could be varied, whether it is to request, apologise, declare, or anything else, which can often be different from the actual saying (locutionary act), leading to different effects of the utterance on the hearer (perlocutionary act). Widdowson (2007, p 6) points out various social functions of a text, ranging from providing information to expressing different points of view. Keane (1997, p. 64) suggests multiple illocutionary functions of a religious expression depending on the contexts. Allahu Akbar is one such term that has multiple functions within the linguistic repertoire of a Muslim. While its locutionary act can literally be the proclamation of the greatness of God, its illocutions depend on the various contexts in which the utterance is made. For example, the illocution of this term can include remembering God as a spiritual utterance, expressing gratitude to Him, appreciating a beautiful scenery, showing surprise, or simply praising God. Another Islamic term often used in multiple contexts is insha Allah (If Allah wills—referring to a future action) while analysing which Pishghadam and Kermanshahi’s (2012, cited in Ghazanfari et al. 2019, p. 98) found eight illocutionary functions of the utterance. In a recent study, Ghazanfari et al. (2019) found nine pragmatic functions of Allahu Akbar by Arabic and Persian-speaking Muslims, and it is interesting to note that five of them are in negative contexts, which are much different to the way focus group participants in this study used the term. However, none of these negative illocutions have any

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links to terrorism. These nine contexts are: to raise public objection, to reveal anger/hatred, to call for revenge, to show joy and gratitude, to declare one’s approval and support, to exclaim bewilderment, to celebrate achievement/success, to boost self-agitation/intimidation of the enemy, and to raise one’s own and one’s advocates’ morale. While commonly used Islamic terms insha Allah, Alhamdulillah (praise be to Allah), Subhan Allah (Glory be to Allah), etc. do not bear negative connotations in the British media, Allahu Akbar is explicitly portrayed as a term divinely connected to terrorism. A report on the representation of terrorism in the British media by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) found that between 2016 and 2019, Allahu Akbar appeared as a headline in online news sources 285 times, and 214 times the term was associated with terror attacks (CfMM 2020, p. 92). The report concluded that, the constant reference to this term while reporting terrorism, “…… has impacted media reporting and the way the phrase is reproduced. It has conflated the phrase with acts of violence and has lent an ordinary Islamic phrase a negative connotation” (ibid, p. 100). Another MCB analysis of the term uses the Web Corpus data to look at top 100 collocations of Allahu Akbar in the British press. Among them 6 contain the name of a weapon, 20 contain an aggressive action, and 22 describe a violent actor while only 5 are associated with the semantic field of Islam (CfMM Media Style Guide, Unpublished). This evidently shows that 95% collocations of the term in the media is negative with the vast majority associating it with terrorism, whereas the actual usage of the term by Muslims is overwhelmingly positive and spiritual. It is true that terrorists who call themselves Muslims have used Allahu Akbar before making an attack. However, the media portrayals of the term have made it an exclusive term for terrorism. This approach falls within the concept of ‘media framing’ where the media construct an incident in a specific way by selectively making, …… “salient elements in news to be dominant” (Hoon 2021, p. 163). In this process of framing, the media chooses some information and ignores others in order to shape and influence the audience to understand and interpret an event in a particular way (Matthes, 2009). An essential component of media framing is making a message memorable, which, according to Entman

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(1993), is often done by the subtle transfer of salient features of something to the audience. Allahu Akbar is an example of media framing where the media selectively portrays this term as an integral part of a terrorist attack and the repeated link between the term and the action makes it memorable to the audience. When the media chooses to use the term only as a terrorist slogan by avoiding any other contexts of the term, a successful media framing is established.

Methodology The three articles chosen for analysis in this study include a news article in the Daily Mail and two opinion columns in The Spectator by renowned right-wing commentators. All three articles clearly correlate acts of terrorism by Muslims with the term Allahu Akbar. In most of these articles, Allahu Akbar appears in the headline and in one or two places within the article rather than being repeated several times. However, the context and manner in which the term is portrayed as a terrorist slogan have a far-reaching consequence for British Muslims. These articles have been analysed in this study by applying Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Van Dijk (2001, p. 355), talking about ‘power as control’ in CDA, suggests that by influencing the minds of the audience through the most influential discourse, the media often indirectly controls people’s actions, leading to inequality as a social consequence. The representation of Allahu Akbar in the British media exemplifies this unequal power relationship in an explicit manner. Al-Azami (2016, p. 35) notes that written and spoken discourse in the media in a social and political context often contribute towards …… “power abuse, dominance and inequality”. By narrowing down the function of this commonly used term as a terrorist slogan, a dominant ideology is being propagated into the minds of the general public through the use of language that is often covert and messages are conveyed in such a way that on many occasions, the audience will consider it to be common sense.

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To understand how the media representations of the term affects the Muslim communities in Britain, focus group was chosen as the methodology to analyse how British Muslims react to such negative portrayals of a term that is integral to their spiritual and social lives. Focus groups are a widely used modern method that social scientists apply for data collection. According to Lewis (1991, p. 91), focus groups provide an opportunity for a relatively large number of participants to discuss debatable issues in a safe public setting. Due to the diversity of views that can be collected from the participants (Morgan 1997, p. 15), this methodology enables the researcher to explore the ways people construct meaning and how they interact with those who may disagree with them. However, this method is only effective if the researcher is able to control the discussions and not let the participants divert from the focus of the research. Considering the huge diversity within the Muslim community in Britain, different professional and age groups were selected for the focus group meetings. University students took part in the ‘Young Muslims’ category, while professionals like doctors, architects, bankers, and civil servants were among the ‘Muslim Professional’ group. The third group included Mosque Imams and leaders, Islamic scholars including academics expert in Islamic jurisprudence, and community leaders involved in interfaith activities. Each participant was sent the same three articles analysed by the researcher, which formed the basis of discussions during the focus group meetings comparing between the media representation of the term and their personal experience of using it. There was an active effort in having a gender balance within each group. While that was possible with the Muslim professionals group, there were more females in the Young Muslims group and more males in the Imams/Scholars group. However, as gender is not a key variable, gender imbalance among the participants has not affected the aims and objectives of this research. For non-Muslim audiences, negative representations of a sacred Islamic term can have varied effects with some of them being subjected to, what Lasswell (1971) terms as The Hypodermic Model . These types of audience, most of them having little or no personal connection with

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Muslims, can be over-dependent on the media, so calling Allahu Akbar a terrorist slogan can successfully inject values and attitudes against Muslims into the minds of the audience making them powerless to resist the impact of such messages. However, the audience in this study are the victims of such media messaging, so this type of audience would critically interact not only with the messages, but also with the ideological underpinning of such messaging. Stuart Hall’s (1980) encoding/decoding model is the most appropriate theory that can be applied to the present study. This is a significant theory in audience research where the viewers are considered to be actively producing meanings based on their own social positioning, experiences, and cultural knowledge. According to Hall, the encoders (the producers of the media message) have an intended meaning, which may or may not match the way the decoders (the audience) receive it. Hall considers decoding as an active process where there is no identical correspondence between the meanings of encoding and decoding due to both having separate interpretive frameworks through which the meaning is processed. That is why, based on their cultural backgrounds, economic standing, and personal experiences the media messages are interpreted differently by the audience (ibid, p. 136). Hall proposes three hypothetical positions, namely the dominant-hegemonic code (the meaning between the encoder and the decoder is symmetrical), the negotiated code or position (the decoder negotiates between accepting or rejecting the message based on what they find acceptable), and the oppositional code (the decoder rejects the message straight away due to having ‘alternative framework of reference’ (ibid). The audience in this study overwhelmingly fall under the third group in Hall’s theory. It was expected that they would reject the negative media representation of a term that they use in their everyday life. The study found that they not only rejected the media portrayals of the term, but also proposed that the term should be reclaimed from media misrepresentations so that the wider British public can understand the true meaning of Allahu Akbar .

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Discussion Discussion on the data will consist of three sections. The first section will include a brief CDA of the three articles along with the audience’s responses to these articles. This will be followed by the various issues raised by the participants in light of the media portrayal of Allahu Akbar. In the third and final section, the participants’ perspectives on how the term can be reclaimed from the dominant negative media narratives will be highlighted. A common observation made by participants across the three groups is the media’s failure to define what Allahu Akbar means. As an Arabic phrase, the non-Muslim audience are not expected to know the meaning of the term, and as a professional young Muslim participant said, it is used by the media as a signal to show, “ convergence of Islam and terrorism”, which another participant termed as ‘an agenda’ of the media. However, an architect based in Manchester felt that the general population also should bear some responsibility for not putting much effort in understanding what the phrase means. This conforms to Littlewood’s (2017) suggestion that non-Arabs, who are unfamiliar with the term, have a responsibility to educate themselves culturally in order to understand what Allahu Akbar means (in Callaghan 2017). A university student suggested that the media portrayals of the term are nothing but ‘unsubtle Islamophobia’. However, an Oxford-based academic and Islamic scholar finds this type of representation to be a calculated PR campaign against Muslims. He says: It’s actually part of a broader narrative that has been ratcheted up since 9/11. I mean you can actually find elements of this even before that, so if someone reads Edward said’s ‘Covering Islam’, which was written in the 90s, the narrative is basically hundreds of millions of dollars worth of PR investment.

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Language in the Media Articles and Audience’s Responses The title of a news report in The daily Mail on 7 June 2020 says: ‘All the hallmarks out of the terrorist playbook’: Shocking moment New Yorker, 20, stabs a police officer and shoots two others while yelling out ‘Allahu Akbar’ before being subdued and arrested. This short article of less than 500 words was published after an incident in New York where three police officers were attacked by a Muslim of Bosnian descent. The article and the police personnel quoted in it call it a terrorist attack due to having ‘all the hallmarks’ of terrorism. There is very little detail of the attacker’s motivation apart from ‘liking’ a few anti-police tweets, which is not exclusive to terrorists. Therefore, it is assumed that, for them, yelling Allahu Akbar during the attack is the hallmark of terrorism. This over-simplification on the part of the police is perhaps a consequence of continuous media stereotype of this term, and has a strong similarity with how the Greater Manchester Police used this term for their mock terrorist attack exercise. Including the phrase ‘hallmark of terrorism’ in the headline reinforces this stereotype, and thus a vicious cycle of negative media and police narratives of Allahu Akbar is created. This is also an example of media framing as non-Muslims would interpret this term negatively when a common Muslim uses it for their spiritual or emotional gratification. In 2017, the Mayor of Venice even went to the extent of saying, “We will shoot anyone who shouts ‘Allahu Akbar’ in St. Mark’s Square” (Ghazanfari et al. 2019, p. 95), evidenced in von Sikorski et al.’s (2017, p. 829) suggestion that such stereotyping in the news about terrorism can, “…. systematically affect news consumers’ fear reactions”, and an increase of Islamophobia as a consequence leading to many Muslims being afraid to use it in public place (ibid). Focus group participants in this study have also shown similar sentiments of avoiding using the term in public in fear of being victims of Islamophobia. Another stereotyping this article suggests is creating a direct link between a person’s religiosity as a Muslim and terrorism. The article quotes family members of the attacker who calls him a practising Muslim, but in the strapline of the article, the reporter calls him a practising Muslim without suggesting that it is a claim from one of his family

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members. This means that the reporter is accepting the categorisation of the individual by his family members without any effort to verify the claim. Finally, the article claims that the attacker is, “…accused of screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ three times”, thus concluding that the pronouncement of this term can contribute towards someone to be accused of a crime. This proves that the reporter has made no effort to understand what this term means to Muslims, and how it is used in their everyday lives, which may not provide an evidence of deliberate misrepresentation of the term, but manifests the absence of proper journalistic scrutiny while representing a sensitive issue. Conforming to Hall’s (1980) Oppositional Code, most participants rejected the article’s implication that Allahu Akbar is a ‘hallmark of a terrorist attack’ suggesting an ideological underpinning of the reporter and the newspaper behind this stereotype. A student participant found that the presentation has been made in such a way that, if that phrase wasn’t included , there’s nothing else that we should look out for in a terrorist. In fact, a young participant found this article containing ‘all the hallmarks’ of a Daily Mail article, while an Islamic scholar said that it was nothing but a dramatic representation to sell the newspaper. The second article is entitled, It’s OK to mention anti-Semitic attacks— but not who commits them, published in The Spectator on 16 August 2014. The Spectator regularly publishes anti-Muslim articles and is listed as the top news outlet in Britain where Islamophobic articles are published (CfMM 2021). Among their columnists, Rod Little has a history of Islamophobic articles making sweeping remarks against Muslims without providing any evidence. Before the 2019 general election, an article he wrote demanding Muslims to be banned from voting led to widespread criticisms, which include some senior members of the Conservative Party (Turnnidge 2019). Therefore, it is not surprising that this right-wing newspaper would publish this type of opinion piece by Rod Little. Here, Rod Little accuses Muslims for almost all anti-Semitic attacks in Britain suggesting that, … “virtually all of the anti-Semitic attacks in this country—and in France and Germany and Belgium—have been perpetrated by Muslims”, a claim that he does not substantiate by any evidence. Although there are some grievances among

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European Muslims against the Jews due to the actions of the Israeli government against the Palestinians (Al-Azami 2016, p. 70), there is no evidence to suggest that anti-Semitic attacks by Muslims is a widespread phenomenon. The only time the author uses Allahu Akbar in this article is when he links some anti-Semitic graffiti to …. “Allahu Akbar! Jihad! Stuff like that…..”, again without providing any proof to support his claims. Here, he uses a collocation between Allahu Akbar and Jihad —another often misrepresented term in the media that directly links to terrorism. Jihad is almost exclusively used for terrorism in the British media (Al-Azami 2016), and magnification of this repeatedly used Islamic term brings both Islam and Muslims into disrepute (CfMM 2021, p. 90). The social consequence of such a one-sided biased approach towards Muslims can create, according to von Sikorski et al. (2017, p. 843), ….. “negative out-group perceptions of Muslims in general and may further enhance intergroup conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims”. Focus group participants also noticed how he gave numbers and statistics without any reference to a source. A young female participant found this article to be an example of blatant anti-Muslim hatred. She particularly observed the language he used to be of Orientalist tropes, e.g. calling Muslims as ‘illiterate’ and ‘unenlightened’. A medical doctor based in Manchester called this ‘lazy and sloppy journalism’, which may go unchallenged by non-Muslims. A university student from Cambridge summarised Rod Little’s Islamophobia succinctly: I think it’s really interesting that he’s almost painting Muslims …. opposite of any muslim experience. I think there are some really interesting phrases like the good Muslims and the bad Muslims so the good Muslims are the ones that basically agree with his opinions and the bad muslims are those that would refute that. … There’s no real substance to anti Semitic incidents among Muslim communities… no drawing upon studies why there might be some anti semitism within Muslim communities….

However, participants in all three focus groups engaged in constructive discussions on whether anti-Semitism did exist among the Muslims

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in Britain. There was an acknowledgement that some Muslims, particularly among the older generation, do believe in some conspiracy theories of Jewish control of media, etc., which is also common among other communities. They also agreed that sometimes there is a misunderstanding among Muslims about Jews due to the Israeli oppression on Palestinians. Some participants underscored the need for more dialogues between the Muslims and Jews as there are more similarities than differences between them. However, a General Practitioner (GP) based in London found that to be difficult to do through her experience of befriending some Jewish people on social media. While initially they had positive interactions between them, they soon discovered the superficial nature of the friendship when issues of Palestine-Israel conflict created a distance between them that was difficult to overcome. Most participants agreed that politics in the Middle East often creates tensions between Muslims and Jews. However, all agreed that it rarely turns into anti-Semitic attacks by Muslims as suggested by Rod Little. This misunderstanding between the followers of these two Abrahamic faiths can be found in Al-Azami’s (2016) work where the author shared his experience of how he struggled to get members of the Jewish communities to take part in his research due to his ‘Arab surname’ as pointed out by one of the few Jewish participants in the research. Two Muslim professionals, disagreeing with Muslim anti-Semitism, gave examples of White English anti-Semitism they themselves witnessed in their workplace where some notorious Jewish stereotypes and vulgar language against Jews could be regularly heard. Comparing between Muslim and non-Muslim anti-Semitism, a young Muslim suggested that the contexts of both are significantly different. While White English antiSemitism includes power and position with racism being its underlying reason, they argued that Muslim anti-Semitism is based on victimhood in Middle East politics and pro-Israeli bias of Western governments. The third article, Europe’s summer of terror published in The Spectator on 30 July 2016, was written by Douglas Murray—a commentator who openly makes Islamophobic comments on broadcast and print media. Al-Azami (2021) notes that right-wing media outlets tend to promote Islamophobic tropes more than liberal and left-wing media institutions, therefore containing provocative right-wing views of its writers. This is

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evident in this article where the author criticises the liberal media for going too soft towards Muslims when a terrorist act is committed by a Muslim. Murray repeats Allahu Akbar five times in this article. The first three mentions are all at the beginning where the term is repeated three times to refer to three separate terrorist incidents where the perpetrators are said to have used this phrase before their acts of crime. With Allahu Akbar, Murray uses the verbs ‘shouted’ twice and ‘screamed’ once, which are similar to ‘yelled’ used in article 1—all referring to the notion of anger, an emotional state closely associated with terrorism. Although the actual Muslim experience of using this phrase is significantly different, the memory aspect of media framing (Entman 1993) is effectively applied here by repeating the phrase while referring to several terrorist attacks in an attempt to establish this religious expression as a terrorist slogan. As is evident in the literature (Ghazanfari et al. 2019; CfMM 2021) and mentioned by most focus group participants in this research, the media has been successful in creating a fear among non-Muslims about this term leading Muslims to avoid using it in public in order to avoid being misunderstood. The fourth use of this term in the article refers to the Munich shooting in 2016 on the 5th anniversary of Andres Brevik’s mass shooting in Norway. Here the author highlights how everyone was too focused on Andres Brevik, the mass murderer, rather than the terrorist who attacked in Munich saying Allahu Akbar . Here again, the focus on this term suggests a clear link between Islam and terrorism. It is this type of media framing, according to Hoon (2021, p. 160), that creates anti-Muslim sentiments among non-Muslims. The fifth and final mention of the term is found through a sarcastic criticism of the lack of media coverage of Muslim terrorism suggesting, “no amount of Mohameds shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ can be said to have any connection to Islam”. Murray makes a double attack on Islam and Muslims by first using the name of Islam’s holy Prophet, which is also a common Muslim name, and then linking this name to, what he frames, a terrorist slogan. The whole premise of this article is a counter-narrative to portray a picture of soft attitude towards Muslim terrorists by the British media. However, evidence overwhelmingly points to the opposite direction

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where numerous studies show how the British media continuously represent Islam and Muslims negatively (Al-Azami 2016; Hargreaves 2016; Baker et al. 2013; Moore et al. 2008; Poole and Richardson 2006). Contrary to what Murray wants to say, constant negative portrayal of Muslims in the media has a negative impact on political decision-making and global relations (Hoon 2021, p. 160). Reacting to Douglas Murray’s opinion piece, a university student based in Birmingham observed that by quoting some events, Murray is trying to show the high frequency of such attacks by a Muslim, whereas in reality, terrorism by Muslims are very few in number. However, he acknowledged the significance of such representation as, the audience he’s writing to is mostly people that already have these kind of beliefs anyway so it’s basically just trying to reaffirm those beliefs through using emotive language.

Allahu Akbar in the Media and British Muslims Despite all the media attention of the term, it is important to understand that it is essentially a religious expression used by Muslims. The participants explained what the term means to them. One meaning expressed universally is how much the term is a part of their identity as Muslims, not only in their prayer rituals, but also in their everyday life, for example, being soothing to the heart, the weight and symbolism it carries, the religious significance it contains, etc. A medical doctor in Manchester summed up this deep connection succinctly: What it means to me is a deeper sense when you say Allahu Akbar, it’s praise to God, praise to the Creator who knows your innermost thoughts, who looks after you, is the one who you can ask for help. So I guess in Allahu Akbar there’s a lot of solace, because, whatever happens in life, for example, something difficult happens, even a minor thing in the road, or something happens at work, Allahu Akbar for me comes out automatically, knowing that whatever has happened to me is from God so it’s integral to me. If something hasn’t gone quite right, this has come from God. You know it’s His will; He will look after me….

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Although the participants are annoyed how this term has been hijacked by terrorists, most participants blamed the media due to their over-emphasis of the use of the term by terrorists rather than the criminal action they commit. A university student felt that the media portrayal of Allahu Akbar was exactly the opposite of their lived experience and found the media controlling the meaning of the term by associating it with terrorism. Some gave the media credit for successfully turning this phrase as a taboo so much so that Muslims feel awkward even whispering the term. That is why most participants urged the need for a shift in public perception of the term from what they see in the media to what Muslims actually know it to be. The media coverage of the term is so negative that almost all participants said that they never use Allahu Akbar publicly in non-Muslim contexts. This is due to the fear of being harassed or judged by the wider community. Two practical experiences shared by participants will explain the level of negativity the media coverages have been able to evoke among the public. A university student shared how she was mocked at by fellow students: I was sleeping in my room and I heard a few people next door in the kitchen. and actually making fun of the phrase and shouting that phrase and making joke of me…

A female community leader shared her experience of taking part in a TV programme where this happened: I was part of this TV documentary about four or five years ago now, ‘My week as a Muslim’ and the lady that came to stay with me, Kate, she’d never met Muslims and her only impression of Muslims was through probably just the Daily Mail, really. Although she was an auxiliary nurse in a hospital she’d never really met Muslims. When she saw us praying in the documentary, she said, ‘oh allahu Akbar, isn’t that what they say when they blow things up?’ So even somebody with no knowledge of Islam, who hadn’t got a clue about the religion, that’s what’s impregnated in her mind.

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This concern is more prevalent among young Muslims carrying a backpack as part of their student life and being visibly Muslim—a male Muslim having a beard or a female Muslim with a headscarf (hijab). Participants expressed being acutely aware of the implications of using the term in public and being nervous about it. This is evident how two female students based in Manchester and Leeds, respectively, expressed their feeling of using the term in public or their mobile phone with the Adhan app going off in public: You’re wary about using terms like allahu Akbar, you’re wary of your Athan app (on mobile phone) going off in public transport, and you know stating Allahu Akbar - what if people get scared? ….. you’re carrying a backpack in the airport and your Athan app might go off…. things like that. What the media has done is it makes me more aware of my behaviour in public….. a constant reminder….oh, I have a backpack on in public…. I’m constantly thinking what other people think of me…. so it lingers with you, wherever you go.

Although participants feel that Allahu Akbar is an expression of celebration of Islamic culture, they understand the limitation that this type of celebration in a public setting might terrify others. There are differences of opinions about using other Arabic terms that are integral to Muslims, e.g. Subhan Allah ‘glory be to Allah’, Alhamdulillah ‘praise be to Allah’ or insha Allah ‘if Allah wills’, etc. Some participants feel more comfortable using these terms while some others are cautious not to say anything in Arabic. An Islamic scholar in Manchester with small children explained why he avoids using any Arabic religious expressions in public, let alone Allahu Akbar : I would be very conscious if I was in a public area of saying anything in Arabic that’s audible because usually i’m out with my children, so I don’t want to put myself in a situation where i’m going to be on the receipt of abuse, when my children are there. When I was younger it wouldn’t have bothered me, you know….but then, when you have children, it affects you - you don’t put yourself in a situation where there is fear for their safety….

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The hesitation and/or worry of using the term in public comes from the fact that terrorists have indeed used this expression before committing their acts of terror. This aspect is widely acknowledged by the participants who too are annoyed by the hijacking of a phrase so close to their hearts as Muslims. An Imam based in Birmingham puts the blame entirely on individuals who misappropriate the term and claims that Muslims need not be apologetic for the atrocities by a minority few. However, an academic based in Oxford took a nuanced approach to the term ‘terrorism’ calling for a more critical approach to this notion: We can look at the example of 9/11 and the reaction that it generated on the part of the US and the UK. Our own tax dollars went to the killing of many Iraqis but that’s not labeled terrorism, so I think we need to have a certain degree of criticality when we assess that sort of a context. We can try to highlight that, while these people are misusing the term with the expression of Allahu Akbar but in what context they are doing it is the problem - not the use of the term itself. We need to look at the sort of context that gives rise to this kind of criminality.

Reclaiming Allahu Akbar The most discussed aspect in all three focus groups was reclaiming the term from the dominant media narrative as a terrorist slogan and presenting it to the wider population as a common everyday phrase of a Muslim. Participants from all groups felt that it is time that we educate the people about the real meaning of this phrase and help them accept it as a deeply spiritual as well as an integral part of their everyday life. They argued that mere translation of the term will not be enough as nonMuslims need to be explained its deeper meaning. A common opinion came from participants across the groups that Allahu Akbar is rarely ‘yelled’ or ‘shouted’ by Muslims unlike what the media wants everyone to believe. As one young Muslim poignantly said, We want to distance the Allahu Akbar that we know, from the Allahu Akbar that people see on the news.

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Many participants felt that Muslims in the West tend to look inwardly and underscored the need to collaboratively develop ideas to find ways to reclaim the term. A young Muslim asked an important question, are we also being complicit by not saying anything? A number of participants expressed the opinion that Muslims’ personal relationships with nonMuslims can play a vital role in reclaiming the term. They argued that the positive image a Muslim can create in their interactions with nonMuslims can nullify the negative portrayals in the media as people would believe what they witness themselves than what they read in newspapers. A young professional felt that Muslims could use the term frequently and comfortably at work so that people understand that it is an everyday word for Muslims, while an imam from Glasgow suggested that using the term in front of people we often interact with will make them realise that a bunch of good people are using it as part of their spirituality. One idea shared by a medical doctor who is also active on Instagram is having more Muslim social media influencers and positive role models speaking to non-Muslim audiences in order to change the perception of this term by using and explaining it to the public. She expressed disappointment that Muslim social media influencers mainly cater to a Muslim audience and do not try and influence the opinion of nonMuslims in any way. This view is echoed by a university student who emphasised the need for more Muslim journalists and YouTubers. An Oxford-based academic and Islamic scholar suggested the following: In order to begin the process of changing, we need to invest in talents in those sorts of areas where there is influence, and we need to support that talent until it matures into good journalists, good novel writers, good screenplay, etc. the sort of people who are going to produce films and things like that, because this stuff is embedded in all those levels of culture and beyond.

An imam from Birmingham reminded that it is not possible for Muslims to stop the misuse of the term altogether. However, the negativities created by the terrorists and media could be encountered through positive reinforcement. He said, ….through awareness, dialogues, writings, research, and publications in different forms, we can slowly overcome this

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problem. This sentiment was echoed by another Islamic scholar from Glasgow who called for a strategic long-term plan with first educating the Muslims how to use the term sensitively in front of non-Muslims. An Islamic scholar based in Manchester suggested that the template from using Daesh instead of Islamic State while referring to the terrorist group could be used in reclaiming Allahu Akbar . This could deprive the terrorists from the satisfaction of owning the term. He said, that’s what they’re looking for as they want the newspapers to say this person said Allahu Akbar and then did this big act…. let’s not give them the satisfaction of having used that word. However, there was also widespread acknowledgement that reclaiming Allahu Akbar will create a lot of challenges. Some participants felt that the negativity has gone too far to reclaim the real meaning of the term. Some felt that it is an agenda in the media and their end purpose is that Muslims cannot be shown in a positive way. Others suggested the lack of financial resources and strategic pragmatism as major challenges to reclaim the term. Highlighting the power of the media, some expressed the view that it is difficult to reclaim the term in the discursive context in which Muslims have limited discursive power as it is difficult to challenge the Daily Mail , which is read by a lot more people than the number of people who will hear a lecture or watch a YouTube video by a Muslim. Therefore, an Islamic scholar emphasised the need for developing institutional power among the Muslims. He said, It is extremely important and necessary to actually develop institutional power in these sorts of arenas as well as develop the social relationships with influential people. A young Muslim architect also expressed similar views and said, as Muslims, we should do as best as possible to get in higher positions where we say this is Islam.

Conclusion This study tried to focus on one particular terminology Allahu Akbar and showed that the media’s representation of this term is diametrically opposed to its actual usage by British Muslims. The language used in the three articles analysed in this study further proves the already large body

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of literature on unfair coverage of British Muslims, particularly in rightwing British newspapers. The impact of these negative representations on the largest religious minority in Britain (ONS 2021) is significant. Unfair and uncritical approaches by the British media in their portrayal of Allah Akbar as a terrorist slogan have led to most British Muslims abandoning a key phrase in their spiritual life in public places in fear of being abused or frowned upon. This type of fear and apprehension is not good for a leading democratic nation in the world that claims ‘tolerance’ to be a key element of Britishness. This study attempted to explain the term Allahu Akbar and the role it plays in the spiritual, individual, and social lives of a devout Muslim, analysed the way the British media represents it as a by-word for terrorism, and conveyed how the British Muslims react to these misrepresentations. The linguistic analyses of three articles and opinion columns published in right-wing British newspapers using Critical Discourse Analysis provide insights into the power the media uses to influence public opinion. On the other hand, three focus group discussions with young Muslims, Muslim professionals, and Islamic scholars and Imams represent the perspectives of British Muslims where they conform to the Oppositional Code of Hall’s (1980) encoding/decoding model rejecting the media representations of this term. While the negative impacts of media’s unfair representation of this term are widely accepted, there is a strong voice coming out from this study that calls for Muslims to reclaim Allahu Akbar from the narratives of the terrorists and media representations and establish it as an integral part of a simple peace-loving everyday life of a British Muslim. Recommendations on Using ‘Allahu Akbar’ in the CfMM’s Media Style Guide We recommend the usage of “Allahu Akbar”—when related to terrorism in violence—only where it is deemed necessary, given its very different usage by ordinary Muslims. Context should, therefore, be provided explaining how this expression has been misappropriated by terrorists and that this kind of usage is extremely rare. Of course, journalists are well within their rights to report the usage of Allahu Akbar by a terrorist if it is certain that it was exclaimed and not

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based on hearsay, rumour, or unreliable sources. We would urge caution in the reliability of individual eye-witnesses given how often they are proven wrong, and expect appropriate context to ensure its centrality to the story is not overstated, merely because it attracts readers. Sometimes, “Allahu Akbar” is used by journalists as a proxy for the motive of the attack, apparently justifying greater prominence to the term. We would urge extreme caution in this approach, given the motive is often unclear during the initial period after a terrorist attack, and even if it is confirmed “Allahu Akbar” was proclaimed, the motive is not necessarily as clear-cut as may be inferred, e.g. drugs, criminality, personal animus and mental health may all be greater drivers than any (mis-) interpretation of the faith. On occasion, often by commentators and opinion writers, the usage of “Allahu Akbar” is used as a synonym for violence or terrorism—such usage is deeply offensive given its usage by ordinary Muslims far more often than its usage by terrorists.

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Callaghan, M. 2017. Weaponising Language: How the meaning of Allahu Akbar has been distorted. News@Northeastern. 8 November 2017. https:// news.northeastern.edu/2017/11/08/weaponizing-language-how-the-mea ning-of-allahu-akbar-has-been-distorted/ (Accessed 10 Sep 2022). CFMM Report: British Media’s Coverage of Muslims and Islam (2018–2020). Centre For Media Monitoring. 30 November 2021, 42. https://cfmm.org. uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/CfMM-How-British-Media-Reports-Ter rorism-ONLINE.pdf (Accessed 15 Jan 2023). CfMM Special Report: How the British Media report Terrorism. Centre for Media Monitoring, The Muslim Council of Britain. 24 August 2020. https://cfmm.org.uk/resources/publication/cfmm-special-report-howbritish-media-reports-terrorism/ (Accessed 15 Jan 2023). Corbin, A.M. 2017. Terrorists are Always Muslim but Never White: At the intersection of critical race theory and propaganda. Fordham Law Review, 26 (2), 455–485. Retrieved December 4, 2019, from https://ir.lawnet.for dham.edu/flr/vol86/iss2/5 Drissner, G. 2016. Allahu Akbar—What does it mean? ‘Arabic for Nerds’. 10 December 2016. https://arabic-for-nerds.com/allahu-akbar-meaning/ (Accessed 9 Sep 2022). Entman, R.M. 1993. Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14602466.1993.tb01304.x. Hall, M., Attaran, A. and Zabetipour, M. 2019. Contemporary Sociopolitical Functions of the “Allahu Akbar” Ritual Speech Act in Today’s Muslim Communities: A Focus on the Iranian Society. International Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 7(2), 2019 ISSN 2329–2210. Hall, S. 1980. Encoding/Decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, Media, Language. London: Hutchinson, pp. 128–138 Hargreaves, J. 2016. Risk and resilience in British Muslim communities, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39 (14), 2601–2620. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870. 2016.1155720 Hoon, L.L. 2021. Media Framing on Muslims and Islam in Christchurch Mosque Attack: A Content Analysis of the Press and New York Times. Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 18(5), 157–174. http://journalar ticle.ukm.my/17741/1/49492-160742-1-SM.pdf (Accessed 21 Jan 2023). Hoover, S.M. 2006. Religion in the Media Age. London and New York: Routledge. Keane, W. 1997. Religious Language. Annual Review of Anthropology, 26 , 47– 71.

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Lasswell, H.D. 1971. Propaganda Technique in the World War I. MIT Press. USA. Lewis, J. 1991. The Ideological Octopus: An Exploration of Television and Its Audience. Routledge: London and New York. Matthes, J. 2009. What’s in a Frame? A Content Analysis of Media Framing Studies in the World’s Leading Communication Journals, 1990-2005. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 86 (2), 176–187. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/107769900908600206 Moore, K., Mason, P., and Lewis, J. 2008. Images of Islam in the UK: The Representation of British Muslims in the National Print News Media 2000– 2008. Cardiff: Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. Morgan, D. L. (1997). Focus groups as qualitative research. Sage Publications Office for National Statistics (ONS) 2021. Religion, England and Wales: Census 2021. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/ culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021. (Accessed 20 December 2022). Perraudin, F. 2016. Police apologise for ‘Allahu Akbar’ use in Mock Manchester Attack. The Guardian 10 May 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/uknews/2016/may/10/police-apologise-for-allahu-akbar-use-in-mock-manche ster-attack (Accessed 14 Sep 2020). Poole, E., and Richardson, J.E. 2006. Muslims and the News Media . London and New York: I.B. Tauris. Powell, K.A. 2018. Framing Islam/Creating Fear: An Analysis of US Media Coverage of Terrorism from 2011–2016. Religions 9 (9), 257. https://doi. org/10.3390/rel9090257 Said, E.W. 1997. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine how we see the Rest of the World. Vintage Books Said, E.W. 1978. Orientalism. Vintage Books. Turnnidge, S. 2019. Rod Liddle Condemned For ‘Anti-Muslim Propaganda’ In Spectator Column On Voting. Huffington Post. 1 November 2019. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/muslim-council-britain-rod-liddlespectatator_uk_5dbbe18ae4b09d8f97993fca (Accessed 16 Dec 2022). Van Dijk, T.A. 2001. Critical Discourse Analysis. In D. Schiff rin, D. Tannen, & H. E. Hamilton (Eds.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp. 352– 371). Oxford: Blackwell. Von Sikorski, C., Schmuck, D., Matthes, J. and Binder, A. 2017. “Muslims are not Terrorists”: Islamic State Coverage, Journalistic Differentiation Between Terrorism and Islam, Fear Reactions, and Attitudes Toward Muslims. Mass

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Index

A

Adhan 243 Adhan app 260 Afghani, Jamaladdin 179 Afghanistan 161, 168 al Dawla 116 ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyah. 114 Alhamdulillah 248, 260 Allahu Akbar 12, 243–245, 247–249, 251–255, 257, 259–261, 263, 264 Allahu Akbar 12 All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims 37 Al-Muhajiroun 44 al-Qaeda 42, 108, 109, 114, 115, 117, 152, 155, 165, 174, 184, 190 al-W¯aqid¯ı 181

cAmm¯ar b. Y¯asir 183 Analogies 129 Anti-immigration 187, 188 Anti-Muslim 174, 175, 185–191 Anti-Muslimism 38–40 Anti-Semitism 255, 256 Assimilation 134 Audience response theories 246

B

Bengal famine 166 bin Ladin, Usama 184 Blair, Tony knighthood 166 “perversion of Islam” 152–154, 170 true Islam 153, 154 Western supremacy 154 Bradford 189, 190

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Al-Azami (ed.), Media Language on Islam and Muslims, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37462-3

269

270

Index

Brand/branding 110 Breivik, Anders Behring 187 Britain 198, 208, 210, 215 British 196, 198, 206–208, 210, 211, 215 Britishness 264 British values 167 Burke, Jason 158 Al-Qaeda The True Story of Radical Islam 157 Bush, George W. 162

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) 6, 249, 252 Critical Muslim Studies 30 Cultural values 214 Cultures 197, 199, 212, 213

D

Daesh 108–111, 112–117, 119–123, 125. See also Islamic State Discourse 129–131, 133, 135, 136, 138–140, 142, 144 Discourse prosody 2, 84 Diversity 134, 145 Dominant-hegemonic code 251

C

Calamus Foundation 44 Caliphate 108, 116, 118 Cameron, David 116, 120, 121 Canada 186, 187 Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) 2, 7, 9, 13, 17, 21–23, 28, 86, 248 Civitas 37, 38 Collective memory 142 Collocates 83, 86, 88, 94, 96–98 Collocation 63, 64, 73, 77 Communism 159, 160 Conceptualisations 130, 140 Concordancing 87 Copenhagen School 156 Corpus (pl. corpora) 57, 58, 61–65, 67, 71, 79, 196, 211 analysis 1 -based discourse analysis 84 linguistics 57, 58, 61, 63, 64, 78 Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) 42 CQPweb 88

E

Encoding/Decoding model 6, 246, 251, 264 Exerted striving 195, 197, 200, 201 Extremism 83–86, 93, 95–97, 101–103, 105, 113, 196, 207, 209, 211, 213–215 Extremist 110, 113, 121, 152, 154, 161, 165, 168

F

First Gulf War 165 Foucault, Michel 130 Framing/frame(s)/framed 108, 110–113, 115, 123 France 24 190 Freedom of speech/thought 154

G

Gallup Poll 203, 208

Index

Geller, Pamela 187 Global 196 Global War on Terror (GWOT) 149, 162, 163, 167, 169 Google Ngram 157 Grooming gangs 151

H

Hamas 42 H . asan S.abb¯ah. 178, 179 Headscarf 25 Henry Jackson Society 18 Hezbollah 114, 117 Hijab 260 Hollywood 157, 163 Holy war 196, 202, 203

I

Ibrahim, Raymond 184, 185 Identity 198, 199, 203, 206, 207, 211, 215 Illocution 247 Imam 246, 250, 261, 262, 264 Imam Jacfar al-S.a¯diq 178 Imperialism 154, 155, 163, 166 Inaccuracy 145 Inclusion 145 Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) 21–23, 25, 26 Indexicality 6 Insha Allah 247, 248, 260 ISIS 152, 165, 168, 196, 202, 206, 208, 213 Islam 195–199, 202–204, 206–208, 210–215 Islamdom 48

271

Islamic 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 107, 110, 113, 124, 195, 196, 199, 201, 202, 205, 207, 208, 214, 215 Islamic extremism 7 Islamic scholar 246, 250, 252, 254, 260, 262–264 Islamic State 9, 27, 107, 108, 110, 111, 114–125 al Dawla 116 Daesh 108–117, 119–123, 125 IS 109, 111, 114, 121, 123 ISIL 109, 111, 116, 119, 121 ISIS 109, 111, 116, 119, 121–123 Islamification 10 Islamism 7, 8, 57–72, 74–78 Islamist 8, 161, 195, 206, 207 Islamist sentiments 134 Islamist terrorism 188 Islamofascism 10 Islamophobia 6–8, 13, 104, 112–115, 124, 125, 176, 183, 191, 197, 198, 202, 209, 212, 215, 253, 255. See also Anti-Muslimism; Mahomedan Question as a type of racism 31, 47 as problematisation of Muslimness 34, 48 as racialisation of Muslimness 47 left-wing 151 political consensus 152 right-wing 151 Ismailis 175, 178 Ism tafdheel 245

272

Index

J

Jews 177, 185, 191 Jihad 7, 11, 12, 195–216, 255 Jihadism 195, 207 Jihadist 11, 161 Journalism/journalist(s)/journalistic 107–110, 112, 114–117, 120, 123–125 practice (journalistic) 114

K

Kemalism 48 Koran. See Qur’an

L

Language 225–227, 229, 235–238 use 129 Levant, Ezra 187 Lewis, Bernard 179 Liberalism 155 Locutionary act 247 Londonistan 10 Lord Pearson of Rannoch 188

M

Ma’m¯un 181 Mahomedan Question 46 Manufacturing Consent 149, 159 Martyrdom 211 Media 195–199, 203, 205, 208–215 audience 145 frames 140, 141 framing 6, 13, 248, 249, 253, 257 structure 145 Merah, Mohammed 190

Metaphors 129, 137, 138 Migrant(s) 23, 25 Mih.na 181 Militant 207–209, 211–214 Minorities 175, 177, 185 Misleading stories 19, 26 Misogyny 151 Moderate (Muslim/Islam) 150, 152, 153, 155, 162, 164, 169, 170 Monotheism 245 Moriscos of Spain 180 Mufti of Oran 180 Mujahideen 168 Multidisciplinary 5 Multivalent 195–197, 199, 206, 207, 214, 215 Muslim 197–199, 201, 203–207, 211, 213, 215, 216 Muslim Brotherhood 41, 42 Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) 2, 7, 95, 96, 206, 213, 248 Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND) 86 Muslim gangs 21 Muslimness 25, 31, 48, 49 Muslim Parliament of Great Britain 44 Myth of religious violence 197, 198, 210, 212

N

Nation-state 153 Negative stereotypes 143 Negotiated code 251 News discourse 129 News values 6, 103 Newsworthiness 77

Index

Nexis 87, 97, 98, 199, 205, 206, 209 1979 revolution 150 No-go zones 230, 233, 238 Norway 187 Nuance 145 Nussbaum, Martha 188

O

Obama, Barack 185 Oppositional code 251, 254, 264 Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) 42 Orient 246 Orientalism 6, 12, 150, 197–199, 209, 211, 212, 247 Orthodoxy 164, 166 Other 198, 206, 210–213 Othering 197–199, 209–211, 215

P

Palestine-Israel conflict 256 Pew Research 212 Phobia colorphobia 34, 35 Gypsyphobia 36 hydrophobia 34, 35 Iranophobia 36 Mussulmanophobia 36, 46 negrophobia 34 religiophobia 37 Romaphobia 36 Turcophobia 36 Pluralism 145 Policing thought 154 Policy 156, 157, 159, 160, 162, 163, 167, 168

273

Policy Exchange 24 Policy Studies Institute 44 Political Islam 4, 8, 57, 58, 63, 65, 73–77 Press portrayal 141 Prevent (UK counter-extremism programme) 166, 167 Propaganda 158, 159, 161, 169 Propaganda model 149, 151, 159–161 five filters 159 Prophet Muhammad 180, 183, 184

Q

Qur’an 176, 178, 181–184

R

Race 33, 35, 37, 47 Racialisation 47 Raciolinguistics 229 Racism 31–34, 36–38, 47, 49 blue eyes and blonde hair 161 civilized Europe 161 racialisation 161 Racist discourse 85, 93 Radical (Muslim/Islam) 149, 150, 152, 153, 155–159, 161–165, 169, 170 Regimes of perception 229, 234, 235 Regulation 134 Religion 151–154, 164, 165, 167, 170, 196–198, 203, 207, 210, 211, 213 Replacement 228, 233, 235, 237, 238 Replication study 88

274

Index

Risk 226, 227 Rules-based international order 162 Runnymede Trust 31, 34, 37, 42 Russia 158, 161

S

Satanic Verses affair 44 Sectarian 151, 165 Securitisation 156 Semitic linguistics 245 Sensationalism 18, 208 Sharia (finance) 236–238 Sharia (theology) 12, 225, 226, 228–230, 233, 234, 236 Sharia (threat) 228, 230, 231, 235 Shia 196, 200, 205 Silent jihad 188 Similes 129, 138 Social constructionism 150 Speech Act theory 6, 247 Spencer, Robert 187 Spiritual 195, 197, 199–201, 203–205, 211, 213–215 Striving 197, 200, 204, 205, 213–215 Style guide 2, 3, 5–7, 13, 17, 28 Subhan Allah 248, 260 Sunni 196, 200, 204, 205 Surveillance 134

Tell Mama 198, 207, 210, 213 Terminology 5 Terrorism 83, 85, 86, 88, 89, 92, 94, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113, 124, 196, 206, 208, 209, 211–214 experts 150, 156 legislation 156, 160 Terrorist 108, 109, 111, 114, 120, 123 slogan 244, 249, 251, 257, 261, 264 The Birmingham Mail 189 The Daily Mail 249, 253, 259, 263 The Hague 166 The Hypodermic Model 250 The Progress Party (PP) 187 The Spectator 23, 25, 249, 254, 256 The Sunday Times 189 Threat 227, 228 Tolerance 264 Trévidic, Marc 190 Trojan Horse scandal 188, 190 Trope 151, 152, 157, 161 Trump, Donald “Islam hates us” 151 Trumpian-style rhetoric 151 Twelver Shicis 175, 177, 178, 182 2001 attacks 150 2003 Iraq War 158, 160 2005 London attack 151, 155

T

Tabataba’i, Mohammad Hossein 182 Taha al-Lahibi 186 Takeover 228, 234, 238 Taliban 114, 117, 125 Taqiyya 11, 173–183, 185–188, 190, 191

U

UK Independence Party 188 UN Charter 162

Index

275

V

W

Values 196, 197, 199, 206–208, 210, 211, 215 Violence 196, 198, 202, 208, 209, 211–214 Violent 196, 198, 202, 206–208, 210–212, 215

Waging 208, 211 War on Terror 246 Western 196–198, 203, 207, 212 Western civilisation 246 Wildcard 87

Y

Yah.y¯a b. Mac¯ın 181