In 1997, Britain’s Runnymede Trust published a study that labeled Islamophobia as a form of racism that is somewhat analogous to antisemitism. Even so, Islamophobia as racism was not central to the report’s analysis. Twenty years later, the Runnymede Trust published an updated study, this time with a definition of Islamophobia as “anti-Muslim racism” and a request that the British government adopt this particular definition as it develops policies to combat Islamophobia. Even a cursory reading of the 2017 report makes it clear that racism is central to its analysis. It’s arguably one of the most significant changes in the Runnymede Trust’s thinking about Islamophobia since the publication of its original 1997 report.
This push in more recent years to more clearly label and define Islamophobia as racism has benefitted from the efforts of sociologists, anthropologists, and legal and religious studies scholars, among others, to shed light on the particular ways that Muslims and those perceived as Muslims are racialized, and how this racialization leads to discriminatory and violent policies and practices, at the individual and state levels. These efforts, moreover, are not confined to Europe. Scholars in the United States are also drawing attention to the close links between Islamophobia and racism, often times in very public ways. The #IslamophobiaIsRacism syllabus project is a notable example of this trend.