When a 48-year-old man rammed a van into a crowd near a London mosque on Monday morning, controversy quickly erupted over whether the attack would be treated as less significant than others because it was committed against Muslims but not by them.

Such debates have typically played out over whether anti-Muslim violence is labeled terrorism. Though Monday’s attack appears to fit scholarly and legal definitions for terrorism, past incidents have been called hate crimes or attributed to disturbed loners with far-right leanings but no real agenda.

Prime Minister Theresa May called the attack terrorism. But debate has continued, suggesting it is about more than labels, but a suspicion that society grants greater importance to non-Muslim than Muslim victims and to Islamist than far-right or other threats.

Description With Deeper Meaning

These debates have raged since 2015, when the rise of attacks by the Islamic State coincided with an uptick in violence against Muslims in the United States and Europe.