Let's call it what it is: Islamophobia, not 'anti-Muslim hate'

The British Labour Party has reportedly abandoned its 2019 definition of Islamophobia, opting instead for a new formulation centred on “anti-Muslim hate”.

According to a report in the Telegraph, the revised wording, yet to be officially released by the government, omits all references to “Islamophobia”. 

The earlier definition, developed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims and widely endorsed by the Muslim Council of Britain, numerous civil society organisations and experts, characterised Islamophobia as “a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”.

The new draft, replacing the term “Islamophobia” with the alternative “anti-Muslim hatred”, makes a distinction that is not merely linguistic, but politically and globally consequential. 

Terminology determines whether discrimination is approached as an issue of individual prejudice, or as a manifestation of systemic, racialised power embedded in national and international structures. 

The term Islamophobia has grown out of decades of advocacy, scholarship and lived experience among Muslim communities. It names a reality that victims themselves recognise; a reality that connects their everyday encounters of suspicion, exclusion and violence to wider systems of power.

The proposed shift would erase that recognition, denying Muslims the political language through which they have made their experiences visible and credible. In comparable cases, such as antisemitism and anti-Black racism, the importance of naming has long been accepted. 

I contacted the Labour Party for a response and was subsequently advised to direct my enquiry to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). However, no response was received from either party.

Structural phenomenon

These other terms are not routinely questioned, replaced or redefined by government committees. Indeed, shortly before his election as British prime minister, Keir Starmer had no qualms using the term “Hinduphobia” in addressing the concerns of the British Hindu community. 

To strip the term Islamophobia of legitimacy would be to treat Muslim suffering as somehow exceptional - as something still up for debate, rather than something the world already knows how to name.

The term “anti-Muslim hatred” individualises what is in fact a structural and collective phenomenon. It frames hostility towards Muslims by limiting it to moral or psychological terms, as an expression of intolerance or bias that can be remedied through education or hate-crime interventions.

Using the term Islamophobia exposes how discrimination is embedded not at the margins of the state, but within its core practices of governance

This depoliticised framing isolates anti-Muslim racism from its institutional and ideological roots, confining responses to the realm of interpersonal civility and policing, rather than addressing systemic injustice. By locating the problem in individual emotion rather than in the political and structural constitution of Muslim marginalisation, the revised term ultimately obscures the operation of power.

Islamophobia captures how Muslims are racialised; imagined as a distinct and inferior civilisational category. This framing allows for the recognition of Islamophobia as a form of racialised governance, in which Muslims are managed, surveilled and disciplined through political, media and bureaucratic institutions. 

Scholarship over the years has repeatedly demonstrated that Islamophobia functions analogously to other forms of racism; it regulates belonging and exclusion, producing Muslims as a suspect category incompatible with alleged British values.

The distinction between the two terms also has significant political implications. The notion of anti-Muslim hatred restricts attention to hate crimes and community cohesion programmes, while Islamophobia demands engagement with institutional complicity and structural racism. 

The latter directs analysis towards state policies, such as Prevent and other counterterrorism strategies that normalise suspicion of Muslim populations. Using the term Islamophobia exposes how discrimination is embedded not at the margins of the state, but within its core practices of governance.

International resonance

Islamophobia operates as a global formation of power that produces Muslims as racialised subjects across diverse geographies, from immigration regimes in Europe to security policies in Asia and North America. This shared language of suspicion and control has been tragically exemplified in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, where the dehumanisation of Palestinians relies on Islamophobic tropes, casting Muslim mobilisations as fanaticism and Muslim lives as disposable. 

The Gaza genocide thus reveals the global reach of Islamophobia; it is not merely a cultural prejudice, but a political rationale that legitimises the mass suffering of Muslim populations under the banner of security, civilisation or self-defence.

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Finally, the term Islamophobia has achieved broad international recognition, having been adopted by the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and major human rights and civil society groups around the globe. 

In contrast, the term “anti-Muslim hatred” lacks such international resonance or conceptual rigour. Its institutional adoption would thus represent not a neutral linguistic adjustment, but a symbolic and political regression with regards to both the global consensus, and the intellectual and activist labour that has made visible the systemic nature of Islamophobia. 

In sum, Islamophobia is a more rigorous and globally recognised concept that encapsulates the structural, ideological and transnational dynamics of anti-Muslim racism, while “anti-Muslim hatred” reduces these dynamics to questions of personal sentiment. 

The choice of terminology is therefore not merely linguistic, but profoundly political, as it defines whether Muslim suffering is understood as incidental prejudice or a feature of the modern global system.

Language is never just about words; it is about whose reality counts. To call out Islamophobia is to see the full picture, from the classroom to the newsroom, from the UK borders to Gaza. Replacing this term after decades of activism and recognition would not be neutral; it would be erasure at the highest levels.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.