American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear Paperback – May 14, 2019

Khaled Beydoun presents a stark and honest reading of American history through the lens of Islamophobia to obliterate the superficial distinctions between the political liberal left and the conservative right. Rather than a progressive vision of decreasing animus towards the country's Muslim American citizenry that liberal media and academic publications espouse, Beydoun’s theory of Islamophobia sees these sources as practicing an Islamophobia-lite of sorts. This insidious insight is revealed by the percentage of Muslims invited to speak on liberal and conservative news outlets in the week following the revelation of Trump’s Muslim ban— 7.1% for MSNBC vs 8.6% on FOX News. To Beydoun, “Islamophobia is not merely fear or animus towards Muslims, but erasure of Muslims.” This erasure is one of the factors uniting the left and right political spectrums across both Democratic and Republican governments. In many ways, Beydoun’s work is a modern day revision of Said’s monumental Orientalism. In fact, he recalls one of Said’s last lectures at UCLA, delivered in 2003, where the late postmodern critical scholar mused that the US was entering new era of Islamophobia built upon the "epistemological, normative, and legal structure of Orientalism." Beydoun answers Said's call and traces the intimate nexus between Islamophobia from its foundational beginnings in Orientalism that permeated the American structures of government, policy, and jurisprudence. His multifaceted analysis takes into account the whiteness that was a prerequisite to American citizenship and the immigration policies that explicitly enacted Muslim bans for the majority of American history.Today’s iteration of Islamophobia, marked by the policies of Donald Trump’s executive office, are scarily enough, not an aberration in history. Rather, Beydoun’s coherent and honest theory of Islamophobia sees it as a natural continuance of the prior phases of the genealogical formation of Islamophobia through the Iranian hostage crisis and the end of the Cold War to Obama’s expansion of the federal administrative state for the purpose of increasing surveillance on Muslim communities. In doing so, Beydoun offers much more than a legal definition of Islamophobia— he presents a cogent theory of governmental and structural discrimination using a particularly diverse community composed of various intersectional identities. These intersectional identities reveal themselves throughout the book as the numerous Americans affected by structural Islamophobia— the Sikh targets of private Islamophobic violence, the college students executed by their neighbor over a “parking dispute,” and the experiences of early American Muslim slaves arriving on the shores of the new American state.Beydoun’s works touchstone is intersectionality—  he is, of course, a student and mentee of Kimberle Crenshaw, the critical race theorist known for pioneering work on the topic. Her influence permeates through the book, which begins with a vignette of Juan, a member of the fastest growing subset of the Muslim American population— Latinx Muslims. Juan, a Los Angelino on the cusp of converting to Islam, is a vignette into the marriage of federal administrative programs with state and local level enforce mechanisms that mark today’s iteration of structural Islamophobia and racist immigration policies. Through this ethnographic series of vignettes highlighting the broad segment of the American population impacted by the enactment of this multifaceted discrimination policy, his work also provides insight into how a successful decolonization of history looks like for future legal and critical theory scholars. The intersectionality that marks his work is interwoven into his legal definition and exploration of structural Islamophobia. In doing so, Beydoun calls to light the critical ways in whiteness was mobilized by the state in opposition to the dual identities of blackness and Orientalism. These two identities served the dual purpose of denying America’s first Muslim community, enslaved West African Muslims, their religious identity through the legal formation of black codes that posited their statute as slaves devoid of the capacity for spirituality. Beydoun’s Islamophobia presents a cogent intersectional theory explaining the continued presence of discrimination at the highest levels of government against a widely diverse yet racialized religious group. His fluid and easy to read book could be developed into a brilliant follow up academic book expanding on his Said-esque exploration of film, television, and art narratives on Islamophobia and the governmental policies that they directly correlate with. Already a prominent legal scholar in the field of critical race studies, this book hopefully begins his delve into an much needed theoretical intervention updating Said’s Orientalism for the modern age, mired by rising white supremacy explicitly endorsed by governmental policies amidst growing interest in intersectionality in social justice movements.

At the end of American Islamophobia the author quotes, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read” (J. Baldwin)- this articulates one of the many reasons why American Islamophobia is not only a necessary read but a transformative one. Not only will you realize that the struggle of immigrant, muslim, black, LGBQT, poor communities face today are ripples from pain sewn into society so very long ago, but you also learn of the renegades who are changing that. Khaled’s book not only instilled a grounded perspective of social historical context of islamophobia in me but reminded me exactly why I read, why I juggle- struggle academia and activism. He reminds me not only that it is possible, but that it does lead to transformative change.This book is both informative and well written, accessible to all regardless of their context of Islamophobia in the United States. It provides solace and stimulation at an intersectional junction so many movements need today. A must read.

Khaled Beydoun's "American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear" is a profound text that considers the intersection of Islam, anti-blackness, and gender. The book is an absolute page-turner. I finished the book in just two days, and I certainly plan to read it again. In my initial reading of the text, I found myself impressed with the historical and contextual defining of Islamophobia. In particular, Professor Beydoun walks readers the the historical roots of Islamophobia through the application of and reference to law and policy. Next, he connects the struggle of Islamophobia to other struggles. He does this by addressing how Islamophobia manifests itself in the lives of peoples with intersectionally oppressed and marginalized identities. I plan to use this text as one of the books in my Critical Race Theory Book Club. Likewise, I have already found several places where I'll be citing this text (in upcoming publications).

Professor Beydoun generously commits his heart and mind to the task of educating his reader the subject of Islamophobia. I recommend it to anyone who realizes the need to understand the anatomy of this pervasive form of racism / prejudice that is at once just as dangerous as it is misunderstood.I read the book over two days, during which time I was engaged and challenged - and there were moments I found myself smiling, and there were a few moments I found myself literally in tears. This work is also clearly a brave labor of love. And indeed, the size of Beydoun’s intelligence is equally matched by the size of his heart.With this work, I believe we are witnessing a man who is joining the ranks of great public intellectual and civil rights heroes the likes of which the world has needed before, needs today, and will certainly need tomorrow.I look forward to Professor Beydoun's future work.

Khaled Beydoun’s depiction of the current state of Muslims in America is a refreshingly, insightful discourse of the the challenges our country still faces at embracing our differences. As a modern Muslim and man of color, his experiences are a compelling call of action similar to civil rights predecessors, a mix of Martin Luther King, Ghandi, and Malcom X. It’s reminiscient of Dr. King’s many calls of action to American society, liken to letter from Birmingham and I have a dream speech. The reader is compelled by the empathetic plight of our Muslim brethren to continue the discourse and be an ally for justice, which is a much needed conversation to benefit America as a whole with our many beautiful parts.

Scholarly at times and anecdotal at others.Easy to understand (except the idea of 'dialectical Islamophobia', (I wonder if he was trying to coin a phrase).Each chapter is a topic and the origins ('roots'), the clash of civilisations, particularly good.It 's very much US-based (well, it is called "American Islamophobia" so, ok, but still,) & there's quite a bit of Prof Beydoun himself in there. I'm not saying this as a negative, just an FYI - anecdotes, I'm undecided about them.It's a very good background book and sets the scene to much anti-Muslim discrimination.The hardback is a lovely edition, good paper, decent-sized font.

If you want one book that discusses Islamophobia in clear, vivid terms, this is the book. It provides both research and personal experience woven together to say something truly profound.