WASHINGTON

Monday marks 22 years since the 9/11 terror attacks, considered the darkest day in US history, which claimed nearly 3,000 lives across New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

It was a day that changed the world in every sense of the word.

For Muslims, themselves among the victims of the attacks, it was the beginning of a dark era, one where they were demonized for their religion and identity.

After 9/11, millions of Muslims living in the US increasingly became targets of Islamophobic attacks, and those prejudices are “still alive and kicking” 22 years on, according to experts.

“Islamophobia is going to remain central to American politics for the foreseeable future because Muslims are an easy scapegoat in the imagination of Americans, still today,” Khaled Ali Beydoun, a law professor at Wayne State School of Law in the state of Michigan, told Anadolu.

“When they think about terrorism, the first thing they think about are Muslims,” he said.

He said it is “really important” to think about Islamophobia “beyond American borders.”

The US “has exported Islamophobia globally,” giving other governments like China, Myanmar and India the space to crack down on Muslims, he said.

“We see the American legacy of Islamophobia immediately after the 9/11 terror attacks being globalized and exported to countries near and far,” he said.

“And this has to be sort of identified and named as one of the legacies of the 9/11 moment.”

Beydoun, however, pointed out that Islamophobia in the US is “not as intense as it was in previous years,” saying that was “largely because of (former US President Donald) Trump not being in office.”

Nihad Awad, executive director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the US’ largest Muslim civil rights group, said Islamophobia manifested itself in an “ugly and violent fashion” right after the terror attacks.

“The attacks of 9/11 were against all Americans, including Muslims, but also the backlash against American Muslims was painful for Muslims, who are blamed for the attacks and being associated with the terrorists who committed the crimes,” he said.

An identity demonized

Many Muslims faced death threats, physical assaults and harassment after 9/11, while several mosques were vandalized, according to congressional testimony in 2011 by legal advocacy group Southern Poverty Law Center.

Hate crimes against Muslims skyrocketed in the immediate aftermath, rocketing 1,617% from 2000 to 2001, according to the FBI, marking some of the highest numbers of Islamophobic hate crimes ever seen in America.

Awad said CAIR and other Muslim organizations were also targeted, while he was among others placed on the “watch list.”

“I would be questioned in airports and I would be taken to secondary check inspection when I returned from overseas trips. It took me a long time to really remove myself from the list,” he said.

“Secondly, I and a few other prominent members of the Muslim community were surveilled by the US government.”

Awad said the US Muslim community is “much bigger” today, with CAIR having more than 60 full-time attorneys to pursue legal action over injustices against Muslims.

“But that doesn’t mean that Islamophobia disappeared because we are stronger,” he said.

“Islamophobia is still alive and kicking, as they say.”

When the 9/11 terror attacks happened, Beydoun was a college student living in the state of California.

“In a matter of one morning, Islam as a religion, Muslim identity, Arab identity – all of these things that were very integral to who I was – were being demonized,” he said.

“I remember in the first week, very vivid memories of my mother being attacked because she wears a hijab. My sister facing discrimination because she wore the hijab.”

Call to push back against hatred

American Muslims also draw attention to the significant change in tone toward Muslims in the Trump and Biden administrations.

President Joe Biden resumed a longstanding tradition in May by hosting an Eid celebration at the White House, which was halted by Trump.

Shortly after, the White House held a session on Islamophobia, where high-level administration officials met leaders from the Muslim community.

“Even though the Biden administration, in some respects, is complicit in perpetuating Islamophobia, the fact that it’s naming Islamophobia as a problem is a positive step,” said Beydoun.

“In the same way, to be frank with you, Trump engaging in a range of explicitly Islamophobic actions in the grand scheme of things collaterally was positive, because it conveyed very clearly to Americans that Islamophobia was something that was real.”

Awad noted the need for global efforts to “push back against the hatred and discrimination against minorities including Muslims.”

“We call on the US administration to come up with an office that’s called Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia,” he said, adding that there are similar envoys in the State Department to combat anti-Semitism. ​​​​​​​

Noting that some Democrat Congress members, including Cory Booker, Ilhan Omar and Jan Schakowsky, reintroduced the Combating International Islamophobia Act to Congress in June, Awad said if the Biden administration is “serious” about combating Islamophobia, the president “can sign an executive order and it will be done.”