مجلة علوم الإنسان والمجتمع

Collateral Damage: How Verified Islamist Extremism Fuels Islamophobia Against Innocent Muslims In The West

Auteurs : Zerara Saida .

Résumé

This article examines how verified Islamist extremist violence drives measurable spikes in Western islamophobia, while ordinary Muslims absorb the resulting backlash. Drawing on Cohen's (1972) moral panic theory and scapegoating theory, it analyzes two recent cases, the 2024 Solingen stabbing and the 2025 New Orleans attack, both showing the same sequence: extremist violence, political amplification, and generalized suspicion cast onto uninvolved Muslim communities. Responsibility, it argues, lies with extremists, not the broader Muslim population.

Mots clés

islamophobia ; moral paic ; scapegoatig ; islamist extremism