Hello everyone, and welcome back to For All Humans.

When it comes to pervasive misconceptions about Islam, there’s no shortage to choose from. You know the ones I mean—the ones you hear on Fox News every now and then that go something like this: “By the year 2030, if Muslims continue to procreate at their current rate, like fast-breeding rabbits, they will outnumber us all. So pack your bags and run for the hills!” Or the panic-driven cries of “Sharia law is creeping into our courts!”

Well, there’s another pervasive misconception about Islam and Muslims that has been rampant lately—namely, that an Islamic identity and a national identity are somehow incompatible.

Today, we’ll explore this critical contemporary subject by looking at the intersecting relationship between Islam, Muslims, and the relatively modern concept of national identity.

Islam is often portrayed as an all-encompassing, one-dimensional monolith, with media coverage of Muslim doctrine, communities, and opinions often positioning a Muslim identity as diametrically opposed to a national identity. The notion that a Muslim religious identity is inherently self-segregating and sits uncomfortably alongside a modern national identity is widespread. But is it historically accurate? And more importantly, is it true of modern and long-standing Muslim communities living in the West?

It’s no secret that an increasing number of prominent public figures would have us believe that Islam, carried into Western countries by Muslims, is an existential threat that undermines Western and European culture, ethnicities, and identity. But this particular fallacy should be distinguished from other expressions of Islamophobia and racism for a number of reasons. Rather than simply expressing hatred or fear of the racialized other, those who say that an Islamic identity and a national identity are incompatible aim to position Islam specifically as a looming cultural, political, and ideological threat. This allows proponents to deny racial animosity as a driving motivation behind the expression of this discourse.

To understand this better, we need to identify the often unspoken, underlying assumptions behind this discourse. Simply put, Muslims are not viewed as any other religious community, such as Christians, Jews, or Buddhists. Rather, it seems that identifying as Muslim precludes true affiliation with other identities, particularly that of a Western national identity. The unspoken assumption is that, unlike British Jews or British Hindus, a Muslim can only really identify solely and exclusively as Muslim, who happens to be living in Britain. According to this discourse, attempting to identify as a British Muslim or a Western Muslim of any kind is to live a contradiction in terms, with one identity threatening the other.

Beyond the commonplace claims that Muslims were a physical threat in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks or that Islam breeds terrorists, the seemingly irreconcilable differences between Muslim and national identity position ordinary Muslims as a threat to the civic body simply by their existence within a non-Muslim population. By positioning Muslim identity as incompatible with national identity, proponents deny Western Muslim communities access to a shared civic identity and space.

This is not merely some theoretical or abstract discourse. The impact has had very real and tangible consequences. Public debates have shifted from terror-based surveillance to more nefarious policing and regulating expressions of “Muslimness.” Most alarmingly, Denmark enacted a series of laws seemingly aimed at possibly assimilating its Muslim population through child indoctrination programs. Yes, you heard that correctly—child indoctrination programs in a modern, advanced European country in 2019. In Danish law, children in 25 low-income and overwhelmingly Muslim districts must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours per week (not including nap time). During these 25 hours, children receive mandatory instruction in Danish values.

This narrative suggests that there is something in Muslim identity that is at odds with national identity and, therefore, a threat to the established national order. Muslims are perceived as a threat because their identity renders them inherently disloyal and alien, incapable of partaking in and enjoying the national identity that binds together other communities.

So what exactly does Islam say about this topic? When we turn to the key principles in core Islamic texts, we see clear references to cultural distinctiveness and ethnic diversity. A frequently cited verse from the Quran exemplifies this sentiment: “O humankind, We have created you from a single pair—a male and a female—and made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.” This recognition of ethnic and cultural distinctiveness is further developed in the famous last sermon attributed to the Prophet Muhammad: “There is no superiority for an Arab over a non-Arab, nor for a non-Arab over an Arab. Neither is the white superior to the black, nor is the black superior to the white, except by piety.”

The above quotes clearly refute any racial or ethnic hierarchy within Islam. Early Muslim communities also included individuals from diverse backgrounds, such as Bilal the Ethiopian, Salman the Persian, and Suhaib the Roman. These identities coexisted harmoniously without compromising their Muslim identity.

Even with the rapid spread of Islam and the emergence of Islamic empires, the original identities of nations remained dominant, such as the Persian cultural identity, which persisted despite the spread of Arab culture. Other ethnic identities like Berber, Kurdish, Assyrian, and Turkish also coexisted with Muslim identity.

The research shows that Muslims do place more importance on their religious identity compared to non-Muslims. But with a 1.8 billion Muslim population worldwide, the idea that this diverse group could constitute a singular cultural or political entity is absurd.

In the modern setting, these trends of multiple identities are more visible than ever. The ethnic, cultural, and geographic diversity of the Muslim world is extremely broad, and a far cry from being dominated by Arab-speaking countries. For example, one-third of all Muslims today hail from the Indian subcontinent, with a further 15% in sub-Saharan Africa, 13% in Indonesia alone, and 8% in Europe. Only an estimated 20% of Muslims worldwide speak Arabic natively.

So whether she’s a hockey-loving Canadian Muslim or a baguette-bunching Parisian Muslim, you can bet your Muslim neighbor is just as proud of their beautiful country, wherever it may be.

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