San Diego recently adopted an official definition of Islamophobia. Definitions are important, but they must be defensible.
Here is the actual wording:
"Islamophobia is a form of racism, prejudice, discrimination, hostility, or hatred directed toward Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim, or their property, that targets expressions of Muslim identity or perceived Muslim identity and may manifest through speech, conduct, institutional practices, exclusion, intimidation, harassment, or violence."
There are some serious problems here. The definition doesn't merely prohibit discrimination against Muslims. It extends to hostility that "targets expressions of Muslim identity," without defining what those expressions are, who determines them, or how to distinguish hostility toward a practice from hostility toward the people who practice it.
That is an enormous loophole. And it becomes particularly striking when we compare it with the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, which critics have spent years attacking for supposedly suppressing legitimate criticism of Israel.
The double standard with IHRA
Critics of the IHRA definition routinely complain that it is too broad, too subjective, and too easily weaponized to silence legitimate political criticism. They argue that it conflates criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews, creating a chilling effect on free speech.
But IHRA explicitly anticipates that concern. It says that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic." It also introduces its examples with the qualification that they "could, taking into account the overall context," constitute antisemitism. And it explicitly states that manifestations of antisemitism "might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity."
San Diego's Islamophobia definition contains no caveats whatsoever. There are no limitations, no discussion of what is not Islamophobic. There is no explicit protection for criticism of Islam or Islamic practices.. No statement that criticism of Islamic teachings, institutions, religious leaders, or practices is not necessarily Islamophobic. No requirement to consider the overall context. No examples distinguishing legitimate criticism from religious prejudice.
If the objection to IHRA is that its language could be misused to suppress criticism, the San Diego definition presents that problem a hundredfold worse.
What counts as an expression of Muslim identity?
This is where the definition becomes particularly problematic.
There is no single, universally accepted interpretation of Islam. Muslims disagree about religious law, political authority, women's rights, sexuality, religious obligations and the relationship between religion and government. Practices that one Muslim considers essential to Islamic identity may be rejected by another Muslim as cultural distortions or outright violations of Islam.
But San Diego's definition doesn't limit its protection to mainstream Islamic practices. It doesn't say that an expression must be approved by a recognized religious authority or accepted by a majority of Muslims. It doesn't even require that the practice actually be mandated by Islam.
It simply says "expressions of Muslim identity or perceived Muslim identity."
Consider what that could mean.
Polygamy. Islamic law, under traditional interpretations, permits a man to have up to four wives under specified conditions. A Muslim man who considers polygamy part of his religious identity could argue that someone campaigning against polygamy is expressing hostility toward an expression of Muslim identity. Is a feminist who opposes polygamy engaging in Islamophobia? The definition offers no clear answer.
Honor killings. Honor killings are condemned by many Muslim religious authorities and are not unique to Muslim societies. But some perpetrators invoke religious or traditional justifications for them. If a person regards such violence as part of his religious identity, could he characterize condemnation of the practice as hostility toward that identity? Again, the definition contains no explicit exclusion for conduct that violates human rights.
Female genital mutilation. FGM is practiced in some Muslim and non-Muslim communities, and many Muslim scholars oppose it. Nevertheless, some defenders regard it as a religious obligation. Would an activist campaigning to eradicate FGM be targeting an expression of Muslim identity? Under an expansive interpretation of the city's language, that accusation could at least be made.
Slavery. Slavery existed in historical Muslim societies, and classical Islamic jurisprudence regulated it. Contemporary defenders of slavery have sometimes invoked those precedents. If someone criticizes religious arguments used to justify slavery, is that hostility toward an expression of Muslim identity? The definition never explains why it would not be.
Terrorism. This is the most revealing example. Islamist terrorist organizations explicitly justify their violence through their interpretations of Islam. ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hamas and other jihadist organizations have portrayed their actions as religious obligations. They do not merely happen to be Muslim; they affirmatively claim that their violence expresses their understanding of Muslim identity.
An extremist could therefore claim that condemnation of his religiously justified violence is hostility toward his expression of Muslim identity.
Would a reasonable person accept that argument? One hopes not, but in the wake of the justifications of October 7, that is unclear. But a definition is supposed to help us distinguish reasonable claims from unreasonable ones. Here, the necessary distinction is conspicuously absent.
And if the answer is that terrorism, slavery and honor killings are not authentic expressions of Islam, who decides what authentic Islam is? The San Diego City Council? CAIR? Religious scholars? The Muslims themselves?
The city has opened a theological question that it has neither the authority nor the expertise to adjudicate.
Even ordinary criticism becomes suspect
We don't need extreme examples to see the problem.
A feminist argues that compulsory hijab laws are oppressive. An atheist argues that Islam, like every other religion, makes false theological claims. A historian discusses slavery in Islamic history. An animal-rights activist opposes certain forms of halal slaughter. A gay-rights activist condemns religious arguments used to justify criminal penalties for homosexuality.
All are criticizing beliefs, practices or historical conduct. None necessarily expresses prejudice against Muslims.
Yet each criticism could be characterized as hostility toward something that at least some Muslims regard as an expression of their identity.
There is also a problem with ordinary government decisions. A city enforces noise ordinances against mosque loudspeakers. A public university refuses to segregate classrooms by sex. A school teaches evolution despite religious objections. A school cafeteria serves pork. A store in a Muslim neighborhood sells food during the day on Ramadan. A public institution declines to accommodate a particular religious practice because doing so would conflict with other people's rights.
Someone could allege that these decisions constitute institutional hostility or exclusion targeting Muslim identity, even when the same rules apply to everyone.
To be clear, the definition does require hostility or prejudice directed toward Muslims, not merely disagreement with a practice. A careful interpreter could reject many of these accusations. But that is precisely the problem: the essential distinction has to be supplied by the interpreter rather than by the definition itself.
A useful definition should make clear that criticizing a practice is not the same thing as discriminating against the people who practice it, even when those people sincerely believe the practice is religiously required.
The problem of proving motive
There is another serious weakness. How does anyone establish that adverse treatment was actually motivated by hostility toward Muslim identity?
Suppose a Muslim employee is fired after saying they support Hamas or ISIS. Or a Muslim is denied a promotion, a Muslim student is disciplined, or a Muslim speaker is disinvited from a university event without a clear reason given. Any of these incidents could involve anti-Muslim discrimination. But they could also have perfectly legitimate explanations.
The definition offers no evidentiary standard for distinguishing the two.
Someone who experiences adverse treatment may sincerely believe that religious prejudice motivated it. But experiencing discrimination and knowing the discriminator's motive are two different things. A claim about motive needs evidence, not merely an assertion.
Discrimination law recognizes this distinction. Relevant evidence can include statements revealing bias, different treatment of similarly situated individuals, inconsistent explanations, or patterns of discriminatory behavior. The mere fact that a Muslim was treated adversely does not establish that the treatment occurred because the person was Muslim.
The definition does not explicitly say otherwise. But it fails to explain the causal connection that must be established. That omission becomes especially troublesome when combined with its expansive references to hostility, speech, exclusion and institutional practices.
An accusation of Islamophobia should be taken seriously. That is precisely why it should require serious evidence.
The CAIR connection
There is also a troubling question about how this definition was adopted.
According to an October 5 investigation by the Middle East Forum, based on public records obtained from San Diego, the Council adopted language drafted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The investigation reports that the adopted definition was nearly identical to CAIR's proposal, while the resolution did not identify CAIR as its author. It also raises questions about the procedural review preceding adoption.
CAIR is an advocacy organization with its own institutional interests and positions. It does not condemn Hamas.
We don't have to speculate about how broadly CAIR interprets Islamophobia. In its 2021 report, Islamophobia in the Mainstream, CAIR explicitly includes among its criteria for identifying Islamophobes those who claim that violent extremist groups have the correct interpretation of Islam. That means a scholar who argues that ISIS has a historically defensible interpretation of certain Islamic texts, even while condemning its atrocities, could be labeled Islamophobic for making a theological argument CAIR disagrees with. CAIR also includes the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a Muslim-led reform organization, in its "Islamophobia Network," demonstrating that even Muslims themselves can be accused of Islamophobia for challenging interpretations of their own religion. And CAIR's criteria extend beyond the alleged offenders to organizations that fund, partner with, or provide platforms for them. This is not merely a theoretical concern about how vague definitions might be abused. CAIR has already published a framework in which disagreements over Islamic theology and religious reform can become evidence of anti-Muslim prejudice. Now San Diego has adopted a definition drafted by the same organization, without explicitly protecting legitimate criticism of Islamic beliefs or practices. The city may not intend such expansive applications, but CAIR's own published methodology gives us good reason to ask where the boundaries are.
Similarly, CAIR flatly says that individuals like Bill Maher, Daniel Pipes or Ayaan Hirsi Ali are Islamophobic. They do not attack Muslims, they criticize Islam. It is clear that CAIR does not distinguish between the two, and their definition is not meant to make that distinction, either.
Protecting people is not protecting their beliefs from criticism
My own definition of antisemitism is "hostility towards, denigration of, malicious lies about or discrimination against Jews" as individuals, as a people, as a religion, as an ethnic group or as a nation, meaning Israel.
The object is Jews. It does not say that hostility toward anything a Jew regards as an expression of Jewish identity is automatically antisemitic.
The purpose of a definition of bigotry should be to identify hostility, prejudice and discrimination against people because of who they are. It should not provide ideological or religious beliefs with immunity from criticism, and it certainly should not offer even a plausible rhetorical defense for practices that violate the rights of others.
San Diego could have written a definition that clearly distinguished anti-Muslim prejudice from criticism of Islam and conduct undertaken in Islam's name. Instead, it adopted one that blurs those categories.
The irony is that people who object to IHRA for allegedly blurring the line between antisemitism and criticism of Israel should be especially concerned about a definition that blurs the line between Islamophobia and criticism of Islam itself.
If the principle is that definitions of bigotry must not be used to silence legitimate criticism, it must apply consistently. Otherwise the objection was never really about protecting free expression. It was about deciding whose beliefs deserve protection from criticism.
