When prejudice targets Black, Jewish, or Latino communities, Americans respond with collective outrage. But bigotry against Muslims? It’s far less taboo and routinely brushed aside – even openly condoned in certain circles. Islamophobia isn’t fringe; it’s woven into the fabric of American society and etched into its national identity.
With few avenues for recourse, millions of Muslim Americans have grown accustomed to thickening their skin and weathering the backlash stemming from their faith – a belief practiced by nearly two billion people worldwide, a quarter of humanity. Why is such blatant partiality tolerated? Is Islamophobia truly born of fear, as its name suggests, or have Americans been conditioned by political and foreign interests determined to barricade the U.S. from the Muslim world?
I have witnessed this reality firsthand since the fall of 2001 – at the onset of a career in federal law enforcement that intersected with a personal relationship that would forever reshape my life. On the morning of 9/11, I was driving to the Pentagon for scheduled interviews as a background investigator, unaware of how profoundly that week would alter both history and my ideology. At the time, I knew little about Islam, but days later I would meet – and eventually marry – a Palestinian-American whose perspective enlightened my understanding of faith, humanity, and the world’s uneven balance of power.
Structural bias against Muslims is especially entrenched within military, intelligence, and law enforcement sectors. While employed as a Special Agent with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, I’ll never forget attending a terrorism seminar hosted by former CIA officials who propagated widespread misconceptions about Islam: that Muslims sought the annihilation of all Jews and Christians, that martyrs were literally promised “72 virgins,” and that Muslim women were universally oppressed – forced to wear hijab, denied higher education, and coerced into arranged marriages. Yet through my wife, colleagues, and countless Muslim families I’ve known for decades – the reality is quite the contrary. Muslim households are like any others, with women often serving as the anchors that hold the family unit together.
Over the past twenty-five years, I’ve recognized dynamics that are part of a larger-scale phenomenon: Islamophobia has evolved from individual prejudice into institutionalized bias – embedded in communities, workplaces, government agencies, and the media alike. Policies framed as patriotism or security measures routinely single out Muslim Americans, while political rhetoric and news coverage reinforce caricatures that bear little resemblance to reality. This is not merely ignorance or fear – it is systemic, sustained because it serves political, geopolitical, and territorial interests.
That distorted perception permeates institutions and communities alike: mosques, like other minority places of worship, are routinely subjected to harassment and vandalism. Yet unlike attacks on other religious communities, these incidents rarely prompt meaningful accountability, and public response is strikingly muted. According to the ACLU, “anti-Muslim sentiment has spiked” in recent years. Rawand Abdelghani, a board member at the Nueces Mosque in Austin, Texas, noted, “Since October 2023, we’ve definitely seen a rise in Islamophobia.” This prejudice, more than any other, has become America’s tolerated bigotry.
Further illustrating this resentment, coordinated efforts to block the construction of new mosques have emerged across the United States – prompting an uncomfortable question: would the same tactics be used to obstruct the building of new synagogues or churches?
Hellbound and Down 