“Love Jihad”: Sexuality, Reproduction and the Construction of the Predatory Muslim Male

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 September 2021) | Viewed by 113740

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Religious Studies, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, 0302 Oslo, Norway
Interests: Buddhism and its relations to politics; nationalism and violence; Buddhism and law; Buddhist–Muslim relations; Islamophobia

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Majorstuen, 0302 Oslo, Norway
Interests: Hindu nationalism; Islamophobia; gender; social media

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue explores so-called “love jihad”, here defined as the notion that Muslim men strategically allure and entrap non-Muslim women with the intent to marry and convert them to Islam as part of an Islamization project. The aim of the Special Issue is two-fold. First, it explores the international spread of the trope “love jihad”, as well as its interpretations and usages in diverse cultural settings, welcoming discussions on “love jihad” from a wide range of cultural and national contexts from across the globe. Second, the specific term “love jihad” should not limit its conceptual expanse. We propose to use “love jihad” as an analytical concept for exploring related concepts (such as “sexual jihad” and “demographic jihad”), as well as related notions of Muslim men as sexual predators (in certain geographical settings known as “rapefugees”). Therefore, articles that discuss related concepts (not least Islamic womb fare, “grooming”, “The Great Replacement”, and “unethical conversion” in marriage) are also of interest, given that they relate to flows of gendered nationalist imaginaries of the Muslim “Other”. This Special Issue aims to contribute to the study of Islamophobia as a global phenomenon and to deepen our understanding of the gendered imaginaries of anti-Muslim nationalist formations across the world. It is part of Intersecting Flows of Islamophobia (INTERSECT) funded by the Research Council of Norway.

The Introduction to the Special Issue is written by Prof. Iselin Frydenlund (Project leader of INTERSECT) and Dr. Eviane Leidig (postdoc at INTERSECT). We prefer to receive the abstracts before 1 April 2021, and full papers before 1 August 2021

In particular, the main topics that this Special Issue covers are:

  • The genealogy of the concept of “love jihad”;
  • Analysis of related concepts such as “demographic jihad”, “sexual jihad”, and “wombfare”;
  • Case studies that explore “love jihad” in a variety of contexts (across Asia, Europe, North America, and Africa);
  • Constructions of Muslim hyperfertility and male sexual aggression as an instrument of “Islamization” both in the past and the present.

Besides contributions by Frydenlund and Leidig, we invite researchers to submit proposals for articles to be included in the Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Iselin Frydenlund
Dr. Eviane Leidig
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • love jihad
  • sexual jihad
  • demographic jihad
  • reproductive politics
  • the “Great Replacement”
  • Islamophobia
  • globalization
  • nativism
  • interreligious marriages
  • anti-Muslim nationalism
  • Hindu nationalism/Hindutva
  • Buddhist nationalism
  • white nationalism
  • Muslim minorities

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Published Papers (10 papers)

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Editorial

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12 pages, 279 KiB  
Editorial
Introduction: “Love Jihad”: Sexuality, Reproduction and the Construction of the Predatory Muslim Male
by Iselin Frydenlund and Eviane Leidig
Religions 2022, 13(3), 201; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030201 - 25 Feb 2022
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 6924
Abstract
The Introduction to this Special Issue on ‘“Love Jihad”: Sexuality, Reproduction and the Construction of the Predatory Muslim Male’ provides a theoretical overview and suggests an analytical lens for how to understand “Love Jihad” and related notions of Islamization through marriage, sexuality, and [...] Read more.
The Introduction to this Special Issue on ‘“Love Jihad”: Sexuality, Reproduction and the Construction of the Predatory Muslim Male’ provides a theoretical overview and suggests an analytical lens for how to understand “Love Jihad” and related notions of Islamization through marriage, sexuality, and reproduction. We define “Love Jihad” as the notion that Muslim men intentionally and strategically allure and entrap non-Muslim women with the intent to marry and convert them to Islam as part of an Islamization project. We suggest a two-fold understanding of the concept of “Love Jihad”. First, the concept needs to be understood as a globalizing trope, originating from India and spreading to a wide range of cultural and national contexts across the world. Second, we propose to understand the specific term “love jihad” beyond its referential specificity, and thereby broadening it into an analytical concept for exploring related concepts (such as “sexual jihad” and “demographic jihad”), as well as related notions of Muslim men as sexual predators (in certain geographical settings known as “rapefugees”). We therefore include in our analysis related notions such as Islamic womb fare, “grooming”, “The Great Replacement”, and “unethical conversion” in marriage where they relate to flows of gendered nationalist imaginaries of the Muslim “Other”. The aim of this Introduction—as well as the Special Issue—is to contribute to the study of Islamophobia as a global phenomenon and to deepen our understanding of the gendered imaginaries of anti-Muslim nationalist formations across the world. Full article

Research

Jump to: Editorial

18 pages, 324 KiB  
Article
Love Jihad in Contemporary Art in Norway
by Ragnhild Johnsrud Zorgati
Religions 2021, 12(12), 1106; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121106 - 15 Dec 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4236
Abstract
This article explores the concept of ‘love jihad’ and the love jihad discourse in a Scandinavian setting, with a particular emphasis on contemporary works of art and popular culture in Norway. Arguing that ‘love jihad’ may be understood as part of a larger [...] Read more.
This article explores the concept of ‘love jihad’ and the love jihad discourse in a Scandinavian setting, with a particular emphasis on contemporary works of art and popular culture in Norway. Arguing that ‘love jihad’ may be understood as part of a larger cluster of meaning related to fear of love across religious and cultural boundaries, and of losing ‘our women’ to ‘foreign men’, the article demonstrates that the love-jihad discourse and its related tropes exist in the Norwegian public sphere. It is directly articulated in far-right blogs and Facebook groups and indirectly present in the works of art and popular culture that this article explores. Indeed, read intertextually and in light of recent research in sociology and media studies about Islamophobia and anti-Muslim rhetoric on the Internet, works such as Disgraced, Heisann Montebello, SAS plus/SAS pussy, and Norskish demonstrate—through challenging, mocking or discussing the love-jihad discourse—that ‘love jihad’ has echoes in contemporary Norway. Full article
15 pages, 2102 KiB  
Article
The Terrorist and the Girl Next Door: Love Jihad in French Femonationalist Nonfiction
by Catherine Tebaldi
Religions 2021, 12(12), 1090; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121090 - 10 Dec 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 5607
Abstract
This paper explores the theme of Love Jihad in “true sex crime” novels, French mass-market paperbacks where a journalist or author recounts the temoignage of women who suffered sexual violence at the hands of Muslim men. Semiotic analysis of visual and textual representations [...] Read more.
This paper explores the theme of Love Jihad in “true sex crime” novels, French mass-market paperbacks where a journalist or author recounts the temoignage of women who suffered sexual violence at the hands of Muslim men. Semiotic analysis of visual and textual representations shows a melodramatic triangle of female victims, Muslim male perpetrators, and heroic readers. These stories reflect, dramatize, and sexualize broader social constructions of the monstrous Muslim; from Far-Right conspiracies of The Great Replacement to femonationalist debates about veils and republican values. In the final section, the paper explores how visual and verbal tropes from these popular discourses reappear in political speech and media from the National Rally. Full article
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18 pages, 412 KiB  
Article
Jihad.cz: Interpreting Jihad, Sexual Jihad and Demographic Jihad in the Czech Anti-Islamic Milieu
by Tadeáš Vala
Religions 2021, 12(12), 1086; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121086 - 9 Dec 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4065
Abstract
In the last 10 years, we have seen an increased frequency of fear and criticism of Islam and Muslims in the Czech media scene. Even though the percentage of Muslims in the Czech Republic is tiny (approx. estimate is 0.2%), there are active [...] Read more.
In the last 10 years, we have seen an increased frequency of fear and criticism of Islam and Muslims in the Czech media scene. Even though the percentage of Muslims in the Czech Republic is tiny (approx. estimate is 0.2%), there are active groups and movements in the country that seek to stop the spread of Islam in the Czech Republic, and the discussion of threats from Muslims routinely permeates political statements. A very common argumentation of Czech anti-Islamic claims uses the presentation of jihad as evidence of the danger that threatens the Western world from Muslims. The most widespread understanding of this phenomenon still presents jihad as armed violence against non-Muslims, which is supposed to be clear evidence of the warlike and violent nature of Islam. However, in the Czech-language milieu in recent years, there have also been descriptions of other forms of so-called “creeping” or “stealth” jihad. The article focused on the analysis of the concepts of “population jihad” or “demographic jihad”, violent “sexual jihad”, “womb jihad” or “wombfare”, and the so-called “great replacement” as presented on websites, radio, and social networks by the authors of the Czech-language anti-Islamic milieu. The present text thus illustrated the use of interpretations of sexual and demographic jihad to rationalize the fear and hatred of Muslims and Islam in the Czech Republic. Full article
15 pages, 265 KiB  
Article
“Love Jihad”, “Forced” Conversion Narratives, and Interfaith Marriage in the Sikh Diaspora
by Katy Pal Sian
Religions 2021, 12(12), 1085; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121085 - 9 Dec 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3826
Abstract
This paper sets out to critically examine the “forced” conversion narrative circulating across the Sikh diaspora. The “forced” conversion narrative tells the story of Muslim men allegedly deceiving and tricking “vulnerable” Sikh females into Islam. The paper explores the parallels between the “forced” [...] Read more.
This paper sets out to critically examine the “forced” conversion narrative circulating across the Sikh diaspora. The “forced” conversion narrative tells the story of Muslim men allegedly deceiving and tricking “vulnerable” Sikh females into Islam. The paper explores the parallels between the “forced” conversion narrative and the discourse on “love jihad” propagated by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as well as drawing out its particularities within the Sikh community. The paper is informed by new empirical data generated by a series of qualitative interviews with Sikhs in the UK, US, and Canada, and captures the complexities and nuances of my respondents in their interpretations of, and challenges to, the “forced” conversions narrative. The paper adopts a decolonial Sikh studies theoretical framework to critically unpack the logics of the discourse. In doing so, it reveals a wider politics at play, centred upon the regulation of Sikh female bodies, fears of the preservation of community, and wider anxieties around interfaith marriage. These aspects come together to display Sikh Islamophobia, whereby the figure of the “predatory” Muslim male is represented as an existential threat to Sikh being. Full article
20 pages, 3828 KiB  
Article
From Love Jihad to Grooming Gangs: Tracing Flows of the Hypersexual Muslim Male through Far-Right Female Influencers
by Eviane Leidig
Religions 2021, 12(12), 1083; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121083 - 9 Dec 2021
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 14584
Abstract
This article traces the transnational flows of constructions of the hypersexualized Muslim male through a comparative analysis of love jihad in India and the specter of grooming gangs in the UK. While the former is conceived as an act of seduction and conversion, [...] Read more.
This article traces the transnational flows of constructions of the hypersexualized Muslim male through a comparative analysis of love jihad in India and the specter of grooming gangs in the UK. While the former is conceived as an act of seduction and conversion, and the latter through violent rape imaginaries, foregrounding both of these narratives are sexual, gender, and family dynamics that are integral to the fear of demographic change. Building upon these narratives, this study analyzes how influential women in Hindu nationalist and European/North American far-right milieus circulate images, videos, and discourses on social media that depict Muslim men as predatory and violent, targeting Hindu and white girls, respectively. By positioning themselves as the daughters, wives, and mothers of the nation, these far-right female influencers invoke a sense of reproductive urgency, as well as advance claims of the perceived threat of, and safety from, hypersexualized Muslim men. This article illustrates how local ideological narratives of Muslim sexuality are embedded into global Islamophobic tropes of gendered nationalist imaginaries. Full article
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21 pages, 327 KiB  
Article
Protecting Buddhist Women from Muslim Men: “Love Jihad” and the Rise of Islamophobia in Myanmar
by Iselin Frydenlund
Religions 2021, 12(12), 1082; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121082 - 8 Dec 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 6482
Abstract
Buddhist protectionism in contemporary Myanmar revolves around fears of the decline of Buddhism and deracination of the amyo (group/“race”). Buddhist protectionists and Burmese nationalists have declared Islam and Muslims the greatest threat to race and religion, and Myanmar has witnessed widespread distribution of [...] Read more.
Buddhist protectionism in contemporary Myanmar revolves around fears of the decline of Buddhism and deracination of the amyo (group/“race”). Buddhist protectionists and Burmese nationalists have declared Islam and Muslims the greatest threat to race and religion, and Myanmar has witnessed widespread distribution of anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim content, as well as massive violence against Muslim minority communities, the Rohingya in particular. The Indian neologism “Love Jihad” has scarce reference in contemporary Burmese Buddhist discourses, but, importantly, the tropes of aggressive male Muslim sexuality and (forced) conversion through marriage (“love jihad”) have been one of the core issues in Buddhist protectionism in Myanmar. The article shows that such tropes of the threatening foreign male have strong historical legacies in Myanmar, going back to colonial Burma when Burmese concerns over Indian male immigrant workers resulted in both anti-Indian violence and anti-miscegenation laws. Importantly, however, compared to colonial Indophobia and military era xenophobic nationalism, contemporary constructions are informed by new political realities and global forces, which have changed Buddhist protectionist imaginaries of gender and sexuality in important ways. Building on Sara R. Farris’ concept of “femonationalism”, and Rogers Brubaker’s concept of civilizationism, the article shows how Global Islamophobia, as well as global discourses on women’s rights and religious freedom, have informed Buddhist protectionism beyond ethnonationalism in the traditional sense. Full article
16 pages, 315 KiB  
Article
The Securitization of Love Jihad
by Andrea Malji and Syed Tahseen Raza
Religions 2021, 12(12), 1074; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121074 - 3 Dec 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 21938
Abstract
The concept of ‘love jihad’ has typically been studied within the context of feminism, nationalism, or religion. However, a singular approach fails to recognize the interconnected impact that each of these has on the development of India’s security policies. This article analyzes how [...] Read more.
The concept of ‘love jihad’ has typically been studied within the context of feminism, nationalism, or religion. However, a singular approach fails to recognize the interconnected impact that each of these has on the development of India’s security policies. This article analyzes how the archetype of the dangerous Muslim male is used to shape India’s securitization strategies. This paper argues that these policies reflect Hindu paranoia of decreasing dominance vis à vis Muslims. This will be explored within three contexts. First, it explores how the perceived threat of an increasing Muslim population shapes state-level and national policies. Second, it explores how the threat of love jihad has shaped India’s policies with its borders and neighboring countries. Third, it examines the international impact of the securitization of love jihad. This paper will demonstrate that at the foundation of these policies is a fear of Muslims strategizing to increase their population via intermarriage and migration. The perceived threat of love jihad has been increasingly utilized as a Hindutva campaign tactic to promote fear and create support for increased securitization policies both domestically and internationally. Full article
18 pages, 298 KiB  
Article
Love Jihad and the Governance of Gender and Intimacy in Hindu Nationalist Statecraft
by Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Alf Gunvald Nilsen
Religions 2021, 12(12), 1068; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121068 - 2 Dec 2021
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 7841
Abstract
What role does the Islamophobic theory of “love jihad” play in the politics of Hindu nationalist statecraft—the legal codification of Hindu nationalist ideology—in India today? In this article, we address this question through a critical analysis of how the idea of “love jihad” [...] Read more.
What role does the Islamophobic theory of “love jihad” play in the politics of Hindu nationalist statecraft—the legal codification of Hindu nationalist ideology—in India today? In this article, we address this question through a critical analysis of how the idea of “love jihad” relate to both (a) a conservative politics of governing gender and intimacy in which women are constituted as subjects of protection and (b) an authoritarian populism grounded in a foundational opposition between true Indians and their anti-national enemies within. The article begins by exploring how “love jihad” has transformed from an idea that was used to legitimize extra-legal violence by Hindu nationalist vigilantes to the status of law, with a particular focus on the BJP-ruled state of Uttar Pradesh. We then situate the “love jihad” laws in relation to a regime of gender governance that constitutes women as subjects of protection - and specifically protection by state and nation—and discuss how this resonates with a pervasive patriarchal common sense in Indian society. Finally, we show how “love jihad” laws and the wider conservative politics of gender and intimacy within which it is embedded feeds into the authoritarian politics of the Modi regime, in which Muslims are consistently portrayed as enemies of the Indian nation, and reflect on what this entails for the country’s secular political order. Full article
23 pages, 387 KiB  
Article
Sound Biting Conspiracy: From India with “Love Jihad”
by Kathinka Frøystad
Religions 2021, 12(12), 1064; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121064 - 1 Dec 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 8177
Abstract
Since 2013, India has seen a remarkable growth of a conspiracy theory known as “love jihad”, which holds that Muslim men conspire to lure Hindu women for marriage to alter India’s religious demography as part of a political takeover strategy. While earlier scholarship [...] Read more.
Since 2013, India has seen a remarkable growth of a conspiracy theory known as “love jihad”, which holds that Muslim men conspire to lure Hindu women for marriage to alter India’s religious demography as part of a political takeover strategy. While earlier scholarship on “love jihad” emphasizes the Hindu nationalist propagation of this conspiracy theory, this article pays equal attention to its appeal among conservative Hindus. Making its point of departure in the generative effects of speech, it argues that the “love jihad” neologism performs two logical operations simultaneously. Firstly, it fuses the long-standing Hindu anxiety about daughters marrying against their parents’ will, with the equally long-standing anxiety about unfavorable religious demographic trends. Secondly, it attributes a sinister political takeover intent to every Muslim man who casts his eyes on a young Hindu woman. To bring out these points, this article pays equal empirical attention to marriage and kinship practices as to the genealogy of, and forerunners to, the “love jihad” neologism, and develops the concept of “sound biting” to bring out its meaning-making effect. Full article
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