Islamophobia is not something confined to words or a phone. Islamophobia can be institutional. In this article, I have interviewed 3 different people about their experiences with Islamophobia within Education, and how the youth can best deal with these.
We will be reading excerpts of my conversations with Owais, co-founder of The Learner’s Collective, an organisation dedicated to helping empower and mentor youth from disadvantaged backgrounds, Zaynub, a Cambridge graduate now working in publishing herself, and finally, with Dr Mohammed Saghir, a Physics PhD graduate and ex-teacher in the UK who has now moved to Malaysia.
Their reflections serve as insights into how important understanding the roots of islamophobia is, and how we, as a people, can act against it and build awareness for it.
Owais: Fighting the Power with Love
Growing up in Birmingham for Owais was never an issue with race or religion. He grew up surrounded by people like him and people who would never think twice about his abilities. However, in professional settings, particularly in education, the story might be different.
Being visibly brown and working class, from a certain area and from a certain background made it difficult to discern what was Islamophobia and what wasn’t. This is part of the insidious nature of Islamophobia, wherein it mixes in with racism, xenophobia and classism, all rooted in colonial instincts.
People would comment on Owais and say to him that they never expected him to achieve what he did, but the question to ask here was, “Was it because I’m brown and a Muslim? Or was it because I broke their expectations?”
Moving out of Birmingham to Newcastle for University was only further deepening these questions, wherein a smaller town where most of the population may not have even seen a Muslim before, their opinion is shaped prior to even meeting them.
Universities, especially, where these elite institutions were spaces where students from working-class and minority backgrounds struggle to flourish due to their supervisors’ prior conceptions of them. Whether this is based solely on Islam is difficult to isolate, but that is the nature of Islamophobia in the West. It mixes with every flavour of phobia and hatred and becomes impossible to discern.
Owais’s method to combat this is to genuinely speak to people. Stay active in your community and change what you do not like. Represent yourself in environments where you might not have previously been welcome, so that anyone else who is coming through similar circumstances knows how to let themselves blossom and grow, let yourself be their watering can.
Owais exemplifies this through his work; mentoring provides real role models for children who might not have felt seen in academic spaces otherwise. Letting these students see people who look, speak and act like them have gotten this far in their lives serves as powerful inspiration, and helps elevate us as a people further.
Zaynub: Staying firm when the world is against you
For Zaynub, Islamophobia was a foreign concept. It wasn’t until she got to university that she saw that the multicultural environment of East London, where she was raised, was a protection for her. That same safety she had was shattered when she reached Cambridge.
As a visibly Muslim brown woman, working within an institution filled with colonial papers and resources, shaped by classism and eras of racism varying from slavery to civil rights, made it very apparent that this space was not the most welcoming initially.
Islamophobia did not take the form of insults and bullying; rather, it was intellectualised, with Islam being viewed as inferior and exotic, almost like an animal in a zoo.
Studying sources for English literature, the entire course itself was buried in colonial narratives which framed Islam as a foreign concept, not belonging on English shores.
Being the only person of her background, she felt as if she was made the spokesperson for Muslims in these scenarios and was expected to defend her entire faith alone. Her own personal beliefs were being challenged, pushing her further than she had to before mentally, whereas for them, it was nothing but a mental exercise.
These are compounded by microaggressions and staff dismissal. The same concepts and ideas she would raise would be disregarded by her course mates, and she felt some supervisors would not even listen to her opinion as much as to theirs.
Those same marks and papers earned her less praise than her peers’. All this left Zaynub feeling isolated and victimised at Cambridge. As her faith kept her strong, she stayed strong herself.
She co-founded the college Islamic Society and fought for prayer spaces and halal food, facilities that she would not have otherwise. Even when she faced setbacks, she kept her faith strong and remained grounded.
She became a leader inspired by and following the example of the Prophet SAW. When the entirety of Makkah turned against him, Muhammad SAW kept bringing Islam to us. When the Muslims lost at Uhud, Muhammad SAW lost his dear uncle Hamza RDN, and despite that, he never swayed from his mission to give us Islam.
This is the core message of Zaynub’s story: Stay resilient and strong, regardless of where you are and despite anyone saying otherwise. Build your Islam as your foundation, and it will keep you standing and steady when the world tries to blow you down. But you, Oh Muslim, will bear every hurdle that is thrown at you, and like the oak in the storm, like the Prophet SAW in Makkah, you will never give in.
Dr Saghir: Point it out
Dr Saghir stood strong at a prestigious school, helping young Muslims arrange their prayer spaces and facilitate their prayers.
However, his experience still echoed the same when he was going through his experiences. Microaggressions and the avoidance of outright islamophobia. The same double standards that Zaynub had echoed earlier were also evident during Dr Saghir’s time working and studying.
However, his message comes from a position of understanding – the best way to combat islamophobia is to fight it directly.
Call it out. Have those awkward conversations with people who have made you uncomfortable. Point it out. Places where you see it turn Islamophobia and Islamophobic sentiment into discriminatory language. The IHRA definition of Islamophobia is a good place to start with this.
Do not normalise islamophobia. Staying silent is being complicit. However, calling it out does not mean you fight those who give it; rather, it is about using the people who side with you and recognise what you’re going through to unite with them.
Organise and familiarise yourselves with the systems you need to report incidents like this. Islamophobia thrives when we’re silent. Hatred lives when we refuse to counter it. We need to be ready to fight it no matter what.
Personal Reflection
I reflect on my own experiences: a proudly Muslim youngster growing up in a white majority area. At the catholic school I attended prior to moving, as the only Muslim in the school, many people had no idea what Islam was. In a post 9/11 world, it was extremely vital that I act by example and I act properly, as I wasn’t just a representative for myself, but for Islam and Muslims, from even that young age.
Occasionally, children, curious in nature, would ask questions about bacon and pork, offering me some of theirs, but would listen and take heed when I told them I could not have it. This slowly changed as I progressed through my school years.
Those same children who would have asked questions before about my faith turned to bad-faith questions. They would ask loaded questions, try to dismantle my faith in front of me, out of some form of intellectual superiority. I was only 10 years old when I had to learn what a terrorist was, and that I had to, for some reason, apologise on their behalf.
Somehow, Osama Bin Laden became my close friend, and I had to personally apologise for his actions. Turns out, Charlie Hebdo was my religion’s fault, and not the act of a madman who had been radicalised.
I had to turn and contort myself to get out of these arguments, and it often meant I would even lose myself. I would join in their jokes and question my own faith, leaving my heart torn.
However, through educating myself about my faith, and learning the power of resilience through the Seerah of the Prophet SAW, the teachings of the Quran and amazing role models around me in my parents, who I could turn to help me with these issues, I was able to rise above all of this, and rediscover my faith.
Islamophobia is not an insurmountable evil that we can never overcome; it is just an irrational hatred and dislike for Islam guided by years of colonial media powers.
In education, it is just another hurdle Muslims need to overcome. The experiences of Owais, Zaynub, Dr Saghir and my own remind us that Islamophobia is present in education, but not unconquerable.
Organise yourselves together and form your communities. Learn the systems to make a change, and then make those changes for those to come.
Finally, and most importantly, stay strong within your faith. For if you hold on to your Iman and keep your faith in Al-Qadir, nothing can stop you. No matter what someone says to you or how they act toward you, you belong. You are the future. Shine and never let someone dim you.
