Islamophobia is prejudice against Islam or Muslims. The term seems to date back to the 1980s but came into common usage after the September 11 2001 attacks in the United States. In 1997 the British Runnymede Trust defined Islamophobia as the dread or hatred of Islam and therefore to the fear and dislike of all Muslims stating that it also refers to the practice of discriminating against Muslims by excluding them from the economic social and public life of the nation. It includes the perception that Islam has no values in common with other cultures is inferior to the West and is a violent political ideology rather than a religion. Professor Anne Sophie Roald writes that steps were taken toward official acceptance of the term in January 2001 at the Stockholm International Forum on Combating Intolerance where Islamophobia was recognized as a form of intolerance alongside Xenophobia and Antisemitism. See Less
