Causes Of Islamophobia

The Reasons Why Islamophobia İncreases In The World?

In Oxford English Dictionary, Islamophobia is defined as “intense dislike or fear of Islam, especially as a political force, hostility or prejudice towards Muslims.” This term was first used in 20th century and had its own definition at 1970s. Particularly, after the 11 September events -which a radical Islamic group claimed its responsibility- in U.S.A. most of the non-Muslims in the world knew the Muslims with violence. The Berkeley Institute on Racism Studies says that Islam is often seen as a religion of violence which supports terrorism and has a violent political ideology. This perception of Islam is enlarging globally more and more because of some reasons such as terrorist attacks in non-Muslim countries, effect of media on the people, misunderstanding of Islam, and lack of the true representative Muslims in non-Muslim countries.

First of all, existence of some terrorist groups which call their selves ‘Muslim’ is can be seen as the most remarkable reason for islamophobia. To illustrate, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) organizes suicide bomb attacks in many countries and they claim that they justify this attacks with Islam and different interpreting of Quran. These attacks pose a threat for the innocent people all around the world and cause a massive fear from Muslims among non-Muslim people. What’s more, due to ISIS’s belief that it represents the Islam, people generalize all Muslims as terrorists. In this