Today in Islamophobia

Today in Islamophobia: In the United States, the Texas Board of Education has adopted an anti-Islam history curriculum, elsewhere in the country, Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah, who experienced torture while in CIA custody and has been detained without charge for over 20 years, faces a rare detention review, and lastly, in the United Kingdom, a Ukrainian man has pleaded guilty to spraying abusive graffiti on mosques in east London, in a case linked to the Russian state network behind arson attacks against the former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer. Our recommended read of the day is by Yonat Shimron for The Independent, who writes on the growth and prevalence of Muslim chaplains at American Universities and how events like 9/11 and 10/7 have demonstrated the importance of cultivating spiritual life and support on campus. This and more below:

United States

More universities added Muslim chaplains post 9/11. Then came 10/7. | Recommended Read

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, universities across the country began to reckon with Muslim students in their midst, and within a decade, dozens, including Rutgers and all eight Ivy League Schools, added full-time Muslim chaplains to care for Muslim students. There are now 80 full time Muslim chaplains on college campuses across the country, and some have designated spaces for Muslim prayers and programs, according to the Association of Muslim Chaplains. It’s a big change from 25 years ago when only a few colleges had Muslim chaplains, and nearly all of them were volunteer part-time posts, the association said. But that growth has collided with a more hostile moment for American Muslim students amid an increase in anti-Muslim political rhetoric, and in the wake of Israel’s war “Muslim students have to constantly tell people what they’re not,” said Kaiser Aslam, the chaplain at Rutgers’ Center for Islamic Life. “It’s good to have a space in which they can understand what they actually are. So that’s probably the first big bucket of what I do — provide emotional and spiritual support to individual students on campus.” “It’s just a lot to always be seen as a threat,” said Joshua Salaam, the chaplain at Duke University and the president of the Association of Muslim Chaplains. “It does something to the Muslim psyche, like ‘Oh, this is how you think of us,’ and the university won’t allow a conversation or the mention of the word Palestine. It’s a hard world to live in, and it’s hard to communicate that to someone else who doesn’t have that lived experience.” read the complete article

Texas adopts anti-Muslim curriculum amid backlash

Texas education officials have approved a sweeping rewrite of high school social studies standards that Muslim students, civil rights advocates and some academic advisers say embeds anti-Muslim bias into public school classrooms, including language linking so-called “radical Islam” to the 9/11 attacks and portraying early Islamic history through warfare and slavery. The Republican-controlled State Board of Education finalized the standards after days of contentious debate, brushing aside calls from Muslim Texans to revise language they warned could stigmatize students and reinforce stereotypes about Islam. Among the most disputed provisions is a requirement for students to learn that “radical Islam” motivated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Muslim speakers urged the board to focus more specifically on al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists responsible for the attacks rather than language they said risks associating Islam itself with terrorism. Another provision directs students studying early Islam to examine Prophet Muhammad through descriptions of military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes, slavery and the taking of female captives. Muslim Texans told the board that such a presentation singles out Islam for hostile treatment while stripping events from their wider historical context. read the complete article

Growing number of GOP candidates are using anti-Muslim rhetoric on the campaign trail

Anti-Muslim rhetoric has become increasingly common on the campaign trail at a moment when many Republicans are eager to shift attention away from the economy. FADEL: So you've spent a lot of time looking at campaign ads for Republicans around the country who've been using anti-Muslim rhetoric. What stands out to you? SPRUNT: I mean, it's striking to me how explicit those ads are. They basically are saying radical Islam is infiltrating our communities - our way of life is at stake. They traffic in really ugly language. And experts on political speech say that that language can lead to real harm, real threats. FADEL: Especially the last two decades, there's been this kind of sentiment in our politics and in policies. But what's been shocking to me has been how blatant it is. I mean, is it growing right now? SPRUNT: Yes. I mean, the experts that I spoke to will say it is growing. read the complete article

Abdul El-Sayed battles politics, Islamophobia in run for U.S. Senate

Abdul El-Sayed - or Abdulrahman (roll the "r" and breathe out the "h") as Muslims who grew up in southeast Michigan know him - is a 41-year-old Rhodes Scholar with an Ivy League medical degree, former athlete, past leader of health departments in Detroit and Wayne County, podcast host and author. Now he's taking on just about every critic, cynic, racist and even President Donald Trump to convince voters he needs to be their next U.S. senator, the first Muslim who would ever hold that seat. How that will play out in politics, 25 years after post-9/11 Islamophobia continues to rear up in this race, will become clear in November when Michigan voters decide who will represent them in Washington DC. El-Sayed is running against Republican opponent Mike Rogers. The Democratic candidate has strong support among younger voters under 45 years old but his faith "may be an issue for many voters, with 37% saying they are less likely to support a candidate who is Muslim," according to a news release on the State of the State Survey released Sept. 1 by The Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University. read the complete article

Man accused of ties to Bin Laden and tortured after 9/11 has 20-year Guantanamo detention reviewed

After 20 years at Guantanamo without charges, alleged Bin Laden associate Abu Zubaydah faces a rare detention review, exposing the secrecy surrounding post-9/11 military justice. Once portrayed as a senior Al Qaeda figure, Zubaydah was tortured at CIA black sites, left permanently injured and still never charged, raising questions about U.S. accountability. His lawyers argue he no longer poses a threat and should be transferred under strict monitoring, as a review board weighs whether indefinite detention can still be justified. read the complete article

United Kingdom

Ukrainian guilty of vandalism at mosques linked to Russian network behind Starmer arson attack

A Ukrainian man has pleaded guilty to spraying abusive graffiti on mosques in east London, in a case linked to the Russian state network behind arson attacks against the former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer. Illia Bilyk, 21, entered guilty pleas at Thames Magistrates' Court to five counts of racially and religiously aggravated criminal damage. Bilyk sprayed graffiti on the Stratford Islamic Association, Al-Birr Mosque and Leyton Jamia Masjid on 23 January 2025. Two days later he targeted Noor Ul Islam Primary School and the Islamic Shariah Council. The BBC has learned that Bilyk told police he was recruited into spraying the graffiti by a Russian speaker after being approached on the messaging app Telegram. Bilyk said the Russian speaker told him where to target and paid him afterwards. read the complete article

Sweden

‘This time it backfired’: Sweden’s far right loses ground after anti-Muslim election campaign

Every Saturday, somewhere in Sweden, volunteers pitch a tent under the banner, Ask a Muslim. On the canvas is a list of subjects likely to provoke questions: jihad, sharia, polygamy, women’s rights. Passersby are invited to stop and ask anything they want. Some arrive with questions about the hijab or freedom of speech. Others simply want to thank the volunteers for being there. Occasionally, someone comes looking for an argument. For nearly a decade, the campaign has offered imam Kashif Virk a vantage point from which to observe Sweden’s increasingly fraught conversation about Islam. Its latest test came on 13 September: a general election in which the far-right Sweden Democrats lost around three percentage points and fell from second to third place in terms of seats won. Now, with almost all votes counted, the centre-left-led opposition bloc is projected to win a very narrow parliamentary majority. Forming a government could still take weeks, but one outcome is clear: the Sweden Democrats suffered its first fall in vote share since entering parliament in 2010. The result interrupted a remarkable ascent. Once treated as political pariahs because of its neo-Nazi roots, the Sweden Democrats became indispensable to Ulf Kristersson’s centre-right minority government after the 2022 election. Without holding cabinet posts, the party still had the clout to push Swedish policy and political debate sharply to the right on immigration, integration and crime. read the complete article

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