Zaheer Ali: Islamophobia Did Not Start at Ground Zero
[Zaheer Ali is a doctoral student in history at Columbia University, where he is focusing his research on 20th-century African-American history and religion. His dissertation is on the history of the Nation of Islam in Harlem, N.Y., during the time of Malcolm X's ministry. You can follow him on Twitter.]
While most examinations of Islamophobia suggest that it is only the most recent expression of American nativism -- made manifest after the 9/11 terror attacks -- the history of using the fear of Islam as a tactic actually extends much further back. The first attacks on Islam in the Western Hemisphere had little to do with religion and more to do with suppressing Africans during slavery.
As early as the 1500s, European colonial powers began passing anti-Muslim legislation as a way to prevent the importation of African Muslims, who were often involved in slave rebellions in the New World. African Muslims led some of the earliest slave revolts in the Spanish colonies, played a role in the Haitian Revolution against France and led several major revolts against the Portuguese in Bahia, Brazil. From these early encounters, Islam came to signify a challenge to the authority of white slave owners and the state-sanctioned subjugation of African people....
In the 20th century, black Islamic revival movements -- most notably the Nation of Islam -- seized upon this history of enslaved African Muslims, and the brutality of the slave regimes that attacked them, to present Islam as essential to the restoration of a lost cultural identity and the struggle against white supremacy. The prospect of a movement for black self-determination, fueled in part by a historical memory of Muslim ancestors who suffered under slavery, ignited white racial anxieties and fears of black retribution.
These anxieties and fears received their airing in a 1959 television news broadcast anchored by a young Mike Wallace, entitled "The Hate That Hate Produced" -- arguably the first major example of Islamophobia in the mainstream U.S. media. The program introduced the Nation of Islam, its leader Elijah Muhammad and spokesperson Malcolm X to the American public in the most sensationalized way possible, hoping to scare whites into supporting more moderate African Americans in the civil rights movement....
Read entire article at The Root
While most examinations of Islamophobia suggest that it is only the most recent expression of American nativism -- made manifest after the 9/11 terror attacks -- the history of using the fear of Islam as a tactic actually extends much further back. The first attacks on Islam in the Western Hemisphere had little to do with religion and more to do with suppressing Africans during slavery.
As early as the 1500s, European colonial powers began passing anti-Muslim legislation as a way to prevent the importation of African Muslims, who were often involved in slave rebellions in the New World. African Muslims led some of the earliest slave revolts in the Spanish colonies, played a role in the Haitian Revolution against France and led several major revolts against the Portuguese in Bahia, Brazil. From these early encounters, Islam came to signify a challenge to the authority of white slave owners and the state-sanctioned subjugation of African people....
In the 20th century, black Islamic revival movements -- most notably the Nation of Islam -- seized upon this history of enslaved African Muslims, and the brutality of the slave regimes that attacked them, to present Islam as essential to the restoration of a lost cultural identity and the struggle against white supremacy. The prospect of a movement for black self-determination, fueled in part by a historical memory of Muslim ancestors who suffered under slavery, ignited white racial anxieties and fears of black retribution.
These anxieties and fears received their airing in a 1959 television news broadcast anchored by a young Mike Wallace, entitled "The Hate That Hate Produced" -- arguably the first major example of Islamophobia in the mainstream U.S. media. The program introduced the Nation of Islam, its leader Elijah Muhammad and spokesperson Malcolm X to the American public in the most sensationalized way possible, hoping to scare whites into supporting more moderate African Americans in the civil rights movement....