University of Washington

Americas Narrow Perception of Islam

Meghan Frisch

Honors 231: Islam and Muslims in Western Contexts

Karam Dana

13 January 2017
 Throughout history, Western civilizations have unjustly made and acted upon

assumptions about the Arab world without regard for fact. This phenomenon is still felt today, as

modern Arab-Americans face bias based on generalized assumptions of their religion, country of

origin, and culture. The American populace has reacted with fear to the uncertainty,

misunderstanding, and unpredictability caused by a lack of accurate information of our Arab and

Muslim neighbors.

Throughout the last century, the US has shown a pattern of reacting to the unknown with

fear. This is present now in Americas relationship to domestic and international Islam, but was

also present during the Cold War (1950s-1989). During the Cold War, the fear of communism

consumed the American people due to its unpredictability, possibility of growth, and its threat to

American capitalism. This led to McCarthyism, which is the suspicion of those who exhibited

Americas stereotype of communists: Soviets and those who displayed a Soviet phenotype. Since

the Cold War, we have transferred our McCarthyist mindset to Islam. Neither American

experts nor everyday citizens adequately understand Islam and its connection to the Arab

world. We simply do not have the dialogue with the Middle East that is necessary to create

understanding. We continue to find the Arab world unpredictable due to our lack of complete

victory over it, and therefore lack of control. The fact that only Islam seemed never to have

submitted completely to the West brings a source of uncertainty for the United States (Said

5). The Middle East also contains potential power through its natural resources and vast scale.

This potential has instilled uncertainty and therefore fear in the American people. The presence

of Islamic terrorism since the 1980s has intensified this concern.

 The fear associated with the Middle East in the United States has cut Americans off from

exploring Arab-American origins, religions, and cultures. Instead, popular media, news and

books have made assumptions about this American minority, preventing the majority of

American people from understanding Islam and the Arab world. This lack of circulation of

accurate information furthers the uncertainty and therefore fear towards Arab and Muslim

populations. In popular media, Muslims and Arabs are stereotypically represented. Generically

pictured as Arab-Middle Eastern-Muslims, men and women are portrayed according to Western

assumptions, with ...men as irrationally violent, particularly towards women[and] women as a

supra-oppressed group of women in comparison to white American women, who are idealized to

represent equality, democracy and justice (Naber 44). These portrayals of Arabs have created an

idea of what an Arab looks like: brown skin, hijab, and Muslim. This ideology has influenced

American perception of Islam by mistakenly presuming all Arabs are of the Muslim faith.

Arab-Americans come in many forms. There are over 200 subsets of Arab-Americans, including

Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions originating from America, China, Indonesia, Malaysia,

India, and many more countries around the world (Naber 43). Many Arab immigrants have

assimilated into American society, while others have integrated themselves into their

surrounding communities; Arab-Americans do not always show the stereotypical characteristics

depicted by American media outposts.

The portrayal of Middle Eastern conflict in American news and books has also

contributed to the fear of Arab Americans and Islam within the American consciousness. Tariq

Ramadan exemplifies how assumptions are made and the stigmatizations against Arab and

Muslim Americans are created and spread through his own experiences of false allegations
placed against him: Such allegations, repeated several hundred times on the Internet (without

any evidence, of course), now give the impression that there must be some truth in all this.

(Ramadan 19). This demonstrates the concept that if something is repeated enough, it must be

true. This is how Middle Eastern specialists in the US have reported on the Middle East: citing

papers which have made assumptions based on little to no facts. Western academic experts on

Islam rarely understand the entire background of Islamic civilization, yet ...this has not

prevented experts from generalizing (Said 15). The presence of such unqualified experts

presenting the primary information that circulates American homes falsely educates the

American people and effectively hinders their understanding.

These irresponsible experts create situations where predictable events in the Middle

East are not accurately monitored, and therefore come as a surprise. Preceding the Lebanese

Civil War in 1973, experts believed Lebanon was stable because, ...the inter-Arab

situation was stable (Said 21). The assumed association between inter-Arab stability and

Lebanese stability blindsided experts because ...experts failed to understand that much of

what truly mattered about postcolonial states could not easily be herded under the rubric of

stability (Said 22). Americans cite these surprises as evidence in naming the Middle East as

unpredictable, turbulent, and therefore untrustworthy and threatening. This in turn increases the

stigma against those residing in the United States who are assumed to have connections to the

Middle East by phenotype, religion, or language. The surprises in the Middle East carry a lot

of weight since the news only covers the violence within the Arab world, or threats that the

Middle East poses to America. For example, the media focuses on radical Islamic groups such as

ISIS and their destructive acts within the Western world. This focused coverage irrevocably
connects the idea of terror with the Middle East. Americans are never adequately informed of

Arab culture or religion outside of this: ...no general work on Islam has ever been put squarely

before the literate reading public (Said 17). The lack of accurate educational news stories in the

American media on the Middle East has told the American people that there is nothing to learn:

the Middle East is comprised of senseless violence.

The portrayal of Arabs in American popular media and news has created fear and

uncertainty against the Arab population. When an Arab appears on the news that fits their

stereotypical representation, many American viewers ...feel a combination of anger, resentment,

and fear (Said 3). The lack of understanding of Arab and Muslim culture and background has

established the groundwork for fear among the American people, which many politicians have

used to their benefit. We have fallen back on our habit of responding to uncertainty through fear

and anger. In order to end this cycle we must put more effort into understanding Arab history and

culture.
 Bibliography

Naber, Nadine. "Ambiguous Insiders: an Investigation of Arab American Invisibility." Ethnic

and Racial Studies. 23.1 (2000): 37-61.

Ramadan, Tariq. "2: A Muslim, and a "Controversial Intellectual. What I Believe. New York:

Oxford UP, 2010. N. pag. Print.

Said, Edward W. "I. Islam and the West." Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts

Determine How We See the Rest of the World. New York: Pantheon, 1981. N. pag. Print.