The 1997 Runnymeade Trust report institutionalized ‘Islamophobia’ as a category in British discourse

Evidence

The landmark Runnymeade Trust report ”Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All,” published in 1997, is credited with institutionalizing the concept of ”Islamophobia” in British discourse by conflating it with discrimination against Islam and religion and Muslims as a group. Although I am critical of this approach because it does not e√ectively define anti–Muslim racism, this was the culmination of important antiracist work in the U.K. and across Europe that was far ahead of the U.S. The report’s use of ”Islamophobia” to gloss a number of forms of systematic oppression as a singular concept also clearly mirrors the development of the term anti–Semitism. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 909

Categorization

• XREF: The parallel drawn to anti-Semitism’s coinage is a connection point to scholarship on moral panics and discourse categories. — connects to: The term Islamophobia originated in a 1991 Runnymede Trust report
• SEED: Potential essay: how a single report’s terminological choice (Islamophobia vs. anti-Muslim racism) shaped an entire field’s framing, mirroring how anti-Semitism was coined.