Ijtihad Network Being Wise and Faithful Muslim in the Contemporary World
In this groundbreaking book, Hajjat and Mohammed argue that Islamophobia in France is not the result of individual prejudice or supposed Muslim cultural or racial deficiencies but rather arose out of structures of power and control already in place in France.
In 2004 France banned Muslim women from wearing veils in schools. In 2010 France passed legislation that banned the wearing of clothing in public that covered the face, mainly to target women who wore burqas. President Emmanuel Macron has stated that the hijab is not in accordance with French ideals. Islamophobia in France takes many forms, both explicit and implicit, and often appears to be sanctioned by the governing bodies themselves. These cultural biases reveal how the Muslim population acts as a scapegoat for the problematic status of immigrants in France more generally.
Islamophobia in France is an English translation of Abdellali Hajjat and Marwan Mohammed’s Islamophobie: Comment les e´lites franc¸aises fabriquent le “proble`me musulman.”
In this groundbreaking book, Hajjat and Mohammed argue that Islamophobia in France is not the result of individual prejudice or supposed Muslim cultural or racial deficiencies but rather arose out of structures of power and control already in place in France.
Hajjat and Mohammed analyze how French elites deploy Islamophobia as a state technology for contesting and controlling the presence of specific groups of postcolonial immigrants and their descendants in contemporary France. With a new introduction for U.S. readers, the authors unpack the data on Islamophobia in France and offer a portrait of how it functions in contemporary society.
About the Authors
Abdellali Hajjat is associate professor of sociology at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He is the author of The Wretched of France: The 1983 March for Equality and against Racism.
Marwan Mohammed is research fellow at CNRS in France and teaches sociology at Science Po Paris. He is the author of La formation des bandes: Entre la famille, l’école et la rue.
Table of Contents
Part 1, Realities of Islamophobia
Islamophobia as a Social Ordeal
Measuring Islamophobia
From Negative Opinions to Discriminatory Acts
Part 2, A History of the Concept of Islamophobia
From Anti-Orientalism to the Runnymede Trust
Academic Research
Part 3, The Construction of the “Muslim Problem”
The Postcolonial Immigration “Problem”
(Lake of) Knowledge about Islam
The Islamophobic Political Cause
Legal Discrimination by a Capillary-like Process.
The Depoliticization of Violence and the Politics of Compensation
Part 4, Compiling an “Anti-Muslim Archive”
Construction and Circulation of European Representations of Islam and Muslims
Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia
Part 5, Islamophobia: Denial versus Recognition
The Denial of Islamophobia
The Struggle for the Recognition of Islamophobia
Lawyers in the Fight against Islamophobia
Against Islamophobia Hegemony
Bibliographic Information
Title: Islamophobia in France: The Construction of the “Muslim Problem”
Author (s): Abdellali Hajjat & Marwan Mohammed
Translator: Steve Garner
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Length: 306 pages
ISBN: 9-780-8203-6325-7
Pub. Date: January 15, 2023
