Dr Irene Zempi SFHEA

Existing research on Islamophobic hate crime has examined in detail the verbal, physical and emotional attacks against Muslims. However, the experiences of non-Muslim men who suffer Islamophobic hate crime because they look Muslim remain ‘invisible’ in both official statistics and empirical research. Drawing on data from qualitative interviews with 20 non-Muslim men based in the United Kingdom, we examined their lived experiences of Islamophobic hate crime. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. A deductive approach to thematic analysis was adopted to analyse participants’ narratives, and six overarching themes were developed: (1) nature of Islamophobic hate crime; (2) triggers of Islamophobic hate crime; (3) impact of Islamophobic hate crime; (4) reporting incidents, responses and barriers to Islamophobic hate; (5) victims’ coping strategies; and (6) recommendations on tackling the problem. Our findings show that participants experienced Islamophobic hate crime because of ‘trigger’ events, namely the Brexit vote, Donald Trump’s presidency and ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks in European countries such as France, Germany, Sweden and the UK. Participants described being verbally and physically attacked, threatened and harassed as well as their property being damaged. The impacts upon victims included physical, emotional, psychological and economic damage. These experiences were also damaging to community cohesion and led to polarization between different communities in the UK.

This article draws on our different experiences of employing auto ethnography when researching Islamophobia, using two independent research projects. In particular, we reflect upon our experiences of Islamophobic victimization as a result of being ‘visibly’ Muslim in public spaces in the UK. We discuss our motivation for employing auto ethnography and the role of our insider/outsider status in adopting the role of the Muslim ‘other’ in public spaces. Additionally, we consider the nature, extent and impact of Islamophobic victimization upon ourselves, and the coping mechanisms we employed to deal with it. The article concludes by reflecting upon the advantages, ethical challenges and limitations of using autoethnography when researching Islamophobic victimization.

Following the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Tunisia in 2015, and in Woolwich, south-east London where British Army soldier Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered in 2013, there has seen a significant increase in anti- Muslim attacks. These incidents have occurred offline where mosques have been vandalized, Muslim women have had their hijab (headscarf) or niqab (face veil) pulled off, Muslim men have been attacked, and racist graffiti has been scrawled against Muslim properties. Concurrently, there has been a spike in anti-Muslim hostility online, where Muslims have been targeted by campaigns of cyber bullying, cyber harassment, cyber incitement, and threats of offline violence. Against this background, we examine the nature and impacts of online and offline anti-Muslim hate crime. We draw on our different experiences of conducting research on anti-Muslim hate crime, using two independent research projects in order to consider the affinity between online and offline anti-Muslim hate crime. We argue that, in reality, online/offline boundaries may be more blurred than the terms imply. For victims, it is often difficult to isolate the online threats from the intimidation, violence, and abuse that they suffer offline. Moreover, victims often live in fear because of the possibility of online threats materializing in the “real world.” We conclude that there is a continuity of anti-Muslim hostility in both the virtual and the physical world, especially in the globalized world.

Anti-Muslim hate crime is usually viewed in the prism of physical attacks; however, it also occurs in a cyber context, and this reality has considerable consequences for victims. In seeking to help improve our understanding of anti-Muslim hate crime, this article draws on the findings from a project that involved qualitative interviews with Muslim men and women who experienced both virtual and physical world anti-Muslim hate, and reported their experiences to the British government-funded service Tell Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks. In doing so, this article sets out the first ever study to examine the nature, determinants and impacts of both virtual and physical world anti-Muslim hate crime upon Muslim men and women in the United Kingdom. Correspondingly, we found that victims of both virtual and physical world anti-Muslim hate crime are likely to suffer from emotional stress, anxiety and fear of cyber threats materializing in the ‘real world’.

Within the prevailing post‐9/11 climate, veiled Muslim women are commonly portrayed as oppressed, ‘culturally dangerous’ and ‘threatening’ to the western way of life and to notions of public safety and security by virtue of being fully covered in the public sphere. It is in such a context that manifestations of Islamophobia often emerge as a means of responding to these ‘threats’. Drawing from qualitative data elicited through a UK‐based study, this article reflects upon the lived experiences of veiled Muslim women as actual and potential victims of Islamophobia and examines the impacts of Islamophobic attacks upon victims, their families and wider Muslim communities. Among the central themes we explore are impacts upon their sense of vulnerability, the visibility of their Muslim identity, and the management of their safety in public. The individual and collective harms associated with this form of victimisation are considered through notions of a worldwide, transnational Muslim community, the ummah, which connects Muslims from all over world. We conclude by noting that the effects of this victimisation are not exclusively restricted to the global ummah; rather, the harm extends to society as a whole by exacerbating the polarisation which already exists between ‘us’ and ‘them’.