The term Islamophobia is widely used to capture the anti-Muslim sentiments that have been on the rise since 9/11. But Islamophobia has not always been understood as a form of racism. Runnymede Trust defined the term in 1997 as a “fear of Islam” (Richardson 1997). Since 9/11, there has been a spike in studies on Islamophobia, with the majority of them treating Islamophobia and racism as distinct concepts (Garner and Selod 2015), but in the last few years, there has been a growing body of scholarship that situates Islamophobia as having everything to do with race and racism of Muslims (Meer and Modood 2010; Meer 2013; Tyrer 2013; Garner and Selod 2015; Love 2017).

DEFINE: Clarifies the original 1997 Runnymede Trust definition of Islamophobia as 'fear of Islam' and traces its evolution into a racial concept.

Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, loc. 459