Professor Khaled Beydoun speaks at Boyd Law Building on Monday
By Jason Estrada, The Daily Iowan
“Islamophobia” is a term often used, but one scholar sought to find a concrete definition for the word.
Khaled Beydoun, an associate professor of law at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, discussed his research on the term on Monday at the University of Iowa College of Law.
When Beydoun was thinking about Islamophobia, he said, he mostly focused his research on the term by examining such items as legal literature, popular-media space, and social-media space. In his research and findings, he realized there was never a consistent definition for the term.
Scholars, activists, and media personalities were defining and framing the term in distinct ways, he said, so Beydoun sought to find an organized definition for Islamophobia for legal purposes and law scholars.
“The presumption that Islam is inherently violent [and] alien … [is] driven by the beliefs that expression of Muslim identity are portative with the propensity of terrorism,” he said.