Anti-Muslim Violence in the US

Violence directed at Muslims remains relatively rare in the United States. However, attitudes of fear and suspicion toward Muslims (Islamophobia) are widespread and growing. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) statistics on hate crimes show an average of 138 anti-Muslim incidents per year between 2002 and 2013. These, however, were the only category of hate crimes to increase in 2014 to 2016. While incidents decreased for a few years after 2016, the respite was short lived and reports of anti-Muslim incidents again began to climb. In 2023, the Council on American Islamic Relations recorded 607 hate crime incidents, a significant increase from the 117 incidents reported just the previous year. Hate crimes include a range of offenses, from murder to intimidation, arson to vandalism, and are significantly under-reported.

Anti-Muslim incidents are second to anti-Jewish incidents by a wide margin. According to polls, the majority of Americans do not know a Muslim personally. However, nearly half associate Islam with violence, fanaticism, and sympathy with the terrorist group Al Qaeda. A 2010 study by the RAND Corporation, nonetheless, found the number of radicals among Muslims in the United States to be "tiny," at 1 in 30,000. About half of Muslims in the United States say they have experienced discrimination within the past year.

Key Events

• 2001: Reports of hate crimes against Muslims rise from an average 25 per year in the 1990s to 481 after the September 11 attacks.
• 2008: Al Shabaab recruiting in the Somali community in Minneapolis raises fears of disaffected Muslim youth becoming radicalized.
• 2009: Mass shooting of soldiers at Fort Hood by Major Nidal Hasan focuses suspicion on Muslims in the military.
• 2010: Oklahoma state constitutional amendment prohibits judges from considering international law (sharia) in court decisions. More than 20 other states have introduced similar measures. Reported hate crimes against Muslims rose to 160 from 107 in 2009.
• 2013: Boston Marathon bombing stirs renewed fear of Muslim immigrants.
• 2015: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rebukes President Barack Obama for silence on the murder of three Muslims in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, drawing national attention to the issue of anti-Muslim violence.
• 2015–2016: Hate crimes against Muslims reach their highest levels since immediately following September 11 attacks. Many attribute this to ongoing fears of terrorism and anti-Muslim immigrant rhetoric from presidential candidate Donald Trump.
• 2017: President Donald Trump's efforts to impose temporary travel bans on visitors from six majority-Muslim countries further inflame debate, with opponents describing the executive orders as Muslim bans.
• 2023: An attack on Israel begins the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza region. With tensions high, the US notes a significant uptick in anti-Muslim hate crimes as a result of the Middle East conflict.
• 2023: Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Muslim boy is stabbed 26 times in his home in Illinois in an anti-Muslim attack. His mother was also stabbed multiple times, though she survived the attack.

Status

The 2017 inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States fueled fears of increased anti-Muslim hate crimes, as Trump suggested banning Muslim immigrants during his presidential campaign. As president, Trump issued executive orders suspending travel from six majority-Muslim nations. These executive orders were placed on hold while a federal court challenge moved forward. In February 2017, a man in Olathe, Kansas, shot two Indian men in a restaurant, killing one and wounding the other, apparently mistaking them for Middle Easterners. The alleged perpetrator shouted "get out of my country" before shooting. In May 2017, two men were stabbed to death and a third was injured as they attempted to intervene on a train in Portland, Oregon, where a knife-wielding man was yelling slurs at two young Muslim women.

The break out of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023 as a result of a deadly attack in Israel left the world reeling and led to a dramatic increase in anti-Muslim sentiments. Attacks on Muslims in the United States significantly rose as Israel launched a counterattack on the Gaza region. Several cities reported shootings at Mosques across the country since the beginning of the war, including in Houston and Philadelphia.

In-Depth Description

Based on a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center, there are approximately 3.45 million people in the United States who describe themselves as Muslim. It is necessary to use estimates because US census and immigration officials do not collect data from individuals about their religion. About 60 percent of US Muslims are first-generation immigrants, with 85,000 new arrivals coming in per year. Although Muslims in the US have a religion in common, they are diverse: 30 percent describe themselves as white, 23 percent as black, 21 percent as Asian, and 25 percent as another group or mixed groups. In education, Muslims in the US are comparable to the rest of the population, with 26 percent having graduated from college (versus 28 percent for the general population) and 14 percent not graduating from high school (versus 13 percent). The percentage of high-income households is similar, with 22 percent of US Muslim households above $75,000 per year versus 28 percent for the US population. The percentage of low-income households is greater for Muslims, with 45 percent below $30,000 per year versus 36 percent for the general US population.

Negative attitudes toward Muslims, in general, increased after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Fears of new attacks by "sleeper cells" and several well-publicized arrests of Muslims, including the Portland Seven, Lackawanna Six, and Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, contributed to the trend. The mass shooting of soldiers at Fort Hood by a Muslim officer in the US Army worsened the growing mood of mistrust and hostility. Unfavorable attitudes toward Muslims were at 39 percent immediately after the September 11 attacks, as reported in a Washington Post/ABC News poll. By 2010, a Pew poll found the number expressing negative views toward Muslims had risen to 49 percent. A Pew poll in 2006 showed nearly half of Americans linked Islam with violence and fanaticism, and 54 percent said Muslims supported Al Qaeda. In the same study, British and French views were more favorable toward Islam. However, unfavorable views were much greater in Spain (83 percent linking Islam with fanaticism) and in Germany (70 percent).

In a 2011 poll by Time magazine, 62 percent of respondents said they had never met a Muslim. Both knowing a Muslim and achieving a higher education correlate with more favorable views of Muslims. A study of Pew polling data found no correlation between strong Christian views and negative attitudes toward Muslims.

About half of Muslims in the U.S. say they have experienced discrimination based on their religion in the past year. Six percent say they have been attacked or threatened. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has worked with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to oppose violence and discrimination against Muslims. Opponents of CAIR accuse the organization of having links to Islamic extremist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

FBI Statistics

The Federal Bureau of Investigation collects data from 15,000 law enforcement agencies for its Uniform Crime Reports, which include an annual report of hate crimes. Incidents are defined as hate crimes when there is evidence that the motivation was, wholly or in part, unlawful bias. In 2016, religious hate crimes made up 21.1 percent of total reported hate-crime incidents. Race/ethnicity (58.9 percent) and sexual orientation (16.7 percent) were the other most reported categories of hate crimes. In 2022, hate crimes based on religion formed 17.5 percent of the reported total of hate-crime incidents. Race/Ethnicity/Ancestry were the subject of 56 percent of hate crimes. Of religion-based hate crimes, 158 were driven by anti-Muslim sentiments.

Religious hate crimes usually take the form of assault, intimidation, arson, or vandalism. Murder is rare. There were 1,584 victims of religion-based hate crimes recorded in 2016. Of these, 54.4 percent were targeted because they were Jewish while 24.5 percent were targeted because they were Muslim. The FBI estimates that two-thirds of hate crimes are never reported, for several reasons. Victims often feel fear or shame, and in some cases they do not believe law enforcement authorities will bring the perpetrators to justice. In prosecutions of hate crimes, the evidence of bias is often not clear-cut. As a result, few convictions result from reports of hate crimes—on the order of one in 100. In its 2022 report, the FBI totaled 205 anti-Islamic hate crimes nationwide. Close to half of these crimes (92) involved intimidation. Nearly 25 percent (48 of 205) were cases of assault. The most common location of these crimes were in the residences of Muslims, followed by Mosques. The perpetrators of these incidents were most often White. The overwhelming victims of these attacks were individuals.

Religious hate crimes usually take the form of assault, intimidation, arson, or vandalism. Murder is rare. There were 1,584 victims of religion-based hate crime recorded in 2016. Of these, 54.4 percent were targeted because they were Jewish while 24.5 percent were targeted because they were Muslim. The FBI estimates that two-thirds of hate crimes are never reported, for several reasons. Victims often feel fear or shame, and in some cases they do not believe law enforcement authorities will bring the perpetrators to justice. In prosecutions of hate crimes, the evidence of bias is often not clear-cut. As a result, few convictions result from reports of hate crimes—on the order of one in 100. Between 2002 and 2022, the highest yearly number of anti-Muslim incidents was 307 in 2016; the lowest was 105 in 2008.

In October 2023, the Gaza-based militant organization Hamas undertook a surprise terrorist rampage that resulted in over 1,000 Israeli deaths, the majority of them civilian. The event proved divisive in the United States, as supporters of both Israel and Palestinians rallied to the respective corners. Organizations such as CAIR expressed concern over reports of Israeli military responses that resulted in the deaths of Palestinian non-combatants. These organizations also voiced outrage over what they described were aggressive Israeli actions that transpired prior to the massacres inflicted on Israeli citizens by Hamas. In the weeks following the October 2023 the FBI reported a number of threats against both Jews and Muslims in the United States.

Chronology of Fires at Mosques

Crimes against property may be easier to identify as religious hate crimes, since the target is typically a temple or mosque and the perpetrators often deliberately leave graffiti or symbolic messages showing their intent. Attacks on mosques often involve burnt copies of the Koran or pieces of pork, which is regarded in Islam as unclean. Arson attacks, reflecting a seriousness of intent that goes beyond most vandalism, may serve as an indicator of trends in anti-Muslim violence.

The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports do not include details of individual incidents, so the following list of fires set at mosques and Islamic community centers is gathered from news reports. It includes some the most serious cases but is not necessarily a complete listing:

• May 2010, Jacksonville, FL—A man threw a firebomb into the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida during evening prayers.
• July 2010, Arlington, TX—Vandals set fire to playground equipment at the Dar El-Eman Islamic Center and spray-painted a picture in the parking lot of Uncle Sam assaulting the Prophet.
• August 2010, Glendale, AZ—In a drive-by attack by two men at the Albanian American Islamic Center of Arizona, one threw an "acid bomb" (bottle filled with a pool-cleaning chemical) at mosque officials.
• November 2010, Corvallis, OR—Police arrested a neighborhood resident for the firebombing of the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center. His trial was still in progress in February 2015, pending issues on the admissibility of DNA evidence and statements by the defendant reflecting white supremacist views.
• April 2011, Stockton, CA—A security camera showed a man wearing a plastic bag over his head was at the scene when a fire burned down the Masjid Al Emaan mosque.
• May 2011, Houston, TX—Two young men set fire to the Madrasah Islamiah, breaking in through a window and spraying the carpet with gasoline.
• October 2011, Wichita, KS—The Islamic Association of Mid-Kansas received a series of eight hostile letters during the six months before a $100,000 fire at the mosque.
• January 2012, Queens, NY—An unemployed truck driver was arrested for the firebombing of five buildings on New Year's Day, including the Imam Al-Khoei Islamic Center as well as a restaurant, a building formerly used as a Hindu temple, and two residences. He said his intention during the spree was to harm as many Muslims as possible.
• August 2012, Joplin, MO—The Islamic Society of Joplin Center was targeted repeatedly by vandals in the months before fire destroyed the building. A homeless man caught with a backpack of accelerant was charged with the arson in 2013. He was arrested while preparing to burn down a Planned Parenthood center.
• August 2012, Lombard, IL—A bottle filled with acid was thrown into the College Preparatory School of America during evening prayers.
• September 2012, Toledo, OH—Security cameras showed a man wearing a camouflage shirt and hat was at the scene before a fire at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo. The fire was started with gasoline poured into a prayer area, but sprinklers put the fire out.
• February 2015, Houston, TX—A fire at the back of the Quba Islamic Institute was set deliberately, but there was no evidence of religious bias by the homeless man later arrested by police. Mosque officials asked that the charges be dropped.
• September 2016, Fort Pierce, FL—A man is arrested in connection with the burning of the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, a mosque occasionally visited by Omar Mateen, the gunman in the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shootings. The suspect was found to have made anti-Muslim statements on social media.
• January 2017, Victoria, TX—The Victoria Islamic Center mosque is burned and a man is arrested later arrested and charged with arson and a hate crime.
• August 2017, Bloomington, IN—A bomb was detonated outside the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center, damaging the building but injuring no one. By the end of the year no arrests had been made in the case.
• March 2019, Escondido, CA—An arsonist broke the parking lot gate lock of a mosque and set fire to the mosque.
• May 2019, New Haven CT—An arsonist sets fire to the Diyanet Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan.
• December 2021, Albuquerque, NM—A woman is caught on video setting fire to the Islamic Center of New Mexico.
• December 2021, Olympia, WA —An explosive device was thrown into the Islamic Center of Olympia, creating a blast that could be heard miles away.
• February 2022, Dearborn MI—A man set fire to the Huda Islamic Association. The man suspected of starting the fire was killed in an altercation with police.
• May 2023, St. Paul MN— A person sets fire to the Tawhid Islamic Center of Minnesota and is captured on camera committing the act. The building sustained serious damage but was not occupied at the time.

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