April 16, 2024 – At a Religious and Civic Leader Gathering hosted by Boniuk Institute's Religion and Public Life Program, Institute director Elaine Howard Ecklund spoke with Dr. Waleed Basyouni, PhD , director of Clear Lake Islamic Center and president of Al Maghrib Institute, about addressing Islamophobia in our local and national US context.
Ecklund set the stage with some statistics: 40% of Americans agree that Muslims face discrimination, which leads to exclusion, dehumanization and fear. 70% of Muslims express that hostility has increased since the beginning of the Israel/ Hamas war. Ecklund remarked that stigmatization and hostility in the US is counter, not only to Boniuk Institute goals, but to American democracy.
Islam is a world-wide tradition, and Muslims come from every country and every race, said Basyouni. While we might disagree fundamentally, religion is merely one of the many human elements that links us all together. The problem of Islamophobia on a systemic level is that it puts the Muslim community in a defensive position, driven by problems and fears rather than by their dreams and goals.
A central theme throughout Basyouni’s responses was the idea of freedom of speech, and how far this principle could be stretched without causing harm. He stated that with freedom comes responsibility, more specifically, a responsibility to ensure that the use of freedom does not come at the expense of another person’s freedom.
Aggression, in turn, he said, often comes from lack of education and lack of opportunity. Universities can play a crucial role in combatting Islamophobia and other kinds of hate through honest exchange of ideas without threat of retaliation.
When asked how religious communities can help combat Islamophobia, Basyouni replied, "Talk to each other. Religion is just one element [of who a person is]. We are human before we are religious. You have to be a good human before you can be a good Muslim, Christian, Jew, etc."