In a tweet yesterday I suggested that ex-Muslims (and other critics of Islamic doctrine and practices) need to find ways of doing so without fuelling Islamophobia. This prompted the following reply:
  

 
The idea that the term "Islamophobia" was invented by Islamists in the west has been widely circulated on right-wing websites in the United States. One of them says:

"The neologism 'Islamophobia' did not simply emerge ex nihilo. It was invented, deliberately, by a Muslim Brotherhood front organisation, the International Institute for Islamic Thought, which is based in Northern Virginia."

Stories of this kind are pure fiction but they allow far-right elements to claim that Islamophobia doesn't really exist, and that Islam and Muslims in general are thus fair game for abuse.

The first known use of the term in print was in French – as "islamophobie" – in 1910. It appeared in a book, La politique musulmane dans l’Afrique Occidentale Française by Alain Quellien, discussing the ways that French colonial administrators viewed the cultures of various African colonies. It also appeared in academic reviews of the book and, shortly afterwards, in a biography of the Prophet Muhammad by a French convert to Islam who dedicated his book to the memory of Muslim soldiers in the French army who had died in the First World War.

The first recorded use of "Islamophobia" in English appears to have been in 1985 by Edward Said who linked it to antisemitism, saying that "hostility to Islam in the modern Christian west has historically gone hand in hand" with antisemitism and "has stemmed from the same source and been nourished at the same stream". 

The term gained wider currency following a report by the Runnymede Trust in 1997, Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All, which looked at attitudes towards Muslims living in Britain. A few years later "Islamophobia" also began to be used by various international bodies, including the United Nations. 

Discussion of Islamophobia, however, is complicated by the lack of a generally accepted definition and the late Professor Fred Halliday suggested that "Anti-Muslimism" would be more accurate, since it usually refers to hostility directed against Muslims rather than Islam and its tenets. Robin Richardson, who edited the 1997 Runnymede report, later acknowledged the criticisms and offered a rather complex re-definition of Islamophobia as …

"A shorthand term referring to a multifaceted mix of discourse, behaviour and structures which express and perpetuate feelings of anxiety, fear, hostility and rejection towards Muslims, particularly but not only in countries where people of Muslim heritage live as minorities."

Another characteristic of Islamophobia, as the original Runnymede report noted, is the assumption that Islam is "a single monolithic system, without internal development, diversity and dialogue".

Regardless arguments about the definition, prejudice of the kind identified in the Runnymede report does exist and is usually not difficult to recognise. Typically, it involves sweeping and misleading generalisations about Islam and/or Muslims (along with others who are presumed to be Muslim) in order to portray them in a negative light. 

There is widespread agreement, though, that the term "Islamophobia" cannot sensibly be applied to genuine critiques of Islam as a religion. Tackling Islamophobia should not become a mandate for stifling free and fair comment, as the British-based Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism (FAIR) has made clear:

"It is not Islamophobic to disagree or disapprove of Muslim beliefs, practices or actions. Indeed, within the Muslim community, both in Britain and globally, it is recognised that disagreements, discussions and debates are an important part of contemporary Islam and Muslim societies, and absolute requisites to maintain the relevance of Islam. Legitimate disagreement and criticism by non-Muslims, is therefore, not only expected but appreciated. However, we would urge that this is done sensibly and sensitively."

But where does "legitimate disagreement and criticism" begin and end? Nick Griffin, of the far-right British National Party, has described Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith" founded by "a handful of cranky lunatics" – claiming this was legitimate criticism of Islam as a religion "and the culture it sets up, certainly not Muslims as a group". In Griffin's case, though, it is not so much a serious critique as a way of stirring up prejudice and furthering his racist agenda: he has also claimed that Britain and Ireland are being turned into "a Third World Islamic slum" and has spoken nostalgically of "the traditional, upright, decent and honest Christianity that defended Europe from Islamic conquest, the Christianity of the Crusades and the Christianity of our forefathers". 

In practice, racism is rarely expressed in direct racial terms; references to cultural "markers" such as religion often become a substitute for more overt forms of racism. This is one reason why the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance defines racism as "the belief that a ground such as race, colour, language, religion, nationality or national or ethnic origin justifies contempt for a person or a group of persons, or the notion of superiority of a person or a group of persons".

On the Muslim side, accusations of Islamophobia, etc, have certainly been used to try to shut down legitimate debate. Numerous Arab states have laws against "insulting" religion and Islamic countries have waged a long campaign at the UN to outlaw "defamation of religions". Defamation of religions is a nonsensical concept in legal terms but basically seeks to shield religions from the sort of public scrutiny that is routinely applied to other forms of ideology such as communism or capitalism.

During research for my book, Arabs Without God, several ex-Muslims living in the west complained of having to face Islamophobic prejudice: people judged them on their ethnicity, wrongly assuming they were believers. There is an important distinction to be made between reasoned critique of Islam and discrimination against Muslims as people. But is it always unfair to judge on appearances? Some Muslims, for example, adopt a certain style of dress which identifies them – and is intended to identify them – as adhering to one of the more reactionary strands of Islam.

Kiran Opal, of Ex-Muslims of North America, cited the example of a Muslim man in a thobe and a six-inch beard walking with two women in niqabs and six children behind him. When she sees a scene like that, Opal continued, "I do judge the people involved. I do think that they are living in a way that is oppressive to women, that is supremacist, that is abusive to LGBTQ people, to religious minorities … Does that mean I am Islamophobic?"

Richard Dawkins, the prominent atheist, has often been accused of Islamophobia. One controversial tweet that he posted said:

"All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though." 

Although this was factually accurate, it is difficult to see a reason for posting it other than as a general disparagement of Muslims. The lack of scientific achievement by Muslims in modern times is a valid (and important) topic for discussion, and the explanations 
are complex but raising it on Twitter, where posts are limited to 140 characters, is scarcely an invitation to nuanced debate. Instead, it merely feeds anti-Muslim tropes.

This approach, as the Australian writer/philosopher Russell Blackford has noted, not only puts critics of Islam at risk of being tarred with the same brush as the extreme right but it also helps to make the extreme right seem more respectable. One prominent American atheist, Sam Harris, has even gone so far as to say that "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists". 

"The extreme right benefits from the availability of politically respectable criticisms of Islamic thought and associated cultural practices," Blackford writes. This includes adopting what have traditionally been viewed as liberal causes, such as opposition to forced marriages, "honour" killings, female genital mutilation, and the enforcement of dress codes for women:

"There are reasons why extreme-right organisations have borrowed arguments based on feminism and secularism. These arguments are useful precisely because they have an intellectual and emotional appeal independent of their convenience to extreme-right opportunists. Regardless of who uses these arguments, they plausibly apply to certain elements of Islam, or at least to attitudes and practices associated with it."

At a practical level, Blackford suggests, "opponents of Islam who do not wish to be seen as the extreme-right’s sympathisers or dupes would be well-advised to take care in the impression that they convey. Where practical, they should explain their positions with as much nuance as possible, distance themselves from extreme-right figures making similar arguments, and avoid sharing platforms with them." 

But he adds: "The words ‘where practical’ are important, because what is practical in, say, a philosophical essay may not be practical in a satirical cartoon, or even in a polemical book aimed at a popular audience. We mustn’t exclude the talents of people whose training or temperament does not suit hedged, half-apologetic communication. Nor must we always communicate in ways that most people find boring and bland. Beyond a certain point, there is too much disadvantage in walking on eggshells."

Deciding where that "certain point" lies is often far more difficult than it looks.