![[Farid Hafez]](https://bridge.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-04-at-10.45.01-AM.jpeg "Farid Hafez")
The Bridge Initiative is a multi-year research project on Islamophobia housed in Georgetown University.
The Bridge Initiative aims to disseminate original and accessible research, offers engaging analysis and commentary on contemporary issues, and hosts a wide repository of educational resources to inform the general public about Islamophobia.
Research & Resources
Governing Islam in Austria and Germany: From Colonial Times to the Present
In this talk, Farid Hafez discusses his latest book on the legacy of colonialism in the governance of Islam in contemporary Austria and Germany. Based on the experience of Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Hercegovina and the German Kaiserreich’s rule in Tanzania, Togo, and Cameroon with respect to its Muslim subjects, he shows the continuities and ruptures with the Nazi Reich’s incorporation of Muslims in its polity as well as contemporary Islam policies or Islampolitik in postwar Austria and Germany.
The Online Networks Spreading Islamophobia
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Marc Owen Jones, an expert on disinformation and digital authoritarianism, about how disinformation networks spread Islamophobic content online. We explore what disinformation is, how governments weaponize it for political gain, and the real-world consequences of false information.
Secularism, Race, and the Politics of Islamophobia
Within the field of #Islamophobia, dominant scholarship identifies the issue as a form of racism, where race and religion have become conflated in social structures. Secularism, Race, and the Politics of Islamophobia makes a new contribution to the “Islamophobia is racism” thesis by analyzing how secularism organizes and constructs the racialization of #Muslims and perpetuates anti-Muslim racism.