Hi,
Being a Muslim and a leftist, I have noticed a certain trend among leftists that has sort of pushed me away from leftist spaces. In fact, I'm expecting to get downvoted and for people to just ignore what I'm saying entirely because of my experiences. The problem I'm talking about is Islamophobia among leftists and how it looks different than Islamophobia on the right. To clarify some things, Islamophobia is not the same thing as criticizing Islam or its holy texts, it's defined pretty clearly and I imagine this isn't a new concept to most people here so I will proceed with my point. On the right we often see Islamophobia represented in a more blatant way, they misread texts and religious literature to justify their own fixed view of Islam and the dehumanization of Muslims. The left also suffers from Islamophobia but in a different framing, oftentimes it looks like "I respect your freedom but I hate your way of life" or "I think your beliefs are innately harmful and condones (insert X bigoted belief)" as if Islam is a centralized monolith with no differing opinions. I myself come from a mainstream Sunni Islam background, you might take from that me being homophobic or misogynistic, but me being a Sunni Muslim tells you very little about what I actually believe, and those assumptions are an example of the Islamophobia I am talking about. You might assume my beliefs and way of life is barbaric or cannot align with progressive ideals. That's generalizing and that is where ignorance begins. I do not intend to undermine things like homophobia that's prevalent among many Muslims, but inversely, the prevalence of homosexuality in the Islamic world of the modern day should be a massive indicator of how divided Muslims actually are on that example. The broader point is that there is too much diversity of thought amongst Muslims and even within mainstream Islam to assume that Muslims have think in this dogmatic and oppressive view. So when I frequent leftist spaces with an ex Muslim, atheist, Jew, etc. I often find myself having to clarify that I'm not a warmongering homophobe who is coming to wage war on everyone's freedoms and make women wear the hijab. That is wrong no matter what. Even if people have trauma attached to religious extremism or things done in the name of religion, it is wrong to expect me to answer for those things simply because I am Muslim. It is wrong to expect me to have to defend verses of the Quran you claim condone bigotry, when me and most Muslims I know don't interpret them that way nor do they practice a non inclusive way of life because of their religion. None of my friends are bigoted or even have mildly bigoted views (I don't tolerate that). Some of these friends I'm referencing are Salafi (if you don't know what that is, they're very strict fundamentalist Muslims). On the point of holy texts, I think it should be stated that simply reading the Quran and holy texts won't bring you to a very coherent model of Islam (or at least how it looks in the modern day) at all. It's important to bring up because oftentimes people bring Quran verses to Muslims yelling about bigotry, without knowing the relevance of those verses to our practice and values. This discussion goes much deeper, but the lesson of the day is to never view people's beliefs with an accusatory lense. It is ignorant, harmful, and unfair to those Muslims who largely do align with what you believe.
Edit: because white leftists have continually proved my point in the comments, I am going to just stop replying. I wanted to bring an important discussion up, but it seems like racists and bigots find their way into every space regardless. My openness and acceptance towards all people remains the same. I'm a leftist Muslim, but I'm gonna just stay in exclusively black and Muslim leftist spaces from now on because the propaganda and systemic issues that we face are clearly being fueled by people who call themselves leftists, but are in my comments showing what they really are.