There is perhaps no term that has been manipulated, exploited, and abused as extensively as Islamophobia.
The question is: is there truly Islamophobia in the West?
I don’t live in the West, but as a Muslim who lives in the East, in the Global South, in the Arab world, it is enough for me to say: Islamophobia is an Islamic construct, a Muslim Brotherhood business, and a Western commodity.
How?
I will tell you how—but bear with me for a moment.
Islam in the West has been hijacked. It has not been hijacked solely by the hatred of the far right (which claims that its hatred is merely a defensive reaction to Islam’s hatred of the West). Rather—and this is far more dangerous—it has been hijacked by groups that claim to defend Islam, live off the trade of victimhood, turn fear into investment, and convert religion into a transnational corporation.
Islamophobia, which is supposed to have been and continue to be an intellectual and psychological symptoms of racism and bigotry, has been transformed by the Muslim Brotherhood into an offensive weapon, not a defensive one—a tool of domination rather than protection, of monopoly rather than freedom.
We are not speaking here about real racism that must be confronted, nor about attacks on Muslims that must be unequivocally condemned. We are speaking of a fully manufactured industry—a political and ideological machine, expertly managed and deployed to silence any critical voice, even if that voice is of a Muslim, even if it emerges from within the same culture, even if it is more sincere about Islam than those who have hijacked it.
Islamophobia, as it is commonly framed in Europe and the United States, is not merely an innocent fear resulting from Islamist terrorism, nor a spontaneous reaction to violence carried out under Islamic slogans, nor a response to car attacks, stabbings, or shootings targeting innocent civilian gatherings, nor even blind racism as some try to explain—or justify—it.
In its most dangerous character, Islamophobia has become a manufactured, managed, and skillfully deployed political weapon. A weapon in the hands of political Islam movements, foremost among them the Muslim Brotherhood. It is used not to defend Islam or Muslims, but to control them, monopolize their representation, impose guardianship over them, and blackmail Western societies in their name.
Since the 1970s, the Muslim Brotherhood realized early on that the West was not merely a safe haven from persecution in the East, but an open, soft arena of influence—full of moral, historical, and psychological vulnerabilities. There exists a deep Western sense of guilt: guilt over colonialism, guilt over imperialism. That guilt, which should have been a motive for self-introspection and efforts to build genuine human justice, was hijacked and converted into a tool of intellectual paralysis—brilliantly exploited by Islamist political movements.
The greatest weapon these groups possessed was Islamophobia—not as a phenomenon to be dismantled and treated, but as a scarecrow raised in the face of every critic, every dissenter, every thinker, and every Muslim who refuses to substitute his faith for a group or his identity for a slogan.
Here, Islamophobia is not used to confront real racism, but to discipline dissenters, silence them, criminalize them, and transform them into moral and political defendants.
Early on, the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and America discovered an invaluable treasure: the Western guilt complex. A history of colonialism, a present marked by imperialism, and a past haunted by Nazism and racism—all of this produced a confused Western consciousness that is scared of accusations, that shirks aways from reasoning and that prefers to fall silent than engage in debate.
At that moment, political Islam entered through the widest gates—not as a guest, but as a moral guardian.
Any criticism of extremism—whether from Western or even Muslim voices, they shout: Islamophobia. Any discussion of terrorism, they shout: Islamophobia.
Any attempt to regulate the religious sphere, they label as a war on Islam.
Any objection to compulsory hijab or politically imposed niqab, they frame as religious persecution.
Thus, public debate is effortlessly transformed into an inverted inquisition, where the critic is condemned in advance and the extremist is granted total moral immunity—simply because he speaks in the name of Islam, or claims to.
In Europe and America, the discussion has descended into absurdity: any criticism of Islamist extremism is instantly branded as hostility to Islam. Any mention of violence committed by Muslims is met with accusations of Islamophobia. Any legal or regulatory measure—such as banning hijab in French public schools or monitoring the funding of religious institutions—is presented as a war against Islam itself.
Suddenly, the Muslim Brotherhood becomes Islam, and Islam becomes the Muslim Brotherhood. Anyone who rejects this forced fusion is labeled a traitor, an agent, or a tool of imperialism.
The most dangerous aspect of this game is that the Muslim Brotherhood does not defend Muslims as citizens; it monopolizes their representation as a closed religious bloc. Whoever deviates from this equation is morally excommunicated, politically branded a traitor, and accused of collaborating with colonialism or authoritarian regimes.
And thus, an Arab intellectual becomes an Islamophobe, a Muslim writer becomes a servant of imperialism, and an Arab Christian criticizing political Islam becomes a new Crusader.
The bitter irony is that while the Brotherhood claims to defend religion, it exercises the harshest form of guardianship over believers, turning faith into a political ID card—anyone without it is accused of dubious faith.
For their part, leftists in the West do not act as allies of democracy, but as victims of successful emotional blackmail. The leftist who unhesitatingly condemns Nazism and criminalizes racist right-wing movements suddenly freezes in hesitation before political Islam.
Why? Because the specter of colonialism haunts him. Western exploitation and occupation of Muslim lands fuels a paralyzing guilt that suspends reason. At this moment, moral confusion sets in.
The Western left, with its historically justified sensitivity toward racism and colonialism, falls into the trap. It treats Islamists as a “political opposition” rather than as a totalitarian religious movement fundamentally hostile to democracy. It sympathizes with their intolerant discourse as a “cultural specificity” that must be respected—suddenly it becomes obligatory to respect the oppression of women through compulsory hijab or niqab simply because someone told this well-meaning leftist that these are religious teachings.
The guilt-ridden liberal or leftist confuses freedom of religion with freedom for extremist ideology. He defends the niqab as a “cultural specificity” without asking: whose specificity? for whose benefit? who decided it is a cultural norm? He never hears that it is a political obligation, not a religious one, and that a Muslim is not the same as an Islamist.
The staggering irony, once again, is that this same left never hesitates to confront Nazism, white supremacy, or fascist movements. It never says: this is their culture, let them express themselves. It criminalizes hate speech because it knows these movements destroy democracy from within.
But when it comes to political Islam, logic collapses. Criticism becomes “racism,” confrontation becomes “persecution,” and rejection becomes “Islamophobia.”
Imagine if the same logic were applied to Nazism: why fight Nazis? Aren’t these their beliefs? Their culture? Their freedom of expression? No one says this—because the danger is obvious. Political Islam, however, is wrapped in victimhood discourse and shielded by the weapon of Islamophobia.
Thus Islamists become a “political opposition,” not a totalitarian movement; the niqab becomes a “cultural specificity,” not an instrument of repression; religion is reduced to outward rituals rather than human values.
Meanwhile, Brotherhood discourse practices the exact opposite of Islamophobia: Westophobia. In this Salafi-Brotherhood narrative, the West is infidel, conspiratorial, decadent, Crusader—seeking to destroy Islam and corrupt values.
Everything from the West is morally condemned—except what serves the group: technology, social media, universities, vaccines, cars, media platforms.
The West is absolute evil… yet its services are a blessing.
Its values are corrupt… yet its freedoms are desired.
Its democracy is disbelief… yet living under its protection is necessary.
A blatant contradiction that causes no embarrassment—because the goal is not coherence, but control.
Muslims in the West are not meant to be full citizens under this model, but permanent residents of a psychological and cultural ghetto. No integration, no belonging, no participation. They are implanted with a toxic dual consciousness: you are morally superior, yet eternally oppressed. This mixture produces perfect dependency.
Hijab becomes not faith, but a flag.
Identity becomes not diversity, but a trench.
Difference becomes not enrichment, but conflict.
Any objection to this model is instantly met with accusations of Islamophobia—as if Islam can only exist in perpetual confrontation.
This is why they hate Mohamed Salah, the world’s most famous Muslim Egyptian footballer. Salah is their nightmare: a successful, integrated, beloved Muslim who did not need victimhood rhetoric and did not raise the banner of confrontation. He kicks Islamophobia away with his football boots and proves that faith can live without noise, hatred, or blackmail.
They hate anyone who succeeds without cursing the West, anyone who integrates without dissolving their faith, anyone who proves that identity does not need hostility to survive.
The real danger is that generations of Muslims abroad have not encountered Islam as a message of values, but as a project of conflict. They learned it through preachers, platforms, and organizations that see the world only as conspiracy and difference only as threat. Here, Islamophobia becomes an effective weapon—because the ground is already prepared with fear, ignorance, and identity anxiety.
But Islamophobia is not destiny, nor a global conspiracy, nor a justification for hijacking religion. Its greatest danger is not hatred of Muslims, but its use to silence Muslims themselves. When wielded by the Muslim Brotherhood, it does not protect Islam—it harms it; it does not defend Muslims—it imprisons them in the image of the eternal victim.
The true defense of Islam—authentic, original Islam, not political Islam—is not through shouting, but through reason; not through blackmail, but through confidence; not through hijacking identity, but through liberating it.
In this sense, Islamophobia is not only an injustice inflicted upon Muslims—it is a crime committed in their name. A weapon that serves the Brotherhood, not Islam. Used not to protect people, but to hijack minds. Not to confront racism, but to feed it—because the more tension increases, the greater the need for a “guardian.”
Confronting real Islamophobia is not achieved by silencing voices, sanctifying groups, or blackmailing societies, but by dismantling extremism, exposing the exploitation of religion, and defending the Muslim’s right to be human beings and citizens, not soldiers in a political project.
Anything else is not a defense of Islam, but a betrayal of it.
As for those who sell fear, they will keep shouting: Islamophobia… Islamophobia… so that we never hear the more important question:
Who truly fears a free Islam—an Islam without a group that claims to be Islam, and without guardianship by an extremist movement that pretends to be its protector?
