Islam Archives - Sahar Aziz

How Israel’s Supporters Use Islamophobia to Silence Critics [Marc Steiner Show]

By now, the false equivalency between anti-Zionism and antisemitism—which Israel’s supporters use to give rhetorical cover for Zionism—is a well-worn topic on the left. What’s less discussed is the role of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism in Zionists’ attempts to smear their critics, particularly Arab and Muslim ones, as antisemitic. A new report, Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes in the Palestine Israel Discourse from Rutgers University Law School’s Center for Security, Race, and Rights (CSRR), maps the use of Islamophobic tropes in the discourse on Israel-Palestine, noting that the racist association between… Continue reading

Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes in Palestine-Israel Discourse [Insurgents]

Professor Sahar Aziz, Distinguished Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar at Rutgers Law and author of The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, joined Jordan Uhl and Rob Rosseau on the Insurgents Podcast to discuss her recent report “Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes In The Palestine-Israel Discourse.” The interview explores the ways Islamophobia spreads in the media and shifts the balance of conversation of coverage, resulting in a dehumanizing effect for Muslims, and how—especially in this moment—some genuinely pro-Palestinian advocacy is inaccurately framed as anti-Semitic.… Continue reading

Keynote on Race and Religion at the Intersection [Drexel Law]

Professor Sahar Aziz delivered the Center for Law, Policy and Social Action (CLPSA) keynote at Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law. Professor Aziz examined the intersectional relationship between race and religion, namely as it pertains to Muslim identity and experiences of racialized religious discrimination and infringement upon religious freedom in the United States. Her highly acclaimed book featured in Time Magazine, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, informed the public lecture on October 23, 2023.… Continue reading

Sahar Aziz Delivers Faculty Address to Rutgers Law Class of 2023

The Rutgers Law School (Newark) Class of 2023 selected Professor Sahar Aziz to deliver the faculty address at their commencement ceremony. She reminded graduates of the People’s Electric Law School to take seriously the weighty responsibility of lawyers as the guardians of our society’s democracy and the foundation on which justice stands. To hear her full remarks, click here or watch below.… Continue reading

NJ Muslim Mayor Who Was Denied White House Entry [Gothamist]

A Muslim mayor in New Jersey is calling for an end to the U.S. government’s terror watch lists after he was barred from a celebration at the White House. Mohamed Khairullah — in his fifth term as Prospect Park’s mayor, and first elected to the borough’s council in 2001 — was on his way to an Eid al-Fitr celebration at the White House on Monday when he was told the Secret Service would not allow him to attend. Khairullah, a well-known Muslim leader in New Jersey, said at a Tuesday… Continue reading

Hamline, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom [Eagleton Institute]

In the podcast This Moment in Democracy, Professor Saladin Ambar and Rutgers Law Professor Sahar Aziz discuss the controversy happening at Hamline University, as well as current issues higher education is facing regarding free speech on campus, academic freedom, and the adjunctification of university faculty. To listen to the podcast, click here.… Continue reading

Truth and Lies: The Informant [ABC]

Professor Sahar Aziz was a featured expert in season two of the ABC podcast “Truth and Lies: The Informant.” In 2016, a group of men in rural Kansas started meeting in secret. They spent months forming a militia group and plotting what would’ve been one of the worst domestic terror attacks in U.S. history — if it hadn’t been stopped. “Truth and Lies: The Informant” tells the remarkable story of an ordinary man who infiltrated this dangerous group as an FBI informant and risked his life… Continue reading

Confronting Liberal Islamophobia [ACS]

Islamophobia, like other systems of bias, operates in both liberal and conservative spaces in American society, albeit in different ways. Islamophobia by conservatives is easily identifiable through hateful speech, hate crimes and support for state national security and immigration practices targeting Muslims. The absence of such observable factors in liberal circles, however, does not make Islamophobia any less of a problem. To the contrary, the stealth of liberal Islamophobia arguably makes it more insidious. Liberals proudly boast their support for multiculturalism and pluralism, which purportedly includes Muslims. Their discourse follows… Continue reading

The Curious Case of the Racial Muslim [EU Scream]

Legal scholar Sahar Aziz says people who identify as Muslim are often perceived in racial terms, like Black and Brown people, in White-dominated societies. That makes Muslims on both sides of the Atlantic the subject of similar forms of racism. She also says protecting observant Muslims in Europe may be more difficult than in the United States, where religious observance is more commonplace. In this episode: Sahar Aziz in conversation with the journalist and think tanker Shada Islam. Listen to the podcast here. Purchase your copy of the… Continue reading

Twentieth Anniversary of 9/11 Essays [Mich. J. Race & Law]

The Michigan Journal of Race and the Law published a special volume on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that featured articles by leading scholars on national security, immigration, criminal law, and race. Sahar Aziz’s article State Sponsored Radicalization conducts a comprehensive review of the literature that rebukes the dominant (fallacious) government narrative about ‘radicalization’ to terrorism. Not only are there no empirically based criteria for predicting who is more likely to engage in politically motivated violence, but increased religiosity of Muslims has no correlation to terrorist tendencies. And… Continue reading

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