Define ‘Islamophobia’

Sadiq Khan is an Islamophobe. Not just any old Islamophobe, and not just in the woollier parts of the web. According to a group part-funded by the EU called the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), the mayor of London, a practising Muslim, is one of the four ‘politicians and figures of note in the UK who [have] flagrantly displayed the most Islamophobia’ in 2018.

Barack Obama is an Islamophobe. Cathy Newman, the Channel 4 News presenter, is an Islamophobe. So are Louise Casey, who led an inquiry into the Rotherham grooming scandal, Michael Wilshaw, the ex-head of Ofsted, and Maajid Nawaz, the Muslim counter-extremism activist. Over the last few years, all have been shortlisted for the coveted ‘Islamophobe of the Year’ trophy at the IHRC’s annual Islamophobia Awards, a real event with a real gala dinner in a real London hotel ballroom.

The absurd, defamatory claims against Khan and the rest show how difficult the term Islamophobia can be. Many use it sincerely to describe anti-Muslim abuse and violence that is real, serious, has taken at least three lives in the past five years and blighted many more. But Islamist extremists, and wrongdoers who happen to be Muslim, routinely debase the word to smear and intimidate their critics: hence Khan and Nawaz’s appearances in the shortlist of shame.

I never minded when supporters of Lutfur Rahman, the corrupt Tower Hamlets mayor who took power with an extremist group’s help, or Tahir Alam, the grand vizier of the Trojan Horse schools plot, called me an Islamophobe for my investigations into them. Being lied about by liars is part of the job. But now maybe I should start to worry.

Last week, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims published a ‘landmark report’ demanding a ‘legally binding definition of Islamophobia’.