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Definition

There are a number of articles that has differing definitions of the term Islamophobia. Helbling (2012) suggests that the term ‘Islamophobia’ is often associated with such negative connotations and associations, and the article suggest that the term islamophobia has been subject to an extraordinary vogue over the past decade, which has resulted in the word appearing regularly in both academic and political debates. The article also emphasises that while the term Islamophobia is starting to be utilised regularly, many challenges has arisen when determining the exact definition of Islamophobia. The term has been utilised by a considerable variety of individuals and in remarkably different ways, leading to controversy over what it really means, and whether the term can be considered useful. Many also consider the term Islamophobia as a form of intolerance and discrimination motivated with mistrust, fear and hatred of Islam. Many times, it is manifested in combination with racism, anti-immigrant sentiments and religious intolerance.

History of Islamophobia in Spain

History of Islamophobia in early modern Spain. An article written by Soyer (2013) provides an idea that in the early modern period of Spain, the royal and church authorities hoped that the forced conversions of the early sixteenth century would result in an end to religious dissension in Spain resulting in creation of a united and homogenous society. However, this did not occur. However, the article continues to give an idea that most Muslims who were forced to convert to Christianity simply continued to practise Islam in secret and within the privacy and protection of their closed communities. Regardless of the decreasing Muslim population in Spain during the eleventh and twelfth century, it did not signal the defeat of the Muslim population. Many lords in Spain saw Muslims as a valuable labour force that was able to bring in fiscal revenue, with the result that authorities allowed Islamic worship, where they saw the practices as necessarily evil, portraying the beginning of Islamophobia in Spain.

Grosfoguel (2010) suggested that during the beginning of islamophobia, the term was used in association with "Muslim fear", During the early modern era, there was increasing social fear of the Muslim population and the term Islamophobia started to be popularised. Many associated social fears with the expression of growing Islamophobia, while for others, these social fears and moral panics are examples of common problems faced by Islamic communities. Moreover, Islamophobia is not defined in a coherent and consistent way which lacks clarity in many definitions offered for it. Therefore, the term Islamophobia could be misinterpreted and misunderstood in many ways instead of achieving equality and social justice. Furthermore, these misinterpretations build up the abuse of Islamophobia as a concept. Islamophobia is seen as discrimination that was already there in the 16th and 17th centuries Spain leading to the exposure of “Moriscos” from Spain and continue rising affecting social life and opportunities of millions of citizens.

Muslim population in Spain

Recently there has been constant growth of the population of Islam in Spain. As of 2016, Spain officially has 1,919,141 Muslims out of a total population of 46,438,422. This is slightly above 4%, of Spain’s total population. Out of the Muslim population, 1,115,124, or 58.7%, were immigrants without Spanish citizenship. Spain's Muslim community includes 804,017 Spanish citizens (42% of total) and 753,425 Moroccan citizens (39.2% of the Muslim community and over 67.5% of Muslim foreigners). Other smaller communities include Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Algerians and Senegalese. As for Muslims with Spanish citizenship, in 2016 these included 277,409 naturalized citizens which were mainly from Morocco, 430,990 descendants of naturalized citizens, 64,334 Ceuta/Melilla Muslims (naturalized by decree in the early 80s) and 23,624 were Spaniards of Catholic Christian background who had converted to Islam for marriage or out of personal religious conviction.

Major Events

Many articles have asserted that the term Islamophobia began getting recognition to more and more individuals during the major event of the 9/11 attack in the United States of America. Allen (2013) lamented that due to the event of 9/11, Islamophobia and its acknowledgement has been ever more recurrent and continues to be increasingly more prevalent across the public and political spaces in the world. Many individuals can agree that the event of 9/11 can be considered as one of the key factors on how the term “Islamophobia” slowly got its recognition into the public world. The article continues to assert that in many cases the media attempts to create a relation between terrorism and the religion of Islam. It displays how despite the EUMC 7/7 Report noting that, ‘the media appears to have avoided linking directly the Muslim faith or Muslim communities in general with terrorism or radical groups. In many cases, the mainstream media still continues to make particular efforts to differentiate between the Muslim faith and the sources of terrorism. This distinction has sometimes been blurred by inflationary language and headlines such as “Islamic terrorism”, and in many cases the use of terms “Islam”, “Muslim”, which has resulted in people believing that the media is attempting to connect the cause of terrorism to Islam.

In regard to major event occurring in Spain, two main events were the protagonists of 2017 in Spain: one was the terrorist attack that took place in Barcelona on August 17, and the second was ‘the Catalan issue’, that is, the referendum held to test the opinion of Catalans about their wish to be independent from the rest of the country and the elections for the Catalan parliament that followed. In the afternoon of August 17, 130 people were injured and 14 people killed when a van drove straight into Las Ramblas which is Barcelona’s most popular street. Where eight hours later, a similar attack followed in a small town in Catalonia, Cambrils, where another car drove into pedestrian walkways. In the peak of the summer holidays, the terrorist attack caused citizens of 24 countries to be killed. The previous night, in Barcelona, in the small town of Alcanar, an explosion occurred destroying the building and killing two members of the terrorist cell.

Islamophobia in Spain In the Modern World

There have been many instances of proof on how Islamophobia is still very well alive in the Modern World of Spain. Triandafyllidou (2010) portrays how Islamophobia is still present through the constant rejection of building a mosque throughout some of the cities in Spain. An example would be how Muslims from the municipality of Badalona have to travel to other municipalities to pray on Fridays. The continuous resistance to establish a mosque in many cities in Spain, is valid and clear evidence of Islamophobia occurring currently in Spain. For example, there has been conflict around mosque establishment in Premiá del Mar and Badalona, where both developments shared several similar characteristics. Both cases portrayed how no mosque resulted in the Muslim community without a place to worship. Despite demand for the building of a mosque, neighbourhood associations were first to mobilise this demand through the collection of signatures for a petition against a mosque while also organising street protests against Islam, which portrays strong signs of Islamophobia in the modern world. In recent years, there has also been increasing attacks against the Muslim population, and hate conversations across many social media platforms. Reports have said that there is a 120 percent increase in hate crimes in 2017, where most is conducted in the Catalonia region, where the region host most of the 2 million Muslim population. Also, there has been increasing amounts of hate speech online, particularly in social media and mass media.

In recent years there has also been a growing number of incidents of Islamophobia in Spain. The most common type of incident reported are in which Muslim men were identified as sexist, violent, and seen as terrorists while Muslim women were perceived as ignorant and passive. Muslim men and women are usually discriminated and have less power than other people which means they are treated less favourably than other person in the same situation and gain less respect from others. Online and “on the streets” are both the most common types of incidents occurred. According to research, out of the 546 cases, 386 occurred online on social media and reports while the remaining 160 cases occurred offline. In Spain, Catalonia has the most number of Islamophobia incidents approximately 31.88% out of the 160 cases occurred offline Following Catalonia, Andalucía and Valencia come next with 13.75% and 12.5% of the cases respectively.

Hate Speech Promoting Islamophobia in the online World

The growth of Islamophobia has recently emerged online in recent years. Many Islamophobia group are extremely active in the online space such as the internet. Many argue that better regulations need to be adopted to combat the spread of Islamophobia in the online world. Islamophobia online has been debated as the main source of radicalisation of far-right terrorist groups or lone wolves. A social media platform that has recently seen increasing amount of hate speech toward Muslims is Facebook. Traditionally hate speech has been referred to as a speech that vilifies a member or members of a protected group on the basis of their group identity. The definition of ‘protected group’ can vary between different context, however it is known that religion is included as a protected group. Social media platform Facebook has been significant in the growth of hate speech towards religion online as most online platforms prohibit ‘hate speech’ rather than more specific forms of hate such as racism. Under the terms of services of most of social media platforms, hate speech targeting the Muslim religion should be treated no different to anti-Semitic content or homophobia etc. In all the cases above the content should be removed from the platform. The danger of these hate speech online Is that the aim is to spread false messages or manipulated messages that aim to achieve propaganda and push a specific narrative into the public society. These hate speeches aim to target members of the Muslim religion to be facing violence, discrimination and exclusion by others in their daily life. Examples of hate speech towards the Muslim religion online is individuals asserting that Muslims are not welcome here and that they do not belong in the current society. As well as a second message that is aimed at society to manipulate them into thinking that they agree that the Muslim people are not wanted into society by providing false and bias perspective towards certain situations to give a negative portrayal of Muslims. These messages being promoted as Hate speech is mostly the same in all social media platforms and are the common messages being said by most individuals that promote hate speech. The growth of Hate speech is an attack on a person or a group of people, and many believe that it should be distinguished from ‘defamation of religion’ or ‘theological debate’ which are considered attacks on ideas. The problem of attacking an idea is that these attacks often turn into disagreement over religious practices, which will then lead to actions that aim at preventing the lawful religious practice of another individual.

Soyer, François (2013-3). "Faith, culture and fear: comparing Islamophobia in early modern Spain and twenty-first-century Europe". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 36 (3): 399–416. doi:10.1080/01419870.2013.734383. ISSN 0141-9870

Islamophobia in the West: Measuring and Explaining Individual Attitudes. Routledge. 2012-02-16. doi:10.4324/9780203841730. ISBN 9780203841730.

Muslims in 21st Century Europe: Structural and Cultural Perspectives. Routledge. 2010-03-12. doi:10.4324/9780203877845. ISBN 9780203877845.

Allen, Chris (2016-05-06). Islamophobia (1 ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315590080. ISBN 9781315590080.

Ramon Grosfoguel (2012). "The Multiple Faces of Islamophobia". Islamophobia Studies Journal. 1 (1): 9. doi:10.13169/islastudj.1.1.0009. ISSN 2325-8381.

Oboler, Andre, author. Islamophobia on the internet : the growth of online hate targeting Muslims. ISBN 9780987429445. OCLC 864708391.

Bayraklı, Enes, editor. Hafez, Farid, editor. European Islamophobia report. ISBN 9789752459618. OCLC 1032829227.

"Islamophobia is on the rise in Spain". www.thelocal.es. 2018-03-05. Retrieved 2019-06-12.