Islamic Islamophobia: When Muslims Are Not Muslim Enough, What Does It Promise for the Rest of Us?

by Douglas Murray • August 14, 2016 at 5:00 am

Mr Shah's murderer was a Sunni Muslim, Tanveer Ahmed, who had travelled to Glasgow to kill Mr Shah because he believed Mr Shah had "disrespected the Prophet Mohammed." At this point the comfortable narratives of modern Britain began to fray.
If Mr Shah's murderer had been a non-Muslim, there would be a concerted effort by the entirety of the media and political class to find out what inspirations and associations the murderer had. Specifically, they would want to know if there was anybody -- especially any figure of authority -- who had ever called for the murder of Muslim shopkeepers. Yet when a British Muslim kills another British Muslim for alleged "apostasy" and local religious authorities are found to have praised or mourned the killers of people accused of "apostasy," the same people cannot bother to stir themselves.

Asad Shah was murdered in Glasgow, Scotland by Tanveer Ahmed, a fellow Muslim who claimed Shah had "disrespected the Prophet Mohammed" by wishing Christians a Happy Easter.

Earlier this year there was a murder that shocked Britain. Just before Easter, a 40-year old shopkeeper in Glasgow, Asad Shah, was repeatedly stabbed in his shop; he died in the road outside. The news immediately went out that this was a religiously-motivated attack. But the type of religiously motivated attack it was came as a surprise to most of Britain.

There is so much attention paid to the idea of "Islamophobia" in the country that many people -- including some Muslim groups -- immediately assumed that the killing of Asad Shah was an "Islamophobic" murder. It turned out, however, that the man who had been detained by police -- and this week sentenced to a minimum of 27 years in prison for the murder -- was also a Muslim.