When a Muslim woman is murdered in Europe, it rarely makes headline news. For example, I only learned about the killing of 26-year-old Rahma Ayad, an Algerian nurse living and working in Germany, through a social justice Instagram account, not through mainstream media. On the morning of July 4, Ayad was stabbed to death by a German man who lived in her building.

When I tried to find out more information, only TRT World and a couple of other pan-Arab news outlets had reported on this monstrous crime. Despite the severity of the crime, mainstream European media largely ignored the case.

Many Arabs and Muslims living in Europe will be following closely to see what the German authorities do next.

Will they openly recognise the racially and religiously motivated nature of this homicide? Ayad’s family has said the 31-year-old suspect had been harassing her in the lead-up to her murder, including verbal abuse regarding her hijab and Arab origin.

As is often the case when white men commit murder, will Western media excuse the killer by attributing his actions to mental illness? A 2018 US study found that 95 percent of white mass shooters were more likely to be portrayed sympathetically and described as mentally ill compared to Black shooters. As one protester put it during a rally near Ayad’s home, speaking to Al Araby TV: “If the killer had been a Muslim and the victim German, this would be headline news everywhere.”

The truth is, Germany has a serious Islamophobia problem and it is already costing visibly Muslim women like Rahma Ayad their lives. CLAIM, a German alliance monitoring anti-Muslim hate crimes, recently reported a 60 percent increase in incidents, with an average of eight incidents a day throughout 2024.

Not the first

This is not the first time that a Muslim woman in Germany has been murdered for wearing the hijab.

In 2009, 31-year-old Marwa El-Sherbini was stabbed to death inside a German courtroom by the very man she was testifying against for making offensive comments about her faith and her hijab. In her native Egypt she became known as the “hijab martyr”. Her case sparked outrage across the Arab world and among Muslims globally due to the stark media silence in Europe.

Since the horrific far-right shootings at two shisha bars in Hanau in 2020, which claimed the lives of nine Muslims, anti-Muslim hate incidents in Germany have been on the rise. In 2022, the organisation CLAIM recorded 898 such incidents—up from the 732 reported by the German Ministry of the Interior in 2021. That number nearly doubled to 1,926 in 2023 and surged to 3,080 in 2024. This sharp increase, particularly between 2022 and 2024, has been linked to the events of October 7, 2023.

This upward trend also corresponds with the growth of far-right political parties such as the AfD, Germany’s second-largest party, which openly declares that Islam is alien to the country and that the hijab and niqab do not belong in Germany. 

At the end of 2023, former German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser admitted that the country had an Islamophobia problem and said every second person in Germany agreed with anti-Muslim statements.

German Muslims say that Islamophobia is a daily occurrence and politicians openly express anti-Muslim views both within state parliaments and the Bundestag. 

The biggest culprits are Germany’s far-right MPs, such as AfD Deputy Leader and member of the Bundestag Beatrix von Storch, who once called Muslim immigrants “barbaric, gang-raping hordes of Muslim men.”

When Islamophobia is propagated by elected politicians, is it any wonder that German men feel emboldened to murder Muslim women, or that the murder of Ayad has been so underreported and received such little sympathy outside of Arab and Muslim communities?

The hijab as a target

Hijab-wearing Muslim women, who are the most visible in their “Muslimness” suffer the brunt of anti-Muslim hate crime in Germany. CLAIM recently reported that 71 percent of anti-Muslim incidents in 2024 were against Muslim women, in particular those wearing the hijab. 

Anti-Muslim hate crimes in Germany are also becoming more violent - last year the alliance documented two murders, three attempted murders or serious injuries and 198 cases of bodily harm. Last year, one Muslim woman in Berlin was pushed onto train tracks after being asked if she belonged to Hamas. CLAIM says German authorities often overlook anti-Muslim hate crime incidents.

What is worrying is that Muslim women in Germany are seldom recognised as victims. Instead, they are frequently framed as the problem, reinforcing a cycle of victim-blaming. 

At a societal level, the hijab is perceived as a threat to the country’s social order and homogenous culture. Germans see it at odds with their culture. It has become a visible and symbolic reminder of Germany’s anti-immigration, anti-refugee sentiment. In Ayad’s case, her hijab became a visible target marking her for hate.

On a legal level, Germany’s stance on the hijab is very confusing. The country’s judicial system seems to be constantly to-ing and fro-ing over hijab bans, with laws surrounding “neutrality” enabling employers to ban Muslim employees from wearing the hijab in some instances and not in others, and with some state professions having the hijab ban lifted, like school teachers, and others still having it in place, such as judges.

As Germany is a federal republic, hijab bans differ from state to state, but one thing is clear – since the late ‘90s, there have been multiple attempts at both individual state and federal levels to ban the hijab.

In a country that views the Muslim woman as the problem and not the victim, I wonder how Ayad’s murder will be perceived by the German government. Will they perceive her murderer as the problem or the hijab? 

For years, countries in the EU such as France, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Luxembourg and Germany, have been trying to use every excuse in the playbook to exert nationwide hijab bans, from asserting bans will eradicate oppression against Muslim women forced to wear it, to suggesting that bans will ensure the safety of the public-at-large.

I would not put it past a European country like Germany to assert a hijab ban would keep Muslim women safe from violence, even though that violence is being perpetrated by white German men.

How Ayad’s killer is trialled and sentenced by German courts and portrayed by domestic and international media will be very telling. 

Will German courts recognise her murder for what it is – the highest level of anti-Muslim hate crime? And will Chancellor Friedrich Merz make a statement about the country’s commitment to tackling rising anti-Muslim sentiments? Or will Ayad’s death be brushed under the carpet and quickly forgotten, while German politicians continue with their rhetoric of the Muslim threat?

Only time will tell whether justice will be served, or whether Ayad’s death will become yet another forgotten statistic in Germany’s growing Islamophobia crisis.