Islamophobia in the West: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

The dissertation in hand investigates the topic of Islamophobia in the Western World. It discusses, mainly, its evolvement, relation to Orientalism, and how it developed to become violence against Muslims. The main aims of this research are tracing back the roots of Islamophobia; checking whether or not those roots emerge from pure racism; and predicting the future of this phenomenon as well as Islam in the world. This investigation comes to bring attention to the topic of Islamophobia and open doors of discussion and further research into this issue. This research paper belongs to the descriptive-analytical approach of research. Checking the validity of its hypothesis is done using a questionnaire submitted to a group of new Muslims living in the west. Discussion and analysis of the results of this research tool come to validate the hypothesis and confirm that Islamophobia is, indeed, made-up racism; being Muslim causes one to be treated negatively and differently in the west; and media is responsible to a large extent of creating and fuelling Islamophobia.