Mehdi Hasan Exposed: His Exaggerations of Muslim Victimhood Distorts History From Slave Trade to the Present

Mehdi Hasan, a self-proclaimed advocate for Muslim rights, distorts history to paint Muslims as perennial victims, particularly in his claims about the slave trade. Born in 1979 in Swindon, England, to an engineer father and doctor mother, Hasan enjoyed a privileged upbringing, far removed from the oppression he champions. Yet his decades-long narrative, first in the UK at Channel 4 and Al Jazeera, then in America, exaggerates Muslim victimhood, often at the expense of historical truth. This is not advocacy but propaganda, driven by either psychological pathology or ulterior motives. 

The Muslim world deserves better representatives—figures like Malala Yousafzai, who after surviving a Taliban attack, advocates globally for girls’ education; Amina Wadud, an American scholar whose inclusive Islamic scholarship promotes gender equality and progressive theology; or Zainab Salbi, an Iraqi humanitarian whose Women for Women International empowers female survivors of war with dignity and practical support—not a sensationalist like Hasan, whose dishonesty stains the faith. 

Hasan’s bigotry surfaced early. In a 2009 sermon, he declared, “The kuffar, the disbelievers, the atheists who remain deaf and stubborn to the teachings of Islam, the rational message of the Quran; they are described in the Quran as a people of no intelligence or understanding, who behave like animals, bending any rule to fulfill any desire.” That same year, he stated, “Homosexuality is considered a sin and is a transgression against the limits set by Allah,” per resurfaced footage. These views, exposed in 2019, clash with his progressive posturing. His apology, labelling the remarks “dumb” and “offensive,” feels insincere, as his contempt for ‘infidels’ reveals a supremacist core.

His career as a spokesperson for the Muslim world took root in the UK. At Channel 4 and Al Jazeera, Hasan honed his craft, framing Britain’s Muslims as oppressed despite their rising socioeconomic status. In a 2011 debate, he exaggerated anti-Muslim hate crimes, citing “thousands” of incidents while Home Office data reported 1,200 in 2010, most non-violent. His selective framing ignored Muslim integration: UK Muslims own 10% of small businesses despite being 5% of the population. Moving to America in 2015, he amplified his victimhood narrative. His 2020 claim that “Islamophobia is worse than ever” ignored FBI data showing 127 anti-Muslim assaults in 2016, a fraction of 7,173 total hate crimes. 

His career as a spokesperson for the Muslim world took root in the UK. At Channel 4 and Al Jazeera, Hasan honed his craft, framing Britain’s Muslims as oppressed despite their rising socioeconomic status.

In 2018, he falsely asserted that “white supremacy” caused the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, omitting the shooter’s explicit anti-Semitic motives. Hasan’s cherrypicked outrage sidesteps Islamic fundamentalism while amplifying other bigotries. In 2013, he downplayed the Boston Marathon bombing’s religious motivations, blaming “American foreign policy,” yet in 2021, he condemned “white Christian nationalism” for Capitol riots without nuance.

Hasan’s liberties with truth are glaring. In October 2025, during an X spat with Matt Walsh, he claimed, “One in three of the slaves who built this country were Muslims”. Walsh clapped back, saying “Every Muslim country on the planet had slavery for exponentially longer and relied on it exponentially more than the USA ever did. The Arab slave trade, spanning 1,400 years from the 7th century to the 20th, trafficked up to 17 million Africans, dwarfing the Atlantic trade’s duration and scale. Which is why Western countries had to shut down the Arab slave trade by force.”

Historians, per Harvard Divinity School, estimate only 15-20% of enslaved Africans were Muslim. This exaggeration inflates Islam’s role in America’s Christian founding while ignoring the 1,400-year Arab slave trade, which enslaved up to 17 million Africans since the 7th century, per Justin Marozzi’s 2025 study *Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World*. Marozzi details how Arab Muslims inherited pre-Islamic slaving traditions, raiding African communities in brutal razzias, marching millions across the Sahara, castrating boys en masse, and enslaving women as concubines. The trade’s brutality, including 60% mortality rates for castrated males, and its longevity dwarfed the Atlantic version. Chattel slavery persists in Muslim nations: Mauritania’s 90,000 hereditary slaves defy its 1981 ban; Niger’s markets auction humans; Mali and Gulf states harbor similar practices. Hasan’s whitewashing erases this legacy, falsely casting Muslims solely as victims when they were often perpetrators.

His obsession with Muslim victimhood suggests psychological issues. A *Frontiers in Psychology* (2020) study, titled “The Dark Side of Victimhood: A Systematic Review of the Psychological Correlates of Victimhood,” explores pathological victimhood as a psychological construct tied to narcissistic entitlement, low self-esteem, and a need for social validation. Authors Gabay et al. describe it as a cognitive bias where individuals or groups exaggerate perceived injustices to gain moral authority, manipulate narratives, or deflect accountability. This mindset often manifests in selective outrage, hypersensitivity to slights, and a tendency to frame oneself as perpetually oppressed, even in the absence of evidence. 

For Hasan, this aligns with his relentless portrayal of Muslims as oppressed—despite their socioeconomic success—suggesting a drive for relevance through grievance or a calculated effort to shape public perception for ulterior motives. Hasan’s persecution complex, portraying Muslims as oppressed despite their $70,000 median household income (above the U.S. average) and 31% college graduation rate (double the norm), fits this pattern. 

Hasan’s falsehoods about the slave trade misrepresent history and inflame tensions. His selective outrage ignores the Muslim world’s complex past, prioritizing sensationalism over facts. Authentic Muslim voices, grounded in truth and constructive dialogue, must rise to counter his propaganda and restore integrity to the discourse.

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Vikram Zutshi is an American journalist and filmmaker specializing in religion, art, history, politics and culture.