For the past three years I have been involved in leading a national initiative called Islam Awareness Week. A celebration of faith and community that has been running for more than 25 years, it aims to raise understanding of the positive contribution made by British Muslims in all walks of life, including education, medicine, the arts and politics.
Five years ago, a rather different initiative sprang up, called Islamophobia Awareness Month, which sets out to highlight one of the most negative aspects of being a Muslim in Britain today.
The hatred of others should not determine how Muslims are viewed. Focusing disproportionately on Muslims as victims creates division: it emphasises the us and them mentality that further alienates Muslims from society.
I have been involved in tackling hate crime for over a decade and for most of that time have chaired an award-winning hate crime prevention organisation. I am well aware that anti-Muslim hatred is a sad reality and that it needs to be challenged. A report by the monitoring group Tell Mama shows that in 2016, 2,840 Islamophobic crimes and incidents were recorded by 18 police forces in the UK.
Yet there is something conspicuously missing in the arguments made by some groups about what drives Islamophobia. Ignorance and anti-Muslim headlines are partly responsible, but what do these groups have to say about the role that terrorists have played in driving a wedge between our communities? What are they doing to address radicalisation by manipulative terrorist recruiters?
Terrorism and fear of terrorism feed anti-Muslim hatred. In the week after the Manchester Arena bombing in May this year the number of anti-Muslim attacks in the city went up fivefold, with 139 incidents reported to Tell Mama compared with 25 the week before. The best way to tackle any problem is not to dwell on the negative aspects but to promote the positives. I believe that we should be painting a powerful picture of how Muslims are enriching our society, rather than focus on Islamophobia. Let us celebrate British Muslim stars, such as Mo Farah, Nadiya Hussain and Emmy award-winner Riz Ahmed. But let us also mark the contribution of Muslim doctors, police officers, teachers and others.
Promoting an us and them narrative feeds both the far-right Islamophobe and the Islamist extremist, desperate to enforce the narrative that “the West hates us”. That is the sort of thinking that keeps people in physical and mental ghettos.