Effective Countering Islamophobia Strategies in the Digital Age: Three Approaches

Abstract

One of the most serious challenges which is still threatening Muslims globally is the surge in Islamophobia, or negative attitudes and excessive fear towards Islam and Muslims. The digital age became a double-edged sword when it comes to the threat of Islamophobia. On one hand, it opened the door for anti-Muslim campaigns to spread widely and quickly online. On the other hand, it provided modern Muslims with much-needed opportunities to resist such hateful campaigns using the very same digital tools. This article sheds light on three important strategies which have been successfully deployed by modern Muslims to resist Islamophobia in the digital age. The first is the effective utilization of humor to resist some of the most hateful anti-Muslim campaigns and misrepresentations in cyberspace and present successful counter-narratives. The second is putting faith in action, through Muslim philanthropy and communal giving, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been done by using digital tools to spread and amplify these good deeds, while resisting Islamophobia simultaneously by correcting some of the false images and skewed misrepresentations about Islam and Muslims and replacing them with positive ones. And the third is boosting the visibility of Muslim women’s identities and amplifying their voices, which shatters the negative stereotypes about Muslim women as silent and helpless beings and counters their misrepresentation and marginalization, while countering Islamophobia in parallel. In discussing each of these strategies, the appropriate context is explained and relevant examples are provided to illustrate the arguments made throughout this paper.