Cyber hate can take many different forms from online material which can lead to actual offline abuse and violence, cyber violence; cyber stalking, and online harassment with the use of visual images, videos, chat rooms, text and social media which are intended to cause harm. This book examines the case for current guidelines dealing with online anti-Muslim abuse and concludes that we require a new understanding of this online behaviour and the impact it can have on vulnerable communities. It is unique as it focuses on new technology in the form of social media and the Internet and explores the challenges the police and other agencies face when confronting anti-Muslim abuse in cyberspace. It also provides a critique of how people are targeted by online offenders and helps us understand online anti-Muslim behaviour in a much more detailed and comprehensive way by bringing together a range of experts who will examine this phenomenon and critically discuss why they think it has become so much more prevalent than it was before.

Muslims living in Western nations are increasingly facing overt hostility and even hate crimes, both in everyday life and in online interactions. This book examines the experience and effects of those hate crimes on the victims, their families, and their communities. Built on the first national study in the United Kingdom to examine the nature, extent, and determinants of hate crime against Muslims in the physical and virtual worlds, it highlights the relationship between online and offline attacks, especially in the globalized world. It prominently features the voices of victims themselves, which lend nuance to the accounts and make the reality of these attacks and their consequences palpable.

Through an array of detailed case studies, this book explores the vibrant digital expressions of diverse groups of Muslim cybernauts: religious clerics and Sufis, feminists and fashionistas, artists and activists, hajj pilgrims and social media influencers. These stories span a vast cultural and geographic landscape-from Indonesia, Iran, and the Arab Middle East to North America. These granular case studies contextualize cyber Islam within broader social trends: racism and Islamophobia, gender dynamics, celebrity culture, identity politics, and the shifting terrain of contemporary religious piety and practice. The book's authors examine an expansive range of digital multimedia technologies as primary “texts.” These include websites, podcasts, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube channels, online magazines and discussion forums, and religious apps. The contributors also draw on a range of methodological and theoretical models from multiple academic disciplines, including communication and media studies, anthropology, history, global studies, religious studies, and Islamic studies.

Gary R. Bunt is a twenty-year pioneer in the study of cyber-Islamic environments (CIEs). In his new book, Bunt explores the diverse and surprising ways digital technology is shaping how Muslims across vast territories relate to religious authorities in fulfilling spiritual, mystical, and legalistic agendas. From social networks to websites, essential elements of religious practices and authority now have representation online. Muslims, embracing the immediacy and general accessibility of the internet, are increasingly turning to cyberspace for advice and answers to important religious questions. Online environments often challenge traditional models of authority, however. One result is the rise of digitally literate religious scholars and authorities whose influence and impact go beyond traditional boundaries of imams, mullahs, and shaikhs. Bunt shows how online rhetoric and social media are being used to articulate religious faith by many different kinds of Muslim organizations and individuals, from Muslim comedians and women's rights advocates to jihad-oriented groups, such as the "Islamic State" and al-Qaeda, which now clearly rely on strategic digital media policies to augment and justify their authority and draw recruits. This book makes clear that understanding CIEs is crucial for the holistic interpretation of authority in contemporary Islam.

On Forbes list of "10 Books To Help You Foster A More Diverse And Inclusive Workplace" How law, policy, and official state rhetoric have fueled the resurgence of Islamophobia—with a call to action on how to combat it. “I remember the four words that repeatedly scrolled across my mind after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. ‘Please don’t be Muslims, please don’t be Muslims.’ The four words I whispered to myself on 9/11 reverberated through the mind of every Muslim American that day and every day after.… Our fear, and the collective breath or brace for the hateful backlash that ensued, symbolize the existential tightrope that defines Muslim American identity today.” The term “Islamophobia” may be fairly new, but irrational fear and hatred of Islam and Muslims is anything but. Though many speak of Islamophobia’s roots in racism, have we considered how anti-Muslim rhetoric is rooted in our legal system? Using his unique lens as a critical race theorist and law professor, Khaled A. Beydoun captures the many ways in which law, policy, and official state rhetoric have fueled the frightening resurgence of Islamophobia in the United States. Beydoun charts its long and terrible history, from the plight of enslaved African Muslims in the antebellum South and the laws prohibiting Muslim immigrants from becoming citizens to the ways the war on terror assigns blame for any terrorist act to Islam and the myriad trials Muslim Americans face in the Trump era. He passionately argues that by failing to frame Islamophobia as a system of bigotry endorsed and emboldened by law and carried out by government actors, U.S. society ignores the injury it inflicts on both Muslims and non-Muslims. Through the stories of Muslim Americans who have experienced Islamophobia across various racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines, Beydoun shares how U.S. laws shatter lives, whether directly or inadvertently. And with an eye toward benefiting society as a whole, he recommends ways for Muslim Americans and their allies to build coalitions with other groups. Like no book before it, American Islamophobia offers a robust and genuine portrait of Muslim America then and now.

‘Islamophobia’ is a term that has existed since the nineteenth century. But in recent decades, argues Pascal Bruckner in his controversial new book, it has become a weapon used to silence criticism of Islam. The term allows those who brandish it in the name of Islam to ‘freeze’ the latter, making reform difficult. Whereas Christianity and Judaism have been rejuvenated over the centuries by external criticism, Islam has been shielded from critical examination and has remained impervious to change. This tendency is exacerbated by the hypocrisy of those Western defenders of Islam who, in the name of the principles of the Enlightenment, seek to muzzle its critics while at the same time demanding the right to chastise and criticize other religions. These developments, argues Bruckner, are counter-productive for Western democracies as they struggle with the twin challenges of immigration and terrorism. The return of religion in those democracies must not be equated with the defence of fanaticism, and the right to religious freedom must go hand in hand with freedom of expression, an openness to criticism, and a rejection of all forms of extremism. There are already more than enough forms of racism; there is no need to imagine more. While all violence directed against Muslims is to be strongly condemned and punished, defining these acts as ‘Islamophobic’ rather than criminal does more to damage Islam and weaken the position of Muslims than to strengthen them.

This book takes a sober, evidenced-based look at the contemporary phenomenon of Islamophobia in both ‘old-world’ Europe, and the ‘new-world’ of America and Australia, and Southeast Asia. It includes theoretical and conceptual discussions about what Islamophobia is, how it manifests, and how it can be addressed, together with historical analysis, applied research and case-study chapters, considering the reality that manifests as a fear of Muslims. Anxiety about the world’s second largest religion manifests as prejudice, discrimination and vilification and, in extreme cases, violence and murder. The real and perceived problems of the relationship between Islam and the West contribute to the phenomenon of Islamophobia. This is a unique, multi-disciplinary work, with authors approaching the topic from a number of academic disciplines and from different religious and national backgrounds, providing for a greater appreciation of the complexity and diversity of Islamophobia. This multicultural and multi-religious approach undergirds the valuable insights the volume provides. This book will be of interest to all concerned with the phenomenon of Islamophobia, and especially researchers and students in the social sciences, as well as scholars with a specific interest in Muslims living as minorities in the West. Also, those working in political science, international relations, sociology, religious studies and other fields will all find it of value.