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Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism studies: review and prospect

Special Issue: 50th Anniversary Issue: Change and Continuity

Peter Hopkins &

James Carr

Received 23 Mar 2025, Accepted 29 Jan 2026, Published online: 05 Mar 2026

In this article

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we review work about Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism in ethnic and racial studies – and in neighbouring disciplines – identifying key trends in research. In particular, we draw attention to important work focusing on genealogies and definitions of Islamophobia, on the importance of racialisation and on the location of Islamophobia. In proposing an agenda for future scholarship, we focus on the potential to advance research about intersectional Islamophobia, the role and impact of digital Islamophobia and AI, the function and power of the Islamophobia industry and the global Islamophobia industrial complex, as well as the need for research to understand the role of conspiracy theories and Islamophobic narratives. We conclude by emphasising the importance of paying attention to racialisation and foregrounding the lived experiences of those who experience Islamophobia.

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Introduction

The emergence of “Muslims” as a significant category of analysis has changed and transformed over the last several decades. For example, in the UK, they were seen as “coloured” in the initial post-war period before being reconstituted as “black” in the 1960s and 1970s after then being reimagined as “Asian” in the 1980s (Alexander Citation1998). Although events in the late 80s and early 1990s started to reconstruct Asian identities in a more religious-cultural way (Alexander Citation1998, Citation2002), it was the events of 9/11 that firmly established the category of the “Muslim” as an important focus of analysis. Accompanying the emergence of the focus on “Muslims” has been an increasing interest amongst scholars interested in ethnic and racial studies on the topic of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism. Whilst scholars have drawn attention to racism against Muslims for several decades, the tendency was to frame these issues as being about national or cultural heritage (e.g. racism against Pakistanis) rather than focusing on anti-Muslim racism per se. This gradually changed with the publication of the Runnymede Trust (Citation1997) report, the events of 9/11, and the emergence of a body of scholarship focusing on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism (e.g. Allen Citation2020; Hopkins Citation2025; Selod, Islam, and Garner Citation2024). Islamophobia is anti-Muslim racism, so we use these terms interchangeably in this article but use both as there is a preference in particular contexts for one of these terms over the other.

In this paper, we review scholarship on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism in ethnic and racial studies, indicating some of the areas of strength where the field has developed a detailed and sophisticated understanding of specific issues. Although Muslims are overwhelmingly the main targets and victims of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism, perpetrators are also known to target different ethnic and religious minority groups, such as Sikhs and Hindus (Hopkins et al. Citation2017). Moreover, Muslims – and indeed other groups who experience it – are not solely defined by their experiences of Islamophobia. We also point to some areas where further work could helpfully enhance our understanding, and in doing so, suggest an agenda for future work. To do this, we have organised this paper into two main sections. The first explores some of the key trends in research on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism in ethnic and racial studies, and in neighbouring fields. Here, we explore the genealogy of Islamophobia, how understandings of it have evolved over time, the impact of 9/11 and broader geopolitical issues. We also reflect on debates about the concept of Islamophobia and the important relationship of this to racialisation before considering issues about the location of Islamophobic incidents. In setting out areas of strength within the field, we are by no means suggesting that these issues are no longer important and do not warrant further attention. Instead, attention to these issues continues to be important and provides a foundation for the production of excellent scholarship on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism. We would contend that the best research should cover the issues we discuss below in terms of being clear about definitions, attentive to processes of racialisation, and sensitive to the locations in which Islamophobia takes place and the social and political factors that enable its manifestation. In the second half of the paper, we turn our attention to setting an agenda for research on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism. Whilst several of the issues discussed in the first part of our paper continue to be worthy of ongoing critical investigation, we identify key issues for further work going forward.

Trends in research about anti-Muslim racism

Genealogies and definitions of Islamophobia

A key trend in the literature about Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism is the attention given to the historical development of the idea and to the concerns over how Islamophobia is defined (e.g. Ponce Citation2024). Many scholars point to the word Islamophobia first appearing in its French form in 1918 (e.g. Green Citation2015) with others pointing to the role of the Iranian revolution and the Cold War (e.g. Bazian Citation2018), and to the impact of 9/11 and the emergence of the global “war on terror” (Selod, Islam, and Garner Citation2024), connecting to concerns about securitisation (Güner and Abbas Citation2025). To be clear, though, although there has been a distinct focus on defining the term and charting its emergence, there is still a need for further historical research about the ways in which Islamophobia has operated over time, in different places, and with specific effects.

So the field is particularly strong in debating the concept of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism, with this journal providing a key forum for this – clarifying what it means, where it has come from, how it has developed and where it can be found. Ejiofor (Citation2023a) recently suggested the study of Islamophobia needed to be decolonised as working with it as a form of anti-Muslim racism – such as the case in the work of Tariq Modood and Sahar Aziz – is too narrow as in some non-Western contexts, it operated as a form of tribalism rather than racism (see response from Modood Citation2023 and a response from Ejiofor Citation2023b). Moreover, in a recent special issue, Ganesh, Frydenlund, and Brekke (Citation2024) refer to flows of Islamophobia, including migratory, symbolic, informational, technical and economic flows to emphasise that Islamophobia travels, circulates and moves along and through different pathways. They also discuss what they refer to as different modalities of Islamophobia, including racialisation, group-making, control, movement and discourse with these different modalities interacting with the flows mentioned previously. The authors note that “Islamophobia is an emergent process that happens at the intersection of global flows and modalities of Islamophobia that are extended across space, cross one another and combine in unexpected ways” (Ganesh, Frydenlund, and Brekke Citation2024, 900; see also Goldberg Citation2006).

Much research about Islamophobia draws upon the Runnymede Trust (Citation1997) definition, which sees Islamophobia as referring to “unfounded hostility towards Islam. It refers also to the practical consequences of such hostility in unfair discrimination against Muslim individuals and communities, and to the exclusion of Muslims from mainstream political and social affairs” (The Runnymede Trust Citation1997, 4). This definition was accompanied by an outline of open and closed views of Islam – which has been debated and critiqued (Allen Citation2010) – with an updated definition being provided twenty years later clarifying that Islamophobia is “anti-Muslim racism” (Elahi and Khan Citation2017, 2). Many working on issues of Islamophobia agree that it is a form of anti-Muslim racism (e.g. Elahi and Khan Citation2017; Hopkins Citation2025; Massoumi, Mills, and Miller Citation2017; Meer and Modood Citation2019; Selod, Islam, and Garner Citation2024).

Academic debates about the definition of Islamophobia have been mirrored in policy circles and policy-related “debates” where there seems to be an endless cycle of consultations focused on seeking to define Islamophobia. In the UK Parliament, the All Party Parliamentary Group collected evidence from diverse sources in order to propose a working definition of Islamophobia and pointed to three key issues: processes of Islamophobia, actions that are Islamophobic, and the impacts of Islamophobia. They noted that “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness” (APPG Citation2018, 11). More recently still, the UK government has consulted over a possible definition of Islamophobia (again!) and the proposal appears to be suggesting it should be labelled anti-Muslim hatred rather than Islamophobia, a label which would appear to reduce the phenomenon to interpersonal animus as opposed to a form of racism with systemic ramifications. The ongoing attempts at defining Islamophobia are in themselves evidence of the role, power and impact of Islamophobia.

Racialisation and Islamophobia

Understandings of Islamophobia as a form of racism have largely been underpinned by the conceptual deployment of racialisation. As a concept, racialisation illuminates the manner in which social groups can and have been “raced,” that is, subjected to processes that reductively homogenise and essentialise people, ascribing all members with attributes and tendencies deemed innate (Carr and Khandoker Citation2025; Selod and Embrick David Citation2013). In the context of Islamophobia studies, the racialisation lens has attracted increased attention and indeed growing calls for its deployment across the past two decades (Carr and Haynes Citation2015; Garner and Selod Citation2015). However, the use of racialisation as a conceptual tool in Islamophobia studies has not gone without debate. In the first instance, it is argued that Muslim communities are incredibly diverse and do not all share the same phenotypical characteristics, as such, Islamophobia should not be framed as racism (see Younis Citation2024 for a useful engagement with such issues). Criticisms such as this are largely premised on now discredited and “[a]ntiquated theories of race” that emphasised “biological explanations” of difference vis-à-vis social groups (Selod and Embrick David Citation2013). The concept of racialisation moves away from such antiquated understandings of “race” based solely on phenotype, turning attention instead to the socio-political factors and processes at work in the construction of “the Other,” processes that denote difference and associated notions of hierarchical ordering (Garner and Selod Citation2015). Understanding the socio-political processes at work, as illuminated through the concept of racialisation, also overcomes the criticism that “Muslimness” as a religious identity falls outside of the scope of “race” and racism, and that such claims aim to stifle the ability to freely criticise religion. Not only do such critiques imply reductive biological understandings of “race,” as noted above, but they too ignore the socio-political processes at work in making “race”; ignoring that religious identities, including that of “Muslim”, have been historically, as today racialised; and moreover, that challenging Islamophobia does not mean stifling criticisms of Islam but is underpinned by a goal of protecting people from anti-Muslim racism as racism (Alexander Citation2017; Aziz Citation2024; Sayyid Citation2014; Sayyid and Vakil Citation2010; Selod and Embrick David Citation2013; Tyrer Citation2013; Vakil Citation2010).

“Muslim”, as a racialised “configuration … has circulated across time and space and acquired new and different meanings with each new context” (de Koning Citation2023, 255). As noted by Goldberg (Citation2006, 344) vis-à-vis “Racial Europeanisation”, the racialised figure of “‘[t]he Muslim’ has haunted the continent from the earliest moments of its modernity”, encompassing the Resconqusita, Colonialism and Orientalist imaginaries; imaginaries that fill a repository of tropes that inform and continue to be built upon in the present. This racialised spectre, “this monster of our times” (Goldberg Citation2006, 346), is constructed as everything European cannot be; Muslims and those racialised as “Other”, in Europe, but never belonging (see also Hafez Citation2026). While building on historic tropes, in the contemporary context, the racialised figure of the “Muslim”, identified through markers of Muslimness (e.g. religious dress, Muslim sounding names), is cast as an always foreign “Other”, deemed threatening and incompatible with “our” values (Carr and Khandoker Citation2025). The racialised figure of the Muslim is nuanced along gender lines with Muslim men constructed as misogynists, “hyper-patriarchal”, and Muslim women “imperilled” and oppressed by their male co-religionists (Razack Citation2008; see also Cockbain and Tufail Citation2020). In terms of threat, Muslim men and women are part of the racialised “suspect community”, albeit nuanced on gender lines as inter alia, jihadi/jihadi brides, terrorists or civilising influences (Carr Citation2016; Hillyard Citation1993; Hopkins Citation2025). The contemporary intensified conflation of Muslim with migrant can also be understood along gendered lines, with the figure of the Muslim woman deemed emblematic of the so-called “Great replacement”, alongside populist dog-whistle, thinly veiled references to the threat posed by migrant men as “unvetted males of military age” (Ali and Whitham Citation2021; Khandoker, Kurić, and Carr Citation2025). Whether male or female, studies evidence that those who convert to Islam lose their Whiteness and attendant privileges by doing so, labelled as “traitors” by the majority group that no longer identifies them as “one of their own” (Carr Citation2016; Garner and Selod Citation2015). In the context of Gaza, Palestine, Muslim people protesting against the genocide have been racialised as “presumptively anti-Semitic” (Aziz Citation2024), suggesting that such attitudes are somehow innate and evidenced through their advocacy for the human rights of Palestinian people faced with erasure.

The preceding non-exhaustive elaboration of the manner in which Muslimness has and is racialised highlights the value of the application of the racialisation lens in Islamophobia studies, focussing our attention on the socio-political processes involved that reductively and problematically construct Muslims as a solitary group. At a practical level, Statham (Citation2024) importantly reminds us of the need for caution and sensitivity in the context of social science studies focusing on the experiences of Muslim communities, that is, in doing such work one should not ignore the diversity within. Nonetheless it is evident that the application of the concept of racialisation has allowed for analyses of Islamophobia to emerge across the past two-decades that are sensitive to the socio-political underpinnings of this phenomenon as a systemic form of racism (Carr and Khandoker Citation2025; Garner and Selod Citation2015; Sayyid and Vakil Citation2010; Tyrer Citation2013), and this is an important focus for ongoing work in the field.

Locating Islamophobia: power, politics, and place

Research about Islamophobia has a particular strength when it comes to the attention given to its location within specific contexts, whether this is in certain cities, nations or regions, or in online environments, or in relation to public spaces, in workplaces, or in response to specific incidents or phenomena (e.g. Najib Citation2022). These locations and contexts really matter. An important contextual point here is the important work that has charted the relationship between Islamophobia, imperialism and Empire (Beydoun Citation2023; Hopkins Citation2025; Kumar Citation2021, Kundnani Citation2015). They provide the political background and socio-cultural setting in which Islamophobia takes place and is allowed to flourish. In this journal alone, we learn about forms of ethnonationalism such as those targeted at Hui Muslims in China (Stroup Citation2023), about Buddhist anti-Muslim nationalism in Asia (Frydenlund Citation2023), how Islamophobia can be enacted through government policies targeting issues such as “ghettos” and “separatism” in Denmark (Dobbernack Citation2022), and the explicit religiosity of evangelical Christians in the Netherlands who strongly believe in “Biblical inerrancy and religious exclusivism” (Vermeer Citation2024, 1), which drive Islamophobia in concert with right-wing political views.

Research about Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism has a real strength in demonstrating nuance and sensitivity to different national contexts and to specific political issues and events interrelated to this. For example, in different settings, research is often highly sensitised, carefully attuned and critically nuanced with regard to significant geopolitical events such as terrorist incidents, the build up to and aftermath of elections, or to national policies that foreground issues of race, ethnicity and religion such as those connected with citizenship, communities and belonging. We see this not only in the growth in research in this field following the events of 9/11 (e.g. Hilal Citation2021; Miller-Idriss Citation2021) but also in work that has responded to high-profile incidents such as the Cronulla riots in Sydney in 2005 (e.g. Itaoui and Dunn Citation2017) or Breivik’s killing of seventy-seven people in Oslo and Utøya in 2011 (e.g. Bangstad Citation2014), or US President Trump’s introduction of a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries (e.g. Gokariksel Citation2017; Hopkins and White Citation2025). Added to this, there is a very important body of work that has emerged about Islamophobia in France that charts its operation in a context where the very existence of Islamophobia is denied by those in power (e.g. Hajjat and Mohammed Citation2023; Hancock Citation2020; Kiwan and Wolfreys Citation2023; Najib Citation2021; Najib and Hopkins Citation2019, Citation2020; Wolfreys Citation2023). These are only examples, but each illustrate the ways in which researchers working on issues of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism are highly sensitised to the broader national political context in which they are working.

Complementing the sensitivity to global and national political issues is also a strong attention to detail with respect to more localised issues that provide a platform for Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism. We see this in the careful attention given to the context of specific cities under study (e.g. Simonsen, de Neergaard, and Koefoed Citation2019), including issues relating to communities and neighbourhoods (e.g. Dobbernack Citation2022), such as residential segregation (Phillips Citation2006) or the presence and location of religious buildings or architecture (e.g. Cheng Citation2015). Added to this is important work that draws attention to experiences of public transport (e.g. Itaoui, Dufty-Jones, and Dunn Citation2021; Shaker Citation2021), negotiations of public spaces (e.g. Bangstad and Linge Citation2023; Baugerud Citation2025; Najib and Hopkins Citation2020) and everyday embodied encounters (e.g. Mansson McGinty Citation2020). Although we observe this as a strength of scholarship about Islamophobia, we consider these crucial issues for future research to continue to focus on and draw attention to where appropriate. The point made by Ejiofor (Citation2023a, Citation2023b) about decolonisation represents a key possibility for future work here in order to consider how Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism operate in the Global South and in contexts outside of those that are currently the main focus of the field. Indeed, nuanced and engaged research about Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism should be attentive to the specific national, regional and local contexts in which Islamophobia takes place and the political context therein, all the while recognising the global reach of this phenomenon.

An agenda for future work

Intersectional Islamophobia

A strength of research about Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism has been – and continues to be – the focus on its gendered nature (e.g. Easat-Daas and Zempi Citation2024; Hopkins Citation2016; Khandoker, Kurić, and Carr Citation2024; Selod Citation2019). Work that pays specific attention to the lived experiences of Muslim women represents a key strength of the field (e.g. Carland Citation2023; Easat-Daas Citation2021; Warren Citation2022), including research that explores the complex ways that Muslim women are stigmatised and stereotyped, and how their clothing, and in particular, their use of the Islamic headscarf or veil, is problematically read as anything from a sign of oppression and tradition through to an indicator of radicalisation and extremism. Important recent work in this journal explores Muslim women’s experiences in France and Switzerland (Kebaïli and Lépinard Citation2025) and in Norway (Baugerud Citation2025). Saying this, there is a lot less said about Muslim men’s experiences of, and responses to, gendered Islamophobia, and this could be a fruitful avenue for further work that would enable research to move beyond its obsessive focus on the figure of the “Muslim woman”. Added to this, research could usefully pay more attention to the relationality between different gendered groups and the intersections of this with Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism.

Whilst the intersection of gender with Islamophobia has generated much important research, future work could usefully say more about what happens when Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism intersect with other markers of social and cultural difference such as those associated with age, sexuality, socio-economic status, disability and migration status. An assumption is sometimes made that Islamophobia is already an intersectional idea as it is based on race and religion, however the concept itself tends not to be framed as intersectional. Building upon work that is attentive to the ways in which Islamophobia is intersectional (e.g. Ansari and Patel Citation2024), such work should avoid reinforcing a simplistic understanding of intersectionality as being about multiple identities and instead be attentive to the origins of the term in black feminism and sensitive to issues of relationality, social context, power relations, complexity, social justice and inequalities (Collins and Bilge Citation2016). Research could usefully pay attention to how Islamophobia changes, alters or remains the same as it intersects with forms of oppression such as ageism, homophobia, ableism, sexism, racism, classism, casteism and other forms of domination and control.

We could produce an endless list of possibilities here but instead point to a small number of interesting possibilities for further investigation. First, there are important and interesting questions to be raised about what happens when Islamophobia intersects with concerns around migration status, including the processes of racialisation and othering that are part and parcel of this (Donaldson Citation2025; Nandi et al. Citation2025). Second, building upon the strong focus on gender issues, consideration of sexual identities – and the role of homophobia and heterosexism (Boussalem Citation2022) – in moulding and shaping experiences of Islamophobia offers fruitful possibilities for considering what happens to Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism as they encounter sexuality, heteronormativity and gender non-conformity. Third, it is also worth paying attention to the social and cultural practices that inform and are shaped by Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism, including the multiple intersections that contribute to this. This might include practices of embodiment (Mansson McGinty Citation2020), how public spaces are appropriated, how politics is engaged with (Finlay and Hopkins Citation2019, Citation2020) and how food and drink are consumed. It is important to emphasise the importance of considering the relationalities within and between these different categories and forms of oppression including the different groups of Muslims that might be targeted (e.g. see Sönmez Citation2025 for a discussion about the experiences of mosque staff). This means we can appreciate the complex ways that these different categories are constructed, contested and manipulated in relation to, against or in support of each other, and how these operate to enable and embolden Islamophobia, or how they may offer opportunities for resistance and transformation.

Digital Islamophobia and AI

Online or digital Islamophobia provides a key platform where people experience anti-Muslim hatred (Zempi and Awan Citation2016). Indeed, the role of online environments is such that much research refers to online and offline Islamophobia suggesting that these are somewhat equal in their impacts. A number of studies have focused on, e.g. the challenges of addressing Islamophobia in online contexts such as Twitter (e.g. Awan Citation2014; Awan et al. Citation2022; Ganesh and Faggiani Citation2023) or the use of websites such as WikiIslam (e.g. Kozaric and Brekke Citation2023), or for the sharing of misinformation (Center for Countering Digital Hate Citation2024), such as was the case with the summer 2024 UK riots, which included a significant component of Islamophobia (Bonnett and Hopkins Citation2025). Although the digital context has been a key focus for scholars interested in understanding Islamophobia, the spreading of Islamophobic images, iconography, text and messages – and the constantly changing and evolving nature of these – warrants significant ongoing investigation from scholars seeking to expose how anti-Muslim racism operates (Gottschalk and Greenberg Citation2019).

Research studies on Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning and large-scale language models (LLMs), such as Chat GPT, and manifestations of bias therein, like the platforms themselves, are relatively new. Some of the early work in this area has identified bias in reference to race and gender, and more recently, in relation to religious identities (Abid, Farooqi, and Zou Citation2021; Nadeem, Bethke, and Reddy Citation2020). In this context, experimental studies have demonstrated the presence of anti-Muslim bias within LLMs that “creatively” tap into racialised stereotypes of, e.g. Muslim as terrorist and associations with violence. Moreover, such studies report associations as “significantly less likely for other religious groups”, underscoring the presence of anti-Muslim bias within the LLMs landscape (Abid, Farooqi, and Zou Citation2021, 299). In this context, according to Munir (Citation2025, 6–8), “Islamophobic bias occurs when AI models exhibit negative outcomes due to prejudiced datasets or when the design of the AI model itself is influenced”.

The effect of such biases in the AI landscape is not limited to stereotypical representations in response to prompts, such as “Two Muslims walked into a bar … ” as demonstrated by Abid, Farooqi, and Zou (Citation2021). It also incorporates risk across a range of vectors, underpinned by racialised “logics” and associated biases against, e.g. Black/darker skinned people and women, including when accessing employment, facial recognition and surveillance technologies, and health care quality (Arshad Citation2024; Munir Citation2025, 10). As has been well documented in broader Islamophobia studies literature (Hopkins Citation2025), Muslim communities are racialised in the digital security space as “suspect communities”,” underscoring the impact of AI vis-à-vis surveillance technologies. Abdou (Citation2025) demonstrates the “technical limitations of AI systems” in the US context, noting the incredibly high occurrence rates of Muslim identifiers (names such as Mohammed, inter alia) in “security databases and screening processes” and the effect that the presence of such can have as AI algorithms “learn and amplify existing prejudices” with the effect of targeting Muslim communities. The use and effect of such technologies is all the more worrying in contexts where Muslim minorities are subject to more overt forms of state repression. As the preceding snapshot demonstrates, AI and emerging technologies will undoubtedly be a continued – if not heightened – focus of research about Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism as this landscape continues to evolve.

The Islamophobia industry and Islamophobia industrial complex

Lean’s (Citation2012) landmark text established the existence of the “Islamophobia industry” (see also Lean Citation2019), which includes a set of interconnected right-wing groups and individuals who promote anti-Muslim racism in the USA. Lean (Citation2012) makes the point that this well-funded and strongly supported set of groups is called an industry because it generates income. Related to this, Marusek (Citation2017, 186) refers to a “transatlantic Islamophobia network,” Kumar (Citation2021, 178) talks about a “right-wing Islamophobia network,” and more recently, Hopkins (Citation2025, 33) has referred to the “Islamophobia Industrial Complex”, which includes all of the groups, organisations, agencies and people who are “financially and ideologically benefiting from promoting Islamophobia”.

A small number of important studies have drawn attention to the operation of networks of groups and agencies working to financially benefit from spreading Islamophobia. Lean (Citation2017) notes that Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer – who share over 400 Islamophobic blogs each month – were paid $200,000 and $213,000 a year during 2012–2013, and Bazian (Citation2015) has written about the Islamophobia industry in the demonisation of Palestine. Moreover, Zine (Citation2022a) refers to at least 39 groups involved in the Islamophobia industry between 2014 and 2016, with the ability to access over $1.5 billion over this timescale. Zine (Citation2022b) has also studied the Islamophobia industry in Canada, and through a social network analysis, she analysed the media outlets and influencers, the foot soldiers, the soft-power groups, the native informers, and the think tanks, security experts and politicians involved in this industry. Notably, Zine (Citation2022b) pointed to the role of ex-Muslims and Muslim dissidents in supporting such work, as well as the infiltration of Muslim organisations with the intention of leaking confidential information to the other side. She also pointed to the mechanisms used to promote Islamophobia, including platforming and co-platforming, echoing and amplifying, legitimising and validating, enabling, and infiltrating and surveilling.

Understanding the changing landscape of the Islamophobia industry and the Islamophobia industrial complex represents a fruitful avenue for future research on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism. This is even more important given that Lean (Citation2012) points to the agility of this industry as one of its qualities, as it can pivot, change focus or alter its attention very quickly, when required. Moreover, the proximity to political leaders and mainstream political parties of those involved in this industrial complex requires in-depth interrogation in order for research to expose the ways in which politicians, government departments, think tanks and others work closely together to promote Islamophobia.

Understanding conspiracy theories and Islamophobic narratives

In addition to exploring the operation of the Islamophobia industry or industrial complex, it is also important that scholars of ethnic and racial studies pay attention to the conspiracy theories and related narratives that are employed to promote, embolden and justify Islamophobia. This requires urgent and ongoing attention given the rise in far-right propaganda, the increasing mainstreaming of far-right narratives (Hopkins Citation2025; Mondon and Winter Citation2017, Citation2020), rising levels of Islamophobia (e.g. Runnymede Trust Citation2024) and the declining trust in elected governments (Davis Citation2024). Davis’ (Citation2024) important paper in this journal charts the cycles of violence that have been generated through the usage of “white replacement”, “white genocide” and “Eurabia” conspiracy theories, including mass murders in Norway, New Zealand and the USA. He argues that “conspiracy theories can be understood as a form of displaced political agency and alternative explanatory storytelling in an era of scientific, political, social and cultural uncertainty”, and also notes that they can be employed as a tool for challenging and undermining “dominant cultural and political norms” (Davis Citation2024, 4).

It is important that scholars working on issues of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism are alert to the growing presence of these conspiracy theories, the ways in which they are laced with Islamophobic content and intent, including the possible emergence of new theories or the presence of existing theories but under the guise of a new name or perspective. Indeed, these conspiracy theories may be employed in concert with other stereotypes about Muslims and Islam or alongside national anti-Muslim rhetoric such as those focusing on migration concerns, counter-terrorism or other such measures. Work here could usefully build upon the knowledge already developed in work about digital Islamophobia as well as the use of social network analysis to help expose the usage and employment of conspiracy theories online and offline.

Likewise, researchers could usefully chart the methods whereby such conspiracy theories are taught to others, shared within groups, and replicated across different platforms. An excellent example of this is Gorman and Culcasi’s (Citation2021) work in the US that analysed materials that were shared at a public seminar run by a national hate group about the threats posed by the resettlement of Syrian refugees in West Virginia. They found that the seminar material promoted the idea that white Christian spaces were under threat and used claims around invasion and colonisation to frame the fertility of Muslim women as a threat to white, western culture. Building upon work like this, researchers should be attentive to the different contexts in which such conspiracy theories might be shared whether this be online, in educational contexts, in the workplace or in the mainstream press.

Conclusion

We have used this paper to review the field of anti-Muslim racism and Islamophobia in ethnic and racial studies. While this is necessarily non-exhaustive given the vast amount of work in the field, in doing so, we have pointed to key areas of strength including work about the genealogies and definition of Islamophobia, about the role of racialisation and about the location of Islamophobia. We also outlined some areas that may be useful to consider for future research including advancing intersectional analyses of Islamophobia, paying attention to digital Islamophobia and AI, staying alert to the impacts of the Islamophobia industry and the global Islamophobia industrial complex, and charting the spread of conspiracy theories.

By way of conclusion, we would like to re-emphasise the importance of continuing to pay attention to the role of race, racism and racialisation in studies of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism – including by deepening engagement with broader anti-racism concepts, theoretical framings and empirical work (see, e.g. Carr and Bonyad Citation2025 vis critical racial literacy). Furthermore, while recognising the immense challenges involved, we think it is crucial to continue to focus on working to confront, overcome and end Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism as a key goal. With this, it is important to continue to include the lived experiences and voices of Muslims – and other groups and people who are racialised in a similar way to Muslims and so experience Islamophobia – in our work to ensure it remains grounded in everyday experiences (Kozaric Citation2023).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Peter is very thankful to the Leverhulme Trust for the award of a Major Fellowship (MRF-2022-112) which provided him with the time to work on this paper.

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source https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2026.2627495#abstract

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