Sorting Out Truth From Falsehood Regarding ‘Islamophobia’

To ward off “Islamophobia,” British citizens have been told that the Virgin Mary wore a hijab. This is part of larger efforts to portray Muslims as victims and whitewash Islam: “British Council Staff Told Virgin Mary Wore Hijab in Anti-Islamophobia Training, Sparking Outrage,” by Ailin Vilches Arguello, Algemeiner, September 30, 2026:

Of that funding, about $47,000 was awarded to launch Project Unity, which provides training on “media and political narratives” as well as “myths and misconceptions about Islam.”

What are some of those “myths and misconceptions about Islam” that so exercise Abbas Najib? That Muslims believe that they are the “best of peoples” while non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings”? That Muslims are taught not to take Christians and Jews as friends, “for they are friends only with each other”? That a Muslim man may beat his wife if he merely suspects her of being disobedient? That Muhammad said “I have been made victorious through terror” and “war is deceit”? That Muhammad consummated his marriage to — that is, had sexual intercourse with — little Aisha when she was nine and he was fifty-four? That Muhammad said that “Islam is to dominate and not to be dominated”? All “myths and misconceptions,” Mr. Najib?

According to Better Communities Bradford, these training programs are intended to demonstrate how Islamic values can align with those of British society, including respect for democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, and individual liberty.

There is not a single Muslim country that is a true democracy. The “rule of law” for Muslims mean the Sharia, according to which non-Muslims are treated as dhimmis, and subject to a host of financial, social, and political disabilities, of which the most onerous is the payment of the jizyah, a capitation tax that all non-Muslims must pay if they want to be allowed to practice their religion. A true “tolerance” of minorities in Muslim lands for non-Muslim or non-Arab peoples scarcely exists. Even Muslims of a different sect may be persecuted, as the Sunnis persecute both the Ahmadis and Shi’a in Pakistan. Look at what has happened to Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Kurds, Assyrians, Copts, and Armenians at the hands of Muslims.

“Project Unity exists to reduce anti-Muslim hostility and strengthen trust between communities,” Najib said in a statement. “Participants consider how the same words would be heard if they were said about Jewish people, black people or any other minority community, so that one standard is applied to everyone, whoever is speaking and whatever their politics.”

But “Jewish people, black people, and any other minority” do not engage in terrorism (Muslims have carried out more than 50,000 terror attacks just since 9/11); nor do they insist that their religion is “to dominate and not to be dominated.” Najib wants us to believe that if we don’t condemn Jews and black people as we do Islam, this reflects “Islamophobia.” What it really reflects is the fact that non-Muslims do not commit the religiously-motivated crimes that Muslims do.

“The law gives stronger protection against the stirring up of racial hatred than religious hatred, and Jewish people are protected as a racial group while Muslims are not,” he continued. “Asking delegates to reflect on that inconsistency is exactly what hate-crime training should do, and I stand by it. Every community in Britain deserves the same protection from hatred.”

And every community that practices hatred deserves the same condemnation. Muslims are not “protected as a racial group” because they are not a race, and they are judged by the same standards as all other groups. If we fear the adherents of Islam, both because of what the texts and teachings of Islam teach, and because of the observable behavior of Muslims worldwide, that fear is not irrational, not the result of “Islamophobia.”