Why Islamic History Month matters: Knowledge that Western publics have been denied

Islamic History Month exists to celebrate achievements and but also challenge ignorance. Understanding this history is particularly important in an era when anti-Muslim prejudice is widespread. 

By Fareed Khan  
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

October is Islamic History Month in Canada. Like Black History Month, Indigenous History Month and other such designated months, it is sometimes met with questions from those who wonder why such observances are necessary, or who complain that they elevate the history of one group above that of the broader population. Such criticisms overlook the purpose of these commemorations. They exist not to privilege one community's history, but to address historical omissions, challenge prejudice, and ensure that the contributions of communities that have often been marginalized, misrepresented, or erased are recognized as part of our shared national story.

Islamic History Month serves precisely that purpose. Officially proclaimed by the Parliament of Canada in 2007, it recognizes the history, diversity, and contributions of Muslims while providing an opportunity to confront Islamophobia and deepen public understanding of the Islamic faith and Muslim societies. More importantly, it challenges one of the most enduring distortions in popular historical memory—the notion that Muslim civilizations stood at the margins of human progress rather than at its very centre. By highlighting a heritage that has profoundly shaped science, medicine, mathematics, philosophy, culture, and the modern world itself, Islamic History Month helps restore an essential chapter of human history that is too often overlooked or deliberately ignored in the West.

For most of us who grew up in Canada and other Western societies, the story of civilization is often told from a Eurocentric perspective, as if intellectual progress moved directly from ancient Greece and Rome to Renaissance Europe. Yet historical evidence reveals a much richer and more complex reality. Between the eighth and fifteenth centuries, Muslim societies were among the most advanced, literate, scientifically productive, and culturally dynamic civilizations on Earth. Their scholars preserved ancient knowledge, expanded it, challenged it, and created entirely new fields of inquiry. The achievements of the Islamic Golden Age helped lay the foundations for mathematics, medicine, astronomy, engineering, philosophy, chemistry, optics, and the scientific method itself, and kick started the Renaissance in Europe.

From the Atlantic shores of North Africa and Spain to South Asia, Muslim societies created a vast intellectual network that dominated scientific and cultural life for centuries. Baghdad's House of Wisdom, the universities and libraries of Córdoba, the observatories of Persia, and the centres of learning stretching across the Muslim world—including the world’s first and oldest university established by a Muslim woman—became repositories of human knowledge at a time when Christian Europe was fragmented and intellectually stagnant.

Contributions of Muslim scholars cannot be overstated

Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi developed algebra and helped popularize the Arabic numeral system, including the mathematical use of zero. His work gave the world the very word "algebra," while the term "algorithm" derives from the Latinized form of his name. Every computer program, smartphone application, banking network, and telecommunications system in existence today relies upon mathematical principles that emerged from his scientific scholarship.

Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna, authored The Canon of Medicine, one of the most influential medical texts in human history. It remained a standard reference in European universities for centuries. Al-Zahrawi revolutionized surgery through detailed medical encyclopaedias and the design of instruments that remain recognizable to modern surgeons. Ibn al-Haytham—a mathematician, astronomer, and physicist—transformed humanity's understanding of light, optics, and vision. He demonstrated that sight occurs when light reflects from objects into the eye, overturning classical misconceptions and helping establish the foundations of experimental science.

Muslim scholars also revolutionized astronomy through the establishment of sophisticated observatories, the compilation of accurate star catalogues, advances in spherical trigonometry, and the development of navigational instruments that transformed exploration and navigation. Among these innovators was Al-Ijliyyah, a renowned female tenth-century astronomer and astrolabe maker from what is now Syria, whose work contributed to the refinement of the astrolabe, one of the most important scientific instruments of the medieval world. Meanwhile, engineers such as al-Jazari pioneered technologies including the crankshaft, water pumps, mechanical clocks, automated devices, and sophisticated machines whose underlying principles would influence technological development for centuries to come.

Many inventions and practices that are taken for granted today either originated in, or were significantly refined within, Muslim civilization. These include algebra, algorithms, cryptography, surgical instruments, optical research, chemistry, distillation techniques, hospitals, advanced irrigation systems, paper production, navigational sciences, mechanical engineering, and sophisticated banking instruments such as cheques. These achievements were not isolated discoveries. They formed an integrated knowledge system that sustained scientific and cultural leadership in Europe, North Africa, the Middle-East, and West Asia for centuries. Muslim scholars translated and preserved the works of Greek, Persian, Indian, and earlier civilizations. But they did far more than preserve knowledge. They critiqued, corrected, expanded, and transformed it.

This intellectual blossoming played a decisive role in Europe's emergence from the Dark Ages. Through Muslim Spain, the Ottoman Empire, the Crusader states, and Mediterranean trade networks, Europe encountered advanced mathematics, medicine, philosophy, geography, astronomy, engineering, and administrative systems. The translation centres of Toledo and other cities transmitted Arabic-language scholarship into Latin. The curricula of Europe's earliest universities drew heavily upon texts that had been preserved or developed within Islamic civilization.

The Muslim states of modern day Spain became one of the most remarkable centres of knowledge and culture in the world. Historians have documented how Islamic rule transformed the Iberian Peninsula into a society known for scholarship, architecture, medicine, mathematics, and learning. Cordoba emerged as one of Europe's largest and most sophisticated cities. At a time when literacy levels were low in much of Europe, Muslim states in Spain (and beyond) boasted libraries, universities, hospitals, public infrastructure, and thriving intellectual life.

This historical reality complicates simplistic narratives that portray Europe as the sole source of modern civilization. Increasingly, scholars acknowledge that the Renaissance did not emerge in isolation but was profoundly influenced by knowledge transmitted through Islamic societies.

At the same time, many historians have noted that later European narratives often minimized Islamic contributions or erased them entirely. Renaissance and Enlightenment histories frequently presented Europe's intellectual revival as a direct inheritance from ancient Greece and Rome, bypassing the centuries during which Muslim scholars preserved, transmitted, and expanded that knowledge, and claiming credit for that knowledge by suppressing its origins. There is legitimate scholarly debate about the extent of direct borrowing and attribution. However, there is little dispute that many foundational scientific texts used in Europe originated in Muslim scholarship and that the contributions of Muslim thinkers have often been underrepresented in mainstream historical accounts.

Examples frequently cited by historians include the influence of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and Ibn al-Shatir on later astronomical models associated with Copernicus, the transmission of mathematical methods through the works of al-Khwarizmi and other Muslim scholars, and the profound impact of Ibn al-Haytham's optics on European scientific thought. While it would be inaccurate to reduce European intellectual history to simple theft, it is fair to argue that Muslim contributions have often been marginalized, obscured, or detached from their original historical context.

Understanding this history is particularly important in an era when anti-Muslim prejudice is widespread in the West. Islamic History Month exists not only to celebrate achievements but also to challenge ignorance. Too often, Muslims are portrayed as newcomers to Western societies or as outsiders to Western history and culture. The historical record demonstrates otherwise.

Muslims have been present in North America for centuries

Many enslaved Africans brought to the Americas were Muslims. Historians estimate that millions of enslaved people taken from West Africa practised Islam and carried with them Islamic traditions, literacy, and scholarship. Their labour helped build the economic foundations of North America while their identities were frequently erased through slavery and forced assimilation.

In Canada, Muslim history extends far beyond contemporary immigration. Historical records indicate that some of the earliest Muslims arrived as enslaved persons with United Empire Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution. The first documented Muslim family in what became Canada, converts James and Agnes Love, settled in southwestern Ontario in 1851. Muslims appeared in the Canadian census for the first time in 1871, established community organizations in the early twentieth century, started businesses, and built the Al-Rashid Mosque in Edmonton in 1938—Canada's first mosque.

The story of Muslims in Canada is therefore not a recent story. It is a story rooted in Canadian history since before Confederation.

The same holds true of Muslim presence in the United States, where they have been woven into the fabric of the nation for since the 17th century. As labourers, soldiers, workers, scholars, entrepreneurs, physicians, artists, and public servants, they have helped shape American society in countless ways. To portray Muslims as outsiders to North America is to ignore a documented history that stretches back generations.

Muslim-Jewish relations

Islamic History Month is also important because it provides an opportunity to challenge misconceptions about relations between Muslims and Jews over the centuries.

Contemporary political conflicts relating to Israel and Palestinians have been projected backward into history by pro-Israel voices, creating the false impression that Muslims and Jews have been locked in eternal hostility for millennia. But historical reality is far more nuanced.

Prominent Jewish scholars have asserted that Islamic civilization created conditions under which Jewish communities survived and flourished. Historian David Wasserstein, for example, has written that Islam provided a cultural and political environment that saved Jewish communities across the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain, allowing them to prosper, maintain their religious institutions, and produce some of the greatest achievements in Jewish intellectual history.

Under Muslim rule, Jewish communities often experienced degrees of security, autonomy, and cultural flourishing that contrasted sharply with conditions in many parts of medieval Christian Europe where anti-Jewish prejudice and pogroms were common. Islamic Spain witnessed what many scholars describe as a Jewish Golden Age, where Jewish philosophers, poets, physicians, scholars, and statesmen made extraordinary contributions while participating in the broader cultural life of Muslim society.

This is not to suggest that relations between Muslims and Jews were always free of tension or conflict. Like all civilizations, Muslim societies experienced periods of discrimination, exclusion, and political division. However, historical honesty requires placing those realities in their proper context. During many of the same centuries when Jewish communities faced persecution, ghettoization, forced conversion, expulsion, and periodic massacres in parts of Christian Europe, many Jewish communities living under Muslim rule enjoyed a greater degree of security, religious freedom, and cultural flourishing. This does not mean life was perfect or that equality was absolute, but it does undermine the modern political narrative pushed by Zionists that portrays Muslim-Jewish relations as an inevitable and uninterrupted centuries-long conflict. The historical record instead reveals extensive periods of coexistence, intellectual exchange, commercial partnership, and shared cultural achievement that enriched both communities and produced some of the most remarkable advances of the medieval world.

Indeed, the collapse of Muslim rule in Spain in 1492 and the subsequent expulsion of Jews and Muslims dramatically altered centuries of coexistence in Iberia. The imposition of religious uniformity and persecution by the Spanish Inquisition replaced the more pluralistic social order that had existed under centuries of Muslim rule, forcing countless families, scholars, artisans, merchants, and professionals into exile. Recognizing both the humanitarian tragedy and the intellectual opportunity, Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II dispatched ships to evacuate many refugees and welcome them into the Ottoman Empire. He is famously reported to have mocked the Spanish monarchs for impoverishing their own kingdom by expelling some of its most educated and productive citizens while enriching his own. The expulsions not only uprooted entire communities but also marked the end of an era in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians had lived, worked, and contributed to a shared intellectual and cultural landscape across much of medieval Iberia.

In Canada today, Islamic History Month serves as a reminder that Muslims are not a footnote to national history but part of its fabric. They are descendants of enslaved Africans, pioneers, immigrants, professionals, workers, activists, artists, and public servants. Their story intersects with the stories of Indigenous peoples, Black Canadians, newcomers, and all those who helped build the country.

At a deeper level, Islamic History Month asks Canadians to reconsider whose achievements are remembered and whose are forgotten. The technologies we use, the medicines we rely upon, the mathematics that power our digital world, and many of the scientific methods that guide modern research owe an enormous debt to centuries of Muslim civilization. Yet those contributions are often absent or deleted from public education and popular understanding.

Recognizing this history is not about diminishing anyone else's achievements. It is about telling the truth, and teaching a complete history of how Western civilization evolved to its current state.

When we acknowledge the accomplishments of Muslim scholars, we enrich our understanding of civilization itself. When we recognize the long presence of Muslims in North America, we challenge Eurocentric narratives of exclusion. When we remember the periods in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived, learned, and created together, we undermine the politics of division and hatred that we see too often in our society today.

That is why Islamic History Month matters. It is an act of historical reclamation. It is a rejection of ignorance and prejudice and a recognition that Muslim civilization helped shape the modern world, and that Muslims have long been part of the Canadian and North American story. Most importantly, it reminds us that knowledge, innovation, and human progress have always emerged from the contributions of many cultures and peoples working across boundaries of faith, language, and geography.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

25 years after 9/11, we still refuse to confront what was lost

Twenty‑five years after the 9/11 attacks we must confront what was lost—the millions of lives taken afterward, the freedoms eroded, the societies destroyed, and the tens of millions of refugees created. 

By Fareed Khan  
A version of this article can be found on Substack.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a date impossible to overlook. For days, media outlets have flooded the airwaves with retrospectives, personal testimonies, archival footage, and solemn commentary. And today—on a day seared into our collective memory—the coverage has been relentless, wall‑to‑wall from morning to night. A quarter‑century milestone carries weight, and the attention is understandable. But what is striking—what is damning—is what remains absent. The Western political and media establishment has spent twenty‑five years telling one story about 9/11 while burying another.

Nowhere in the coverage are there adjacent stories about the more than 4.5 to 4.7 million Muslims killed in the US-led “war on terror,” according to Brown University’s Costs of War project. Nowhere is it acknowledged that the West’s military campaigns shattered six Muslim-majority societies—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, and Yemen—leaving behind destabilized states, mass displacement, and generational trauma. The same research project estimates that 38 million people, overwhelmingly Muslim, were forced from their homes and became refugees or internally displaced persons as a direct consequence of these wars.

These numbers are not footnotes. They are not abstractions. They represent human beings—families, communities, entire societies—destroyed in the name of security, vengeance, and geopolitical dominance. Yet in the commemorations of 9/11, they are treated as if they never existed.

The erasure is not accidental. It is political.

Western governments, including Canada’s, have never reckoned with the scale of destruction they helped unleash. They have never acknowledged their role in killing millions of Muslims or in destabilizing entire regions across the Middle East and North Africa. They have not admitted that their policies helped create the conditions for extremist groups like ISIS to flourish. And they certainly have not confronted the moral catastrophe of a war that has lasted a quarter century and shows no sign of ending.

Instead, the narrative remains frozen in time, one where the West is victim, the West is the defender or peace, the West is the righteous actor. Meanwhile, the millions of Muslim victims of Western military power are rendered invisible.

This erasure has consequences far beyond foreign policy. It has reshaped the political culture of Western democracies and indeed the world, and has vilified the West in most Muslims majority societies.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Canada, the United States, and Europe also embraced sweeping national security laws that expanded surveillance, curtailed civil liberties, and normalized state intrusion into everyday life. Rights once taken for granted were quietly stripped away. Entire communities—Muslim communities—found themselves under suspicion, monitored, and targeted. Mosques were infiltrated, Muslim charities were shut down, and Muslim families were surveilled. People were detained without charge, and in some cases sent overseas to be tortured based on false information.

A generation of Muslims in the West has grown up under this shadow. They live with a constant, gnawing anxiety, a fear that the next terrorist attack committed by extremists who pervert Islam’s teachings, will once again make all two billion Muslims around the world the enemy. They know that after every attack, no matter where it occurs, they will be asked to condemn, explain, apologize, and justify their existence. They know that right wing politicians and pundits will rush to paint them as a threat, as outsiders, as a problem to be managed. This fear is not irrational. It is learned from lived experience.

For twenty‑five years, Western political discourse has treated Muslim lives as expendable abroad and suspect at home. The value of Muslim life seems to evaporate the moment Western interests are invoked. Civilian casualties are dismissed as “collateral damage.” Refugees are framed as burdens. Muslim citizens are treated as potential radicals. And when Muslims in the West do speak out, when they demand justice, accountability, or recognition of their suffering, they are either ignored or vilified.

The result is a perpetual war culture. The “war on terror” did not end. It metastasized into a cancer in the heart of Western geopolitical discourse. It became a permanent feature of Western politics, a justification for endless military action, endless surveillance, endless suspicion. It became a lens through which Muslims are viewed not as neighbours or fellow citizens, but as potential threats.

Yet the truth is clear. The vast majority of Muslims worldwide condemn terrorism and attacks on civilians. They have done so repeatedly, publicly, and unequivocally. And collectively, Muslims have been the primary victims of terrorism committed by extremist groups such as ISIS, Al‑Qaeda, and the Taliban—groups responsible for severe harm, loss of life, and human rights violations. These groups have slaughtered tens of thousands of Muslims—more than 70,000 in Pakistan alone—destroyed Muslim communities, and targeted Muslim religious institutions and governments. Their violence is a betrayal of Islam, not an expression of it.

And yet this goes unmentioned in the West as the lives of those lost on September 11, 2001 are acknowledged and commemorated annually. Instead, the narrative remains locked in a simplistic binary—Western innocence versus Muslim threat. It is a narrative that erases history, absolves Western governments of responsibility for the carnage they have inflicted, and perpetuates Islamophobia at every level of society.

Twenty‑five years after 9/11, we must confront what was lost—not only the lives lost on that day, but the millions of lives taken afterward. We must confront the freedoms eroded, the societies destroyed, the refugees created, and a political culture warped by paranoia and vengeance. We must confront the fact that Western democracies have built a national security state that increasingly resembles the dystopia George Orwell warned about in his novel 1984.

Commemorating 9/11 without acknowledging the full human cost of the response is not remembrance—it is selective amnesia. And selective amnesia is dangerous because it allows injustice to continue, it allows prejudice to deepen, and it allows constant war to become normalized.

If the West truly wants to honour the memory of 9/11, it must finally confront the outcome of the West’s response to the attack. It must acknowledge the millions of Muslim lives lost. It must recognize the suffering of the displaced. It must dismantle the culture of suspicion and surveillance that has defined Muslim existence in the West for a generation.

Only then can we begin to imagine a future not defined by perpetual war, fear, and erasure.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Stockwell Day’s recent comment about Muslims and Canadian values is wrong and dangerous

Day’s comments fit neatly into a pattern where Muslims are framed as inherently suspect, inherently foreign, and inherently incompatible with Canadian values.

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

When former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day recently questioned the compatibility of Muslim values and Canadian values, he did more than repeat a worn-out, groundless talking point. He poured gasoline on a fire already burning across the country — a fire stoked by years of political opportunism, media sensationalism, and a growing willingness among public figures to treat Muslims as a problem that Canada had to deal with rather than as full citizens. Day’s claim is not only demonstrably false, it is reckless, inflammatory, and deeply harmful to millions of Canadians who have every right to call this country home.

Day has a record of rejecting facts about racism in Canada, famously insisting on national television in 2020 that systemic racism does not exist in Canada — a statement so out of touch with reality that it cost him his seat on the board of Telus, his position as a strategic advisor with the law firm McMillan LLC, and his role as a regular panellist on CBC’s Power & Politics. His latest comments follow the same pattern — sweeping declarations that erase the lived experiences of a racialized community, denying historical reality, and emboldening those who already view Muslims with suspicion or hostility.

This comment comes at a time when Canada is experiencing a surge in Islamophobia unlike anything seen since the aftermath of 9/11. During the 12 months after October 2023 incidents of anti-Muslim hate rose by 1,800% according to the National Council of Canadian Muslims and another 72% the following year.  During the same period political rhetoric has hardened, and media narratives increasingly frame Muslims as outsiders or threats because of their advocacy for Palestinians and their demonstrations against the genocide Israel is committing in Gaza. In this climate, Day’s words do not exist in isolation. They legitimize prejudice, signal permission for bigotry, and tell Muslim Canadians — especially youth — that their place in this country is conditional, fragile, and perpetually under review.

If Day truly believes Muslim values clash with Canadian ones, he should be asked to specify which values he means. Charity? Justice? Equality? Respect for religious diversity? These are not fringe concepts for Muslims, but rather foundational principles of the Islamic faith.

Zakat, the obligation to give to those in need, is one of the five pillars of the faith. The Qur’an also teaches that all humans share a common origin and that no race or tribe is superior to another other than through piety (49:13). In addition, Islam recognizes Jews and Christians as “People of the Book,” granting them respect and religious legitimacy. These teachings align seamlessly with Canada’s stated commitments to multiculturalism, equality, and human dignity.

If these values are “un‑Canadian,” then Muslims aren’t the issue it’s people like Stockwell Day.

Canada’s social contract and who is breaking it

Canada’s strength has always come from its ability to integrate people from every corner of the world into a shared civic project. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are not fringe concepts, they are central to the country’s identity. Yet Day and others on the political right have spent years attacking these principles as “woke,” a term now used as shorthand for those who oppose racism and hate, embrace inclusion and diversity, and defend human rights.

When politicians rail against “wokeness,” they are not critiquing policy — they are signaling hostility towards the diversity of people who make up Canada. Quebec’s secularism law (Bill 21), which targets Muslim women who wear hijab, is a prime example of how governments cave in to public prejudice and weaponize hate and bigotry rather than uphold the fundamental Charter rights of Canadians. As documented in analyses of the law’s impact, Bill 21 has already derailed careers, pushed Muslim women out of public‑facing jobs, and normalized state‑sanctioned discrimination.

Similarly, federal and provincial leaders have used police powers and legal threats to suppress peaceful protests against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel — protests largely led by Muslim Canadians exercising their Charter rights. These actions contradict the very democratic values and freedoms politicians like Day claim to defend.

If anyone is violating Canada’s social contract, it is not Muslim Canadians, it is those politicians who selectively apply rights and freedoms depending on who is exercising them.

The human cost of Day’s rhetoric

Day’s comments inflict a heavy psychological burden on Muslim youth. Imagine growing up in Canada — celebrating Canada Day, cheering for national teams in hockey or the recent World Cup, dreaming of representing your country in sports or wanting to run for public office, only to hear a former national political leader declare that your faith makes you incompatible with the nation you love.

Whether he accepts it or not, Day’s words have real world impacts. Muslim Canadians have lived through decades of being “othered” by politicians like him, especially after 9/11, when children were assaulted on school grounds and called “terrorist,” mosques were vandalized, Muslim community  leaders received death threats, and Muslim businesses were targeted. The demonization of Muslims in media and politics helped create the conditions that led to the Quebec City mosque massacre in 2017, the murder of a Muslim volunteer outside a Toronto mosque in September 2020, and the killing of three generations of the Afzaal family in London in June 2021.

These tragedies did not emerge from a vacuum. They grew from toxic and racist narratives — the same narratives Day is reinforcing with his comment.

Recent analyses show that Islamophobia has become deeply embedded in Canada’s political and media ecosystem. Right‑wing outlets profit from sensationalist and prejudiced coverage that casts Muslims as threats. Right wing politicians exploit fear to mobilize voters. Governments pass laws that disproportionately target Muslim communities. And public figures like Day feel comfortable making dangerous and sweeping claims with little regard to the lives affected.

This normalization of anti‑Muslim hate is documented extensively in reporting on Canada’s response to global conflicts, particularly Israel’s war on Gaza, where Muslim voices, which are the largest segment of the anti-genocide movement, have been marginalized, vilified, or dismissed as disloyal. When Muslim Canadians speak out against human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza, they are accused of being terrorist supporters. When they demand accountability from political leaders, they are told they are undermining Canadian values.

Day’s comments fit neatly into this pattern, where Muslims are framed as inherently suspect, inherently foreign, inherently incompatible.

Even under minimal scrutiny Day’s assertion collapses under the weight of the historical record. From the time that Islam expanded from the Middle East across North Africa to the Atlantic and west to South Asia, Muslim civilizations were among the most pluralistic in the world. In Andalusia, Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together peacefully for centuries, producing advances in science, philosophy, and culture that helped spark the European Renaissance. The Ottoman Empire welcomed Jewish refugees fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Persian and Mughal empires had vibrant Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Hindu communities, which produced some of history’s greatest works of art, architecture, and literature.

Meanwhile, Christian Europe repeatedly expelled Jews, launched violent pogroms against Jewish communities, and waged wars of religious domination against non-Christians for centuries.

If anything, the historical record shows that Islamic societies were more tolerant, more diverse, and more inclusive than many Western ones, even into the 20th century when Muslim states from Morocco Iraq had vibrant Jewish and Christian communities until Zionist elements instilled fear into those communities and convinced them that they could only be safe in Israel.  So the idea that Muslim values are incompatible with Canadian values is not only wrong, it is historically illiterate.

Muslims helped build Canada since before Confederation

Muslims are not newcomers to Canada. They have been here since before Confederation, contributing to the country’s development in every sector. Today, nearly 2.3 million Muslims call Canada home — about 5% of the population — and their achievements reflect the best of Canadian society.

Justice Mahmud Jamal made history in 2021 when he became the first racialized person and the first Muslim justice to sit on the Supreme Court.  Toronto human rights lawyer Faisal Kutty, an acclaimed legal scholar and writer has consistently been named among the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the world for his extensive social justice advocacy.  Nazem Kadri, a celebrated NHL forward became the first Muslim hockey player to win the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022, famously bringing the trophy to his local hometown mosque in London, Ontario. Mohammed Ahmed, Canada’s most decorated long-distance runner and a multi-time Olympian, secured Canada’s first ever Olympic silver medal in the 5000m at the Tokyo Games and a World Championship bronze. Naheed Nenshi served three terms as the Mayor of Calgary (2010–2021), becoming the first Muslim mayor of a major North American city and winning the 2014 World Mayor Prize. He is currently the leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party. Ibrahim “Obby” Khan played nine seasons in the Canadian Football League, later transitioning into business and becoming the first Muslim elected to the Manitoba Legislative Assembly, and subsequently being selected as the leader of the Manitoba PC Party. Zarqa Nawaz created the ground breaking CBC television comedy series Little Mosque on the Prairie, recognized globally as the first mainstream sitcom about a Muslim community living in the West. Bilal Baig made history as the first trans-feminine South Asian Muslim creator and star of a Canadian prime-time television series with the critically acclaimed CBC show Sort Of. And Ali Abouchadi pioneered trade and commerce in northern Alberta during the 1920s by operating a floating general store that served isolated communities along the Athabasca and Arctic waterways.

These are examples of a long tradition of Muslim excellence — people whose values allowed them to thrive and succeed in Canada despite not being part of the white majority.  If these individuals, and millions like them, are “incompatible” with Canadian values, then the term has lost all meaning.

Day’s logic collapses further when applied consistently. If the actions of extremists define an entire community, then white Canadians — whose members committed the Quebec City mosque massacre, the Toronto mosque murder, and the London truck attack — would also be “incompatible” with Canadian values. But you don’t hear that association being made by people like Day, because that would be absurd. No serious person judges an entire faith or ethnicity by the actions of a very small minority. Except, apparently, people like Stockwell Day.

Muslim Canadians should never be made to feel they must choose between their faith and their country. They are neither guests nor outsiders, and they are not conditional citizens. They are part of the Canadian story — historically, culturally, politically, and socially.

Day’s remarks aren’t merely wrong — they are reckless. They give oxygen to bigots, fracture social trust, and signal to millions of Muslim Canadians that their belonging in this country is somehow negotiable. Canada deserves leaders who strengthen our social fabric, not men who tear at its seams for attention.

Stockwell Day’s era of relevance ended long ago. He has nothing meaningful to contribute to conversations about Canadian identity, diversity, or democratic values. The most constructive thing he can do now is step back, stay silent, and stop injecting ignorance into a national discourse already poisoned by rampant Islamophobia.

© 2026 The View From Here. © 2026 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

West is the main source of global Islamophobia, and has been waging “war” against Muslims for decades

The evidence is overwhelming—Western political and cultural portrayals, amplified by conservative media and leaders, are the primary drivers of the explosion in Islamophobia.

By Fareed Khan 
A version of this can be found on Substack.

 

For decades, Western governments and societies—particularly in the United States, United Kingdom, and France—have waged a war against Islam and Muslims. This is not a conflict of tanks and missiles but of narratives, policies, and cultural framing that have systematically portrayed Muslims as hostile, perpetual threats, incompatible with Western values, and inherently suspect. Through political rhetoric, conservative media amplification, negative portrayals in films and on TV, and institutional bias, these forces have cultivated hostility toward Muslim diasporas, Muslim-majority societies, and the Islamic faith itself. The result has been an explosion of Islamophobia since the mid-1970s, a surge after the Persian Gulf War in 1990, a sharp escalation after the 9/11 attacks, and a renewed torrent following Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which experts and respected global human rights organizations describe as genocidal. This manufactured fear doesn’t serve security or truth, but rather political expediency, cultural dominance and oppression.

The roots of the Islamophobia seen today in Western society and globally has a long history, but traces back to the mid-1970s. The 1973 oil crisis, the Iranian Revolution, acts of resistance to Israeli occupation by the Palestinian Liberation Organization were all used by Western governments and news media to frame Muslims as geopolitical adversaries in Western discourse. Academic analyses documents how US and European media shifted from neutral coverage of Muslim societies to one dominated by “Islamic threat” narratives. A foundational 1997 report by the Runnymede Trust in the UK identified this as “Islamophobia”—a form of prejudice rooted in negative media stereotypes and institutional exclusion that viewed Muslims as monolithic in their thinking, inferior, and violent. By the 1980s and 1990s, narrative shifts in Western journalism—documented in studies of US and European outlets—recast “Islam” as synonymous with extremism, laying the groundwork for widespread hostility towards people practicing the faith, even if they had lived in Western societies for generations.

The terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 supercharged this dynamic. What followed was not balanced news coverage but agenda-driven media narratives that equated Islam with terrorism. A 2024 computational analysis of over 10,000 articles in major US and UK newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Daily Mail, etc.) between 2003–2018 found systematic biases in how Muslims were portrayed.  Muslims accused of planning violent attacks but not carrying them out received 700% more media coverage than attacks that resulted in death by non-Muslims, with the reporters using more fear-inducing and violent descriptive language. This framing, echoed in a 2020 analysis of Western media from 2011–2019, created a feedback loop, with negative portrayals fuelling public anxiety, which was exploited by politicians through their own anti-Muslim rhetoric and social media posts. In the US, post-9/11 policies like the Patriot Act and FBI surveillance programs disproportionately targeted Muslim communities, reinforcing a public image that the community was suspect. Similar patterns emerged in France, where laïcité (secularism) was weaponized against visible Muslim practices, and in the UK, where Prevent programs cast Muslim communities as breeding grounds for extremists.

Recent events have intensified the attacks against diaspora Muslim communities in the West. Since Israel’s genocide in Gaza began in October 2023—widely condemned internationally as disproportionate and inhumane—Islamophobia has surged globally. In the US, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) documented thousands of bias incidents, linking the rise directly to media and political narratives that conflate those criticizing Israeli actions as enemies of the West. Canadian data mirrors this, with the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) reported a 1,800% spike in hate incidents targeting Muslims and Palestinians between October 2023 and August 2025. European studies, including those on France, show parallel increases tied to Gaza coverage that frames Muslim anti-genocide protests as threats while downplaying Palestinian suffering. These events did not create Islamophobia, they exposed and amplified a pre-existing infrastructure of prejudice that had been built over decades.

Key instigators of this metaphorical war against Muslims are Western political leaders, especially from right-wing or conservative parties, and conservative-leaning media outlets. They platform and amplify far-right voices and issue vilifying statements that normalize hate against Muslims. In the United States, Donald Trump’s 2015 call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” exemplified this, framing them as an existential threat to Americans, while Conservative media amplified it. Additionally, there are Republican figures, like Representatives Randy Fines openly and unapologetically calling for hate targeting Muslims, Andy Ogles saying that “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” and Sen. Tommy Tuberville posting on social media, “The enemy is inside the gates,” in reference to Muslims in the US. CAIR has repeatedly condemned such rhetoric as fanning “anti-Muslim bigotry,” noting in reports that it renders Islamophobic language “socially acceptable” among conservatives.

In the United Kingdom, right-wing media and politicians also bear primary responsibility for an explosion in Islamophobia. The Centre for Media Monitoring’s 2025 report analyzed over 40,000 articles and found nearly 50% contained measurable bias, with 70% linking Muslims or Islam to negative themes like conflict or threat. Outlets such as The Spectator, GB News, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, and The Sun—often aligned with Conservative or Reform Party voices—drove the most egregious distortions. Rizwana Hamid, Director of the Centre, stated: “When nearly half of all articles referencing Muslims or Islam are biased, and almost 70% associate Muslims with negative aspects or behaviours, it points to a systemic problem within our media ecosystem.” Conservative Party politicians have also platformed white nationalist figures like Tommy Robinson, whose anti-Islam activism receives sympathetic coverage in right-wing British media, while at the same time they downplay the dangers of far-right extremism. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has highlighted how this media and political bias manifests itself in “hate crimes, media misrepresentation, and institutional discrimination,” with nearly 40% of religious hate crimes in 2024 targeting Muslims.

Canada also provides a stark North American parallel—the only G7 nation where 11 Muslims have been murdered in a series of Islamophobic attacks in 2017, 2020 and 2021. While the political and media rhetoric is less overtly inflammatory than in the US or Europe, Conservative politicians and media have contributed to rising Islamophobia. A prime example occurred during the February 2017 parliamentary debate on an Islamophobia motion, which took place in the wake of the Quebec City mosque attack that killed six Muslim men. Despite the targeted mass murder of Muslims, Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs spoke against the motion, with some even endorsing or participating in anti-Muslim protests across the country.

There is also the case of audits by the Canada Revenue Agency disproportionately targetting Muslim charities. This despite the fact that they account for less than 0.5% of registered charities but for 67% of audits, reflecting a systemic bias documented by experts like Prof. Jasmin Zine. Conservative political discourse has echoed US-style “invasion” narratives around immigration, while right-leaning outlets amplify stories framing Muslim communities as culturally incompatible with Canadian society. The NCCM has testified before Parliament that such environments fuel violence, noting in 2024 hearings that “being Muslim in Canada is not as safe as it should be,” with post-Gaza surges in incidents tied to political inaction and media framing.

These portrayals do not exist in a vacuum. They generate real hostility toward Muslim diaspora communities, Muslim societies, and the Islamic faith in general. This cultural war extends deeply into entertainment media as well. For decades Western films and television shows have consistently portrayed Muslims negatively or with outright hostility, often as violent extremists, cultural invaders, barbaric villains, or one-dimensional antagonists. These depictions embed Islamophobic narratives into popular consciousness far beyond news cycles, reaching billions through global distribution and normalizing prejudice in everyday entertainment.

Scholarly and advocacy analyses document a century of such tropes in Hollywood and Western cinema, routinely casting Muslim characters as fanatical, culturally backward, or existential threats, with little nuance or positive representation. Classic examples include Disney’s Aladdin (1992), widely critiqued for orientalist stereotypes that depict Arabs and Muslims as dishonest, menacing, and exotic dangers, as well as pre-9/11 films like True Lies (1994), Executive Decision (1996), The Siege (1998), and more recent blockbusters such as American Sniper (2014) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012), all of which have been shown to exacerbate anti-Muslim sentiments by framing Islam as synonymous with violence and Muslims as barbaric enemies. Psychological and media studies confirm that repeated exposure to these hostile portrayals heightens public support for discriminatory policies and contributes directly to the surge in societal Islamophobia since the 1970s and especially post-9/11.

National Muslim organizations in Western nations have long warned of this dynamic. In the US, CAIR has stated that conservative media and politicians “fan the flames of anti-Muslim bigotry” through disinformation and false narratives, directly linking it to extremism and policy harms. In the UK, the MCB has called for audits of media toxicity, asserting that biased coverage “poisons our nation” and demands accountability from outlets and leaders. In Canada, the NCCM has urged governments to address systemic racism and Islamophobia, highlighting how political and media failures exacerbate anti-Muslim hate, and calling for public education campaigns to counter the hostility. These voices—representing millions—underscore that the metaphorical war against Islam and Muslims is not abstract, it inflicts daily harm on communities seeking only dignity and belonging.

The evidence is overwhelming—Western political and cultural portrayals, amplified by conservative media and leaders, are the primary drivers of the explosion in Islamophobia. From the 1970s oil embargo era to post-9/11 national security narratives targetting the Muslim community, and the vilification of Muslims protesting the Gaza genocide, this is a deliberate ecosystem of hostility that has been labelled “The Islamophobia Industry.”

Until societies confront this war on Muslims—through media accountability, political courage, and rejection of far-right bigoted narratives—Muslims will continue to pay the price of engineered fear and hate. The path forward demands recognizing that anti-Muslim prejudice weakens the West’s social fabric and its own democratic ideals. Only by dismantling these biased structures can genuine coexistence emerge, and can there be peace within the multicultural societies where members of the Muslim diaspora have sunk their roots and built their lives. 

© The View From Here. © Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Zohran Mamdani’s message to Muslim New Yorkers

“Growing up in the shadow of 9-11, I have known what it means to live with an undercurrent of suspicion. I will always remember the disdain I faced . . .”  

  

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack.

It is a little over a week until voting day in the New York City mayoral election, and if polling is accurate Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim to run for mayor, will be the victor when polls close on November 4th.

As a Muslim, Mamdani has faced an unprecedented level of hate, racism, bigotry and character assassination from those aligned with his main opponent—disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo—and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa (incumbent mayor Eric Adams has dropped out of the race).

During the campaign his opponents, their allies, and their billionaire backers, have directed an unprecedented tirade of hate, slurs and character assassination towards Mamdani, in a campaign that will be one for the history books. Cuomo’s billionaire allies have pumped well over $22 million into anti-Mamdani ads filled with lies and slurs centred on his Muslim faith, accusing him of being a terrorist sympathizer.

In a strong video message posted to social media on October 25th, in response to the litany of hate that has been directed at him because of his faith, as well as the hate the New York City’s Muslims have faced for a quarter century, Mamdani said that for more than one million Muslim New Yorkers, dignity remains conditional and acceptance still comes with pressure to mute their identity. Mamdani anchored his appeal in lived experience, including the story of his aunt who stopped taking the subway after 9/11 because she feared being targeted for wearing her hijab. He said Muslims were taught to remain quiet and grateful for whatever limited space they were allowed, even as they faced suspicion and humiliation.

The statement was measured, sincere and strong, and talked more about the place of Muslims in New York City rather than himself. It was a dignified response to a very undignified campaign against him, and by extension, all Muslim in the Big Apple.

Polls are saying that Mamdani is poised to become the first Muslim mayor of New York City. Millions in New York City will be watching on election night, as will millions across North America. Mamdani not only represents hope for the people he wants to represent, but also for those who see in Mamdani a political icon and hero who has overcome huge odds to stand on the cusp of victory.

To those who see Mamdani as a hero, his victory will be the start of something amazing if he is allowed to govern without interference, and serve the people of New York City. For those who have used every dirty trick in the book to try and defeat him, his victory will mean an end to decades of the city run by elites for elites and billionaires.

The full text of the statement can be found below and the video can be found here.

*************

Statement by Zohran Mamdani delivered on October 25, 2025

Six years ago, shortly after I announced I was running for assembly, a well-meaning Muslim uncle pulled me aside. He smiled softly and looked at me with care. In a quiet voice he told me I did not have to tell people I was Muslim.

His eyes kind, his beard proud, and his face heavy with the implication of the unsaid. I had not learned the lesson that he had been taught, time and again. It is the lesson that safety could only be found in the shadows of our city.

That it is in those shadows alone where Muslims could embrace the fullness of our own identities. And that if we are to emerge from them, then it is in those shadows where we must leave our faith. These are lessons that so many Muslim New Yorkers have been taught, again and again.

And over these last few days, these are the lessons that have become the closing message of Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa, and Eric Adams. Yesterday, Andrew Cuomo laughed and agreed when a radio show host said that I would cheer another 9-11. Yesterday, Eric Adams said that we can’t let our city become Europe.

He compared me to violent extremists and he lied when he said that our movement seeks to burn churches and destroy communities. The day before that, Curtis Sliwa slandered me from a debate stage when he claimed that I supported global jihad. And every day, Super PAC ads imply that I am a terrorist or mock the way I eat, push polls that ask New Yorkers questions like whether they support invented proposals to make halal mandatory, or political cartoons that represent my candidacy as an airplane hurtling towards the World Trade Center.

But I do not want to use this moment to speak to them any further. I want to use this moment to speak to the Muslims of the city. I want to speak to the memory of my aunt who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab.

I want to speak to the Muslim city worker, whether they teach in our schools or walk the beat for the NYPD. New Yorkers who all make daily sacrifices on behalf of the city only to see their leaders spit in their face. I want to speak to every child who grows up in New York marked as the other, who is randomly selected in a way that rarely feels random, who feels that they carry a stain that can never quite be cleaned.

Growing up in the shadow of 9-11, I have known what it means to live with an undercurrent of suspicion. I will always remember the disdain I faced, the way my name could immediately become Mohammed, and how I could return to my city only to be asked in a double mirrored room at the airport if I had any plan of attacking it. And since I was very young, I have known that I was spared the worst of it.

I was never pressured to be an informant like a classmate of mine. I’ve never had the word terrorist spray-painted on my garage as one of my staff had to endure. My mosque has never been set on fire.

To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity, but indignity does not make us distinct. There are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does.

Since I announced my candidacy for mayor one year ago yesterday, I’ve sought to be the candidate fighting for everyday New Yorkers, not simply the Muslim candidate. I’ve carried these indignities with me each moment of this race, doing so all the while as the first major Muslim candidate for mayor in New York City history. I thought that if I could build a campaign of universality, I could define myself as the leader I aspire to be, one representing every New Yorker no matter their skin color or religion.

I thought if I worked hard enough, it would allow me to be that leader. And I thought that if I behaved well enough or bit my tongue enough in the face of racist baseless attacks while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith. I was wrong.

No amount of redirection is ever enough. In doing this, I have told the wide-eyed young boy in Jackson Heights or the first-time voter in Parkchester that they too should remain in the shadows. I am becoming that same uncle who took me aside.

No more. The dream of every Muslim is simply to be treated the same as any other New Yorker. And yet for too long we have been told to ask for less than that and to be satisfied with whatever little we receive.

No more. For as long as we have lived, we have known that no matter what anyone says, there are still certain forms of hate acceptable in this city today. Islamophobia is not seen as inexcusable.

One can incite violence against our mosques and know that condemnation will never come. Elected officials in this city can sell t-shirts calling for my deportation without fear of any accountability. The consequences are stark.

More than one million Muslim New Yorkers exist in this city only to be made to feel as if guests in our own home. No more. We stand on the precipice of an election, but that is not what today is about.

We know that in less than two weeks we will say goodbye to a disgraced former governor and our current indicted mayor. The bigger question is whether we are willing to say goodbye to something much larger. It is whether we are willing to say goodbye to anti-Muslim sentiment that has grown so endemic in our city that when we hear it, we know not whether the words were said by a Republican or by a Democrat.

We know only that it was spoken in the language of the politics of this city. In an era of ever-diminishing bipartisanship, Islamophobia has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement. And while I appreciate all who have rushed to my defense over the past two days, I think of those Muslims in this city who do not have the luxury of being the Democratic nominee. Who do not have the luxury of being deemed worthy of solidarity.

While my opponents in this race have brought this hatred to the forefront, this is just a glimpse into what so many Muslims have had to endure every day across the five boroughs that we call home. And while it would be easy to say that this is not who we are as a city, we know the truth.

This is who we have allowed ourselves to become. A question lies before each of us. Will we continue to accept a narrow definition of what it means to be a New Yorker that makes smaller the number of those guaranteed a life of dignity? Will we remain in the shadows? Or will we together step into the light? There are 11 days remaining until election day.

I will be a Muslim man in New York City each of those 11 days and every day that follows after that. I will not change who I am. I will not change how I eat.

I will not change the faith that I am proud to belong to. But there is one thing I will change. I will no longer look for myself in the shadows.

I will find myself in the light. Thank you.

© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

Until the arrival of Zionism, Muslims and Jews lived together in relative peace for centuries

The relative harmony between Jews and Muslims frayed not due to ancient hatreds but a form of European imperialism—namely Zionism.

 

By Fareed Khan

A version of this article can be found on Substack. 

  

For decades, Israel and its Zionist allies in the West have invested millions in propaganda campaigns to portray Muslims and Jews as irreconcilable enemies for centuries to the Western public, even depicting Muslims in the West as an untrustworthy “fifth column.” This narrative has fuelled the targeting of innocent Muslims by police and security agencies, exacerbated Islamophobia well before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and intensified crackdowns on pro-Palestinian activists—many of whom are Muslim—since Israel’s assault on Gaza began in October 2023.

Yet history reveals a far more nuanced reality. For much of the past 1,500 years of Islam’s existence, relations between Jews and Muslims have been characterized by coexistence, respect, and shared prosperity, severely disrupted only by modern colonial interventions and the advent of Zionism. Drawing on centuries of documented harmony and history dismantles the myth of eternal enmity between the two faith communities. From the Prophet Muhammad’s foundational pact with Jewish tribes to the Ottoman Empire’s embrace of Sephardic refugees, and even into the 20th century when Palestinians extended hospitality to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution, the record shows a pattern of refuge and collaboration.

Only with the rise of Zionism and the Nakba—the 1948 catastrophe that displaced over 750,000 Palestinians—did this equilibrium shatter, as some of those welcomed refugees returned the hospitality of Palestinians by dispossessing their hosts. By reclaiming this history we can demonstrate that it is the Zionist political agenda and not religious imperatives that have sown division between these two faith communities.

A Foundation of Coexistence: The Dawn of Islam

The story begins in 7th-century Arabia, where Islam emerged amid a mosaic of Jewish, Christian, and pagan communities. Contrary to later Zionist distortions, the Prophet Muhammad’s interactions with Jews were shaped by proximity and shared monotheistic roots, not inherent antagonism. The Constitution of Medina, drafted in 622 CE shortly after Muhammad’s arrival in the city, stands as one of the earliest examples of interfaith governance between Muslims and Jews. This charter explicitly included Jewish tribes in the ummah—the broader Muslim community—granting them autonomy in religious practice, legal affairs, and mutual defence against external threats.

It was a revolutionary document, establishing Jews as equal partners in a pluralistic society and setting a precedent for “dhimmi” status: protected non-Muslims who paid a poll tax in exchange for exemption from military service along with full communal rights.

As Islamic conquests unified the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond under the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid caliphates from the 7th to 9th centuries, Jewish communities—long marginalized under Christian Byzantine and Sassanid rule—found unprecedented stability. Unlike the recurrent pogroms and expulsions in Christian Europe, Muslim lands integrated Jews into the fabric of society. In Mesopotamia and Egypt, Jews served as administrators, scholars, and traders, contributing to the caliphates’ golden age. The House of Wisdom in Baghdad, an epicentre of translation and innovation during the Abbasid era (8th–13th centuries), saw Jewish and Muslim intellectuals collaborate to render Greek, Persian, and Indian texts into Arabic, preserving knowledge that would later be the foundation of the European Renaissance. Figures like Saadia Gaon, a 10th-century Jewish philosopher, thrived under Muslim patronage, blending Talmudic scholarship with Islamic theology.

This pluralism extended to daily life. Synagogues and mosques coexisted in urban quarters, and inter-communal dialogues enriched both faiths. The Quran itself acknowledges Jewish prophets like Moses and Abraham, urging respect for “People of the Book,” though it critiques specific theological disputes. While tensions arose from time to time—such as the 627 CE siege of the Banu Qurayza tribe amid tribal warfare—these were political, not religious conflicts, often resolved through negotiation rather than military campaigns.

The Golden Age in Al-Andalus

Nowhere was this harmony more luminous than in Al-Andalus, Muslim-ruled Spain from the 8th to 15th centuries. Under the Umayyad Emirate of Cordoba, Jews escaped the Visigothic persecutions that had plagued them in Christian Iberia, including forced baptisms and mass executions. Cordoba became a beacon of tolerance, its libraries rivaling Baghdad’s. Jewish viziers like Hasdai ibn Shaprut advised caliphs on diplomacy and medicine, while poets and philosophers crossed confessional lines.

The 10th-century “Golden Age” produced Maimonides (Musa ibn Maymun), the preeminent Jewish thinker, whose Guide for the Perplexed synthesized Aristotelian philosophy with Jewish law under Muslim intellectual influence. In Granada and Toledo, Muslims, Jews, and Christians advanced astronomy, mathematics, and poetry. Jewish scholars translated Arabic works into Hebrew, disseminating them across Europe. 

However, this era was not without friction. Occasional fatwas in some regions restricted Jewish dress or synagogue construction, echoing dhimmi hierarchies. Yet violence was rare compared to the Christian Crusades or Black Death massacres in Europe, where Jews were scapegoated and burned alive. Historian Bernard Lewis notes that, over 14 centuries, “there is nothing in Islamic history to parallel the Spanish expulsion and Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, or the Nazi Holocaust.” Muslim rulers positioned themselves as guardians of all minorities, rooted in Quranic calls for justice. 

Refuge from European Fury

As Christian Europe’s intolerance peaked—the 1492 Alhambra Decree expelling 200,000 Jews from Spain—Muslim realms offered sanctuary. Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire derided Ferdinand and Isabella as fools for impoverishing Spain to enrich his domains, welcoming Sephardic Jewish refugees to Istanbul, Salonika, and Izmir. There, Jews revitalized trade and scholarship, and by the 16th century, they comprised a third of Salonika’s population, dubbing it “the mother of Israel in exile.” This pattern persisted during the 12th-century Crusades, when European Christians slaughtered Jews in the Rhineland and Jerusalem. While in Palestine Saladin (Salahuddin Ayyubi) recaptured the city in 1187 and invited Jews (who had been expelled from Jerusalem by Christian rulers) to return, ending centuries of exclusion under Roman and Byzantine rule.

In North Africa and the Levant, Jews under Muslim governance fared far better than in Christian lands. When the 628 CE Byzantine-Persian treaty included protections for Jews—later betrayed by Roman massacres—Muslim leaders like Caliph Umar reaffirmed safe passage. By the 19th century, as Ottoman reforms equalized rights, Jewish communities in Baghdad and Cairo flourished alongside Muslims, sharing markets and festivals.

A Shared Stand Against Fascism

This legacy of refuge extended into the 20th century, even as European antisemitism surged. During World War Two Muslims across Europe, Africa and the Middle-East risked everything to shield Jews from Nazi horrors. Iranian diplomat Abdol-Hossein Sardari, the “Iranian Schindler,” issued over 2,000 passports to Iranian Jews in occupied Paris, exploiting Nazi racial pseudoscience by claiming they were “Aryan” descendants of Cyrus the Great—who had freed Jews from Babylonian captivity in 539 BCE.

In Albania, a Muslim-majority nation under German occupation, the entire society conspired to hide Jews. By war’s end, Albania’s Jewish population had grown, the only Nazi-occupied country to achieve this. The Pilkus family in Albania sheltered Holocaust survivor Johanna Neumann, convincing neighbours she was a German relative. “They put their lives on the line to save us,” Neumann recalled. In Tunisia, Khaled Abdul Wahab hid two Jewish families in his farm’s stables, defying Gestapo raids. At Paris’s Great Mosque, Imam Kaddour Benghabrit forged Muslim certificates for Jews, while Turkish consul Selahattin Ulkumen ferried 50 Jews to safety on boats from Rhodes. Noor Inayat Khan, a British Muslim spy, transmitted vital intelligence from occupied France until her execution at Dachau. Even in Palestine, amid rising Zionist-Palestinian tensions, thousands volunteered against the Nazis. A 2019 study revealed 12,000 Palestinians—Muslims and Christians—served in British forces, fighting in North Africa and Europe. The Palestine Regiment saw Arabs and Jews shoulder-to-shoulder fighting against Hitler’s Nazi forces, a unity later fractured by the Nakba in 1948.

Palestinian Hospitality Betrayed

In Mandatory Palestine, this spirit manifested profoundly. As Nazi persecution escalated in Germany in the 1930s, over 60,000 German Jews fled to Palestine under the Haavara Agreement, despite British quotas limiting immigration to quell Arab unrest. Initial arrivals in the 1920s and early 1930s were often met with Palestinian hospitality. Oral histories and contemporary accounts document Palestinian families housing destitute Jewish refugees in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem, sharing meals and aiding integration. Palestinian leader Musa Alami recounted villagers offering shelter to European Jews, viewing them as fellow Semites fleeing tyranny—before Zionist land purchases and exclusivist settlements soured relations between the two communities.

Tensions boiled during the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt, sparked by fears of dispossession, but even then, individual acts of kindness persisted. Tragically, this generosity was repaid with expulsion. By 1948, Zionist terrorist groups like the Haganah and Irgun—bolstered by those once-welcomed refugees—destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages, expelling 750,000 in the Nakba. In places like Deir Yassin, Lydda and Ramle, families who had hosted Jews were driven out at gunpoint, their homes seized, and the inhabitants massacred. Benny Morris, an Israeli historian, documented how these operations, code named Plan Dalet, ethnically cleansed Arab populations to secure a Jewish majority on territory seized by the Zionists. The betrayal was stark. Palestinians, who had opened their doors amid global indifference, became refugees in their own land. 

Colonial Shadows: The Modern Fracture

The relative harmony between Jews and Muslims frayed not due to ancient hatreds but due to a form of European imperialism—namely Zionism. Born in 19th-century Europe, this Jewish supremacist ideology framed Palestine as a “land without a people” for a “people without a land,” conveniently ignoring its 1.2 million Muslim, Christian and Jewish inhabitants. The 1917 Balfour Declaration, a British colonial proposal, pledged a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine without the consent of its inhabitants, enabling mass immigration that tripled the Jewish population by 1947. Post-World War Two, as Britain withdrew its forces from Palestine, the United Nations’ Partition Plan allocated 56% of the territory for a Jewish state—despite Jews owning just 7% of the land, and accounting for only 33% of the population. The ensuing war cemented the Nakba, with Israeli policies of settlement expansion, exclusion, and blockade perpetuating Palestinian displacement.

The history of Jewish-Muslim relations is not a tale of a centuries long religious conflict as Zionists would like everyone to believe. It is rather a rich narrative marked by remarkable coexistence during very hostile eras of history. Only in the 20th century, with the colonization of historic Palestine, did tensions flare, fracturing ties between these communities in the Middle East.

The Zionist narrative of perpetual enmity between Jews and Muslims serves a political agenda, yet history offers a beacon of hope. From the inclusive pact of Medina to the flourishing Jewish communities in Al-Andalus and the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim lands, to the heroic acts of Muslims shielding Jews from Nazi persecution during World War II, these faith communities wove a tapestry of relative peace and mutual respect, unlike what Jews had experienced for centuries in Christian Europe. Ultimately this was all undone not by religion but by the political machinations of the Zionist movement. By drawing on this shared heritage, Muslims and Jews seeking peace in the Middle East can find inspiration to forge a harmonious future, and work towards an end to the decades-long conflict in historic Palestine that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives since 1948.
  
© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.