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Osama Bin Laden is dead, but Islamophobia in the US is still at a peak. Who fuels the hostilities and what is the reality of being Muslim in America?

Ding-dong the witch is dead - but the spell it cast is still causing chills. The fear of Islam and Muslims in the post-Osama era is alive and kicking."There is this stigma, there is this bias, conscious and unconscious, about Muslims, and xenophobia is at its height in the United States. Muslims are definitely targeted, just because of who they are," said Aisha al-Adawiya, founder and chair of Women in Islam.One of the latest targets of discrimination is a 61-year-old Imam.Amin Abdul Latif was recently pulled off an airplane together with his son - also an Imam. Despite having passed through all the security checks the pair was yanked from their flight without explanation."I've never experienced anything like that before - that level of humiliation and disrespect. Never in my life! As an American citizen, you expect more," said the Imam. The irony - the Brooklyn mosque leader was headed to a conference on Islamophobia."The whole idea of freedom of religion - that's what we pride ourselves over. As Americans, we pride ourselves! Now, we can't take pride no more. You single out a group of people because they have a different faith than you. This is just horrible," said Imam Al Amin Abdul Latif.While some say airport authorities can do all it takes in the name of security, others are done looking for excuses - and recognize religious profiling when they see it.Amin Abdul Latif was one of 4 Imams headed to the anti-prejudice conference that day ejected from their flights."There was no security issue, there was no safety issue, case and point - it was discrimination based on their race and their religion, and that's unacceptable," said attorney Mo Idlibi in Charlotte, North Carolina.As some Americans celebrated the death of bin Laden, the Muslim community in the US hoped for an end to the fear and distrust directed at them, as well as the pressure on Muslims to prove themselves as loyal and patriotic Americans."We don't need to prove ourselves. There are more than 8,000 Muslims in the armed forces. And Muslims have been contributing a lot to this society. And this is my country," said Zaheer Uddin, Executive Director of the Islamic Leadership Council in New York. Some say until those in power re-define the war on terror, the bias against Muslims will remain."That's not going to stop until we have some policy shift, so that Muslims are not targeted, and Islam is not the bogeyman of the 21st century, and with the war on terror it has no end in sight," said al-Adawiya.Others blame conservative media for fueling the hostilities."FOX TV is in the forefront to mobilize these bigots and Islamophobia, basically," said Zaheer Uddin.The media's message seems to be reaching the policy makers in more than 15 states across America where laws banning Sharia - the legal code of Islam that some observant Muslims choose to follow - is being pushed through."If you are practicing any form of Sunni Sslam and obeying its religious laws, and doing it not just alone but with a partner, that means that you are forming a Sharia organization, and therefore it can be prosecuted, and pay a fine and spend up to fifteen years in jail," said journalist Ali Gharib in Washington DC. All this, many say, is based on ignorance and a fear of the unknown."Americans need to gradually meet Muslims. They need to have some kind of contact with this culture," said contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine, investigative journalist and author Matt Taibbi.About 7 million Muslims live in the US, making up a significant part of a country still impacted by the number one terrorist even after his death. As the poster boy of evil post 9/11 is gone, Islamophobia remains and could be well on its way to becoming a permanent stain on the United States human rights record.Imam Abdul Ali Musa, the director of Masjid Al-Islam Mosque in Washington, DC said incidents of discrimination are a sign that anti-Muslim sentiment remains and may be increasing across America. He explained the Imams stopped on the plane are very moderate Imams, more moderate than Musa himself. "Every time I get on a plane I have 'SSSS' on my ticket," he said. "Pulled aside, searched when I go through the machine and special screening. Then after you get to the gate there's another." The global Islamic movement has grown and developed. As it expanded, even peacefully, enemies of Islam have used every excuse to target Islam. "I believe the Muslims today are treated the same way Jews were treated in Nazi Germany," Musa said. "This country right now, to Muslims, is what we said it was 15 years ago, a constitutional dictatorship."

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Muslims kicked off planes - Islamophobia at a peak?

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Osama Bin Laden is dead, but Islamophobia in the US is still at a peak. Who fuels the hostilities and what is the reality of being Muslim in America?

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Growing Islamophobia in the United States | CNN

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CNN's Polo Sandoval reports on an uptick in anti-Muslim incidents in the United States.

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ANAHEIM, Calif. (Reuters) - Muslim Americans responded with a mix of frustration, exasperation and anger to what many see as a growing wave of Islamophobia fueled by two of the Republican Party's most popular presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

At the Islamic Institute of Orange County, which houses a mosque and a school in Anaheim, in southern California, tensions were already mounting since a group of white men screamed at mothers and children arriving at the center on this year's anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, calling them cowards who did not belong in America.

Many of the country's 2.8 million Muslims say such tensions could become uglier during a presidential race that they fear is already tapping a vein of anger and bigotry.

"It's pretty troubling that someone running for president would make those claims," Zuhair Shaath, Palestinian-American, said of Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who on Sunday said Muslims were unfit for the presidency of the United States.

Carson's campaign defended his comments on Monday, saying he was not suggesting a Muslim should be barred from running for president. But his campaign said he would not advocate for that person becoming a leader and would not support it.

Later on Monday, Carson said he "absolutely" stood by his comments but would be open to a moderate Muslim candidate who denounced radical Islamists.

The remarks by Carson, who is near the top of opinion polls for the crowded field of Republican candidates for the 2016 election, followed billionaire Trump's failure to challenge comments made on Friday by a supporter who labeled U.S. President Barack Obama a Muslim.

Trump later clarified his silence, saying he was not obligated to correct an audience member and that "the bigger issue is that Obama is waging a war against Christians in this country. Christians need support in this country. Their religious liberties are at stake."

Some Muslims say they fear that the remarks could strengthen the appeal of Carson and Trump, who have cast themselves as non-politicians in a race in which blunt comments laced with misogyny and xenophobia have done little to derail the popularity of Trump, who is leading in opinion polls of likely Republican voters.

The comments also come after a 14-year-old Muslim boy from Texas was taken away in handcuffs last week for bringing to his Dallas-area school a homemade clock that staff mistook for a bomb. Ahmed Mohamed's arrest sparked allegations of racial profiling and turned his school into an object of online outrage that culminated with Obama inviting Mohamed to the White House.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called on Carson to "withdraw from the presidential race because he is unfit to lead, because his views are inconsistent with the United States Constitution."

In an Anaheim neighborhood known as "Little Arabia", Abdallah Soueidan said the comments will inevitably cause trouble. "They are stirring things up," said Soueidan, 57, who moved from Lebanon 37 years ago.

His 18-year-old son, Radwan - a college volleyball player in jeans and T-shirt - said he reads hate-filled anti-Muslim screeds online all the time. But, referring to Carson, he said: "I don't know how a presidential candidate could say a thing like that. It doesn't sound American at all."

"WE ARE ALSO VOTERS"

While the U.S. Constitution forbids religious tests for those seeking public office, religion and presidential politics have long been a combustible mix.

In 2007, as Republican Mitt Romney campaigned for his party's nomination, he faced fears among Evangelical Christians over his Mormon faith. In 1960, John F. Kennedy stressed the separation of church and state while campaigning to become the country's first Roman Catholic president.

Aicha Fokar, 20, said Carson's comments perpetuated "a really sick stereotype that's been kind of embedding itself in the American culture."

"It discourages young Muslims from standing up for their rights or for being proud about their faith," said the student n Lubbock, Texas. "Everyone's just trying to say things to get as many votes. I don't think they understand what happens to us.

They don't understand that we are also voters."

In Dearborn, a Detroit suburb home to the country's largest Muslim population, Marshal Shameri said Trump should have done more to dispel misconceptions of Islam. But he did not view the comments as an attack on his faith.

"As a candidate, as a businessman, as a man who is running for president, he should have been much, much sharper and clearer in his response and he wasn't," said Shameri, originally from Iraq.

Anti-Muslim tensions have been on display in another Detroit suburb, Sterling Heights, where city officials this month denied an Islamic group's request to develop a mosque in a residential neighborhood. The mosque's backers faced protests and filed a petition on Monday with the U.S. Department of Justice, seeking an investigation into whether their civil rights were violated.

In Kentucky, tensions flared last week when vandals defaced a mosque by spray-painting in bright red the words "Moslems - Leave the Jews Alone," "This is for France" and "Nazis Speak Arabic". Waheed Ahmad, president of the Louisville Islamic Center, played down the vandalism, blaming it on "a bunch of little rascals" who "got drunk or something".

At Texas Tech University, Saba Nafees, 23, saw some irony in Carson's comments.

"What is being portrayed in the media is extremism," she said. "That's what Islam is mistaken for, even though it's not."

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American Muslims fear a new wave of Islamophobia

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Muslim Americans responded with a mix of frustration, exasperation and anger to what many see as a growing wave of Islamophobia fueled by two of the Republican Party's most popular presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

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In the wake of terrorist attacks, the United States shows the worst of its everyday bigotry.

The first Muslims who came to the United States were likely African slaves. Later, in the middle of the 19th century, Muslims emigrated from the territories that would become Syria and Lebanon and settled in places like Ohio and Michigan. They arrived around the same time as many Jews from Eastern Europe, and just a few decades after many Catholics came from Ireland.

And yet, discussions about Muslims in the United States are not the same as most discussions of Catholics or Jews or other religious minorities. It has been a little more than a week since the attacks in Paris, claimed by the Islamic State; it has been two days since attacks in Mali, in which hostages were reportedly asked to recite the Shahada, Islam's testament of faith, in order to be let go. This kind of extreme violence seems to serve as the unspoken backstory for public comments by politicians and articles in the media. Muslims-whether they've been in the U.S. for generations or for just a few years; whether they're white or South Asian or of Arab descent; whether they're practicing or lapsed or somewhere in between-are often considered as a mass, and mostly in relation to terrorism.

This elision has tangible consequences. Donald Trump suggests that all Muslims in the U.S. should be registered, apparently in all seriousness. Congress moves to halt assistance and resettlement for refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq. Communities from Houston to Tampa to Omaha report threats and defacement of mosques. Students experience Islamophobia on their campuses. Passengers refuse to get on flights with people who look Muslim. Ben Carson likens violent extremists to "rabid dogs."

It's easy, and probably politically savvy, to wave away anti-Muslim sentiment with rhetoric about security and radicalization, as almost all the GOP presidential candidates have done. But the backlash against Muslims isn't a temporally limited flare-up, tied only to recent violence and set to die down once the memories of Paris fade. No matter how tightly they wrap themselves in the American flag, Muslims are largely seen as other in the United States-not just now, but all the time.

Changing the way Islam is seen and represented in American culture is difficult, though, particularly because Muslims are often tokenized and twisted into a predictable set of narratives. In the wake of the Paris attacks, for example, the debates followed predictable forms: Is ISIS Islamic, or is it not? Should Muslims push back against extremism more than they have been-a challenge posed not by Republican politicians, but by President Obama?

Even apparently silly examples can sting. "One video that recently popped up that was really problematic for me ... was the BuzzFeed video series, 'I'm Muslim, But...'" said Laila Alawa, one of the co-founders of an opinion and news site called Coming of Faith. In the video, which has gotten more than 30 million views on Facebook, people stand up and say things like, "I'm Muslim, but I'm not a terrorist," or "I'm Muslim, but I love Jews." Alawa said she saw a lot of Muslims sharing the video. "They were excited by a media outlet that was giving them a chance to speak with their voices. But was still in essence silencing every other thing about them. When you're saying 'I'm Muslim, but,' it's like saying, 'I'm a drug dealer, but...'"

This video is a mild, Millennial version of the Muslim public guilting that has come out in waves since the Paris attacks-Muslims performatively identifying and defying the blatant stereotypes about their religion, no matter how little their beliefs or communities or actions resemble one another's. In every version of this performance, whether urgent or relatively anodyne, there is a genuine question. Should shared religious beliefs create a sense of responsibility, such that Muslims are expected to be the loudest voices in publicly protesting Islamist terrorism-especially when those beliefs are only distantly shared, as the vast majority of Muslims loudly deny the Islamic State's interpretation of the Koran?

Alawa says no. "I don't believe in apologizing [for] or condemning the actions of people who are, frankly, pieces of shit who happen to call themselves Muslims," she said. Islam, like most religions, is not centralized and standardized; just because one group draws certain lessons from a set of texts doesn't mean other groups believe and practice anything similar. The beliefs of ISIS are antithetical to American democracy; that does not mean Islam is as well.

"I think that coming out and publishing an apology recognizes that we're not a part of the American diaspora," Alawa said, "and instead tells America that we're still not a part of it."

"I don't believe in apologizing or condemning the actions of people who are, frankly, pieces of shit who happen to call themselves Muslims."

Muslims are fundamentally not American, or need to prove themselves American: This is the latent idea lurking in most calls for Muslims to speak out or do some self-searching or acknowledge that ISIS also draws from Islamic texts. It is the basis for rejecting Muslim refugees, no matter how deftly politicians try to hide behind the excuse of "security." And it is the dog whistle behind rhetoric from Trump, Carson, and others-Americans should fear Muslims, no matter how diverse and radically different from ISIS most members of that group may be.

It is, in a word, bigotry, and while it's clearly visible right now, it is an every day fact of Muslim identity in American life. Alawa is one woman, representing one perspective, who is trying in a small way to make a different public space for Muslims in America. At Coming of Faith, she is amplifying and cultivating a cohort of young, female, mostly minority writers-including a significant number of Muslims who "just happen" to practice Islam. "My devious plan is for us to repackage our name [and] keep growing. People have already forgotten that we started out as mostly Muslim," she said. They will be writers who can choose not to talk about extremism, because it is basically irrelevant to who they are and what they believe.

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The Objectification of Muslims in America

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Calls for collective apologies. Political backlash against refugees. Tacit support for religious-group registries. In the wake of terrorist attacks, the United States shows the worst of its everyday bigotry.

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/ CBS Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Islamophobia may not be a term you are familiar with, but it is something that experts tell us is happening more often in Minnesota and across the country.

It is a hatred or prejudice against someone who is Muslim or practices Islam.

Victims of Islamophobia shared their stories Wednesday with top federal officials in Minneapolis at a panel discussion moderated by WCCO's Esme Murphy.

Four victims who spoke Wednesday cited heated rhetoric in the presidential race, and publicity over terror attacks in Europe, as being partially to blame for the increase in Islamophobia.

Asma Jama was struck in the face with a beer mug at a Coon Rapids Applebee's last fall after speaking Swahili with her family.

"I live in fear every single day that somebody is going to retaliate, and this time it's not going to be a beer mug. It's actually going to end my life," Jama said.

Her attacker was charged with third-degree felony assault.

"But I think that that is just a slap on the wrist for me because of the magnitude of what she did to me," Jama said.

Other panelists talked about incidents of verbal attacks that left them hurt and isolated. Lul Hersi of St. Cloud described the constant stream of insults she and her four children endure.

"My child has to be the victim of other students attacking them," Hersi said.

Haji Yusuf founded an organization called "Unite Cloud" in February to combat the hate.

He posted a photo to Facebook of a Minnesota license plate that read, "FMUSLMS." The post went viral and led to a state review of all vanity plates.

Yusuf called on all Minnesotans to fight Islamophobia.

"These are Minnesotans that you need to speak up and stand up for," Yusuf said.

There was also a call to action from United States Federal Court Judge John Tunheim and U.S. Attorney Andy Luger.

"Islamophobia is going to destroy the social fabric of this state if we don't turn it around," Luger said.

Former Vice President Walter Mondale, who sponsored key civil rights bills in the 1960s, says Minnesota has no choice but to combat the epidemic.

"I think the road is right there for all of us to see," Mondale said. "The future depends on us solving this problem."

Luger announced he is forming a panel of top local attorneys to help combat Islamophobia. He says he wants the attorneys to provide legal services and advice for victims.

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Panel Discussion Focuses On Solutions To Islamophobia

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Victims of Islamophobia and top federal officials gathered in Minneapolis Wednesday morning for a panel discussion aimed at finding solutions.

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Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson's comments on Muslims in US political life made headlines, but scholar Khaled Beydoun says such comments don't happen in a vacuum - but rather are rooted in a legal tradition of suspicion towards Muslims.

Earlier this month, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told US media he would "not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation," in response to a question about whether "Islam is consistent with the Constitution".

Carson's statement galvanised defenders on the extreme right and prompted critical responses spanning from scorn to constitutional critique.

But Carson's statement was neither an isolated nor novel attitude. In June, a poll by Gallup found 38% of Americans would not vote for a "well-qualified" Muslim presidential candidate.

The root of his comments are found both in America's legal history and today's policing of Muslim communities.

"Islamophobia" is what it's called today. But the rising fear, hate and discrimination that currently threatens eight million Muslim Americans stems from a long and established American tradition of branding Islam as un-American, and demonising Muslim bodies as threat.

Denied citizenship

On the morning of 19 April 1995, the Federal Building in Oklahoma City was rocked by a bomb. The domestic terrorist attack killed 168 people and injured 680 more. Minutes after, media reports speculated that "Islamic extremists" or "Arab radicals" were the culprits.

Ninety minutes after the explosions, Timothy McVeigh - a white, Christian male - was arrested and later linked to the attack. There had been no evidence to support the idea Muslims had anything to do with the bombing.

Despite people with similar ideologies to McVeigh were responsible for the majority of domestic terrorist attacks in 1995 - a figure still true today - the legislation that followed the Oklahoma city bombing did not place its focus there.

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) was the beginning of policing of Muslim subjects and communities. One part of this legislation led to the disparate investigation of Muslim American political and social activity, while another led to the deportation of Muslims with links - real or fictive - to terrorist activity.

This policing was broadened and intensified after the 9/11 terrorists attacks. More recently, US Homeland Security's Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programme, as well as political demagoguery, further expands the suspicious focus on Muslims.

Until 1944, American courts used Muslim identity as grounds to deny citizenship. Even Christians perceived to be Muslims or feared to be "of mixed Muslim ancestry" were denied.

One Supreme Court ruling discussed the "[t]he intense hostility of the people of Moslem faith [toward Christian civilization]". Other courts issued rulings based upon the idea there was an inherent menace and threat to American life" posed by Muslims and Islam.

The courts looked beyond the genuine contours of Islam as faith, and mutated it into a political ideology, and most saliently, a homogenous race - instead of a multi-ethnic and multi-racial religion.

From 1790 until 1952 whiteness was a legal prerequisite for naturalised American citizenship. And Islam was viewed as irreconcilable with whiteness.

In a 1913 decision called Ex Parte Mohreiz, the court denied a Lebanese Christian immigrant citizenship because they associated his "dark walnut skin" with "Mohammedanism".

And in 1942, a Muslim immigrant from Yemen was denied citizenship because, writing about "Arabs" the court noted: "it cannot be expected that as a class they would readily intermarry with our population and be assimilated into our civilization."

In this case, the court conflated "Arab" with "Muslim" identity. The courts too believed that such an identity was "inconsistent with the Constitution", and said so in public rulings.

These legal baselines, rooted in old case law, are part of the rhetoric used by both Mr Carson and Donald Trump. But they also form the foundation of a current breed of state-sponsored Islamophobia.

The 'logic' of targeted policing

Fear of Islam is tightly knit into the American fabric, and deeply rooted in its legal, political and popular imagination. Whenever a domestic terrorist attack takes place in America, many quickly turn to tropes of an "Islamic menace" or "violent foreigner". While these tropes have taken on new forms and frames, they are conceptually identical to their predecessors.

Where evidence is lacking, both political rhetoric and national security policing apparatuses will justify their scrutiny of Muslims by using these tropes.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or more recently, the Boston bombings (which spawned CVE policing), proponents of state-sponsored Islamophobia will justify disproportionate policing of Muslim Americans and the communities they live in on the grounds of isolated attacks involving Muslim culprits.

Although Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) statistics show that only 5% of domestic terrorist attacks involve a Muslim culprit, CVE is a programme functionally tailored to prevent and police Muslim Americans.

Steered by the conflation of Islam with national security threat, CVE policing was piloted in Boston, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis - cities with sizable Muslim American communities.

And even before the emergence of CVE, New York Police Department had its own programme of systematic policing and surveillance of Muslim Americans. It was ultimately abandoned because of its brazen violation of civil liberties.

CVE is built upon the same old and embedded stereotypes of Muslims injected into the American psyche centuries ago. Such policing links benign and routine religious, political and social activity with "radicalisation".

Making the Islamophobia dragnet local chills and erodes the constitutionally protected activities of Muslim Americans, and marks them as threats to their neighbours. Suggesting Muslim Americans need to be under special investigation endorses and emboldens the Islamophobic rhetoric among presidential hopefuls.

This combination stirs anti-Muslim fervour on the ground in America. If the state associates Islam with threat, then surely, that will influence political and media perceptions.

Such rising fear and animus toward Muslims ensures that America may not see a Muslim president anytime in its near future. But it does forecast no end to anti-Muslim rhetoric on the campaign trail.
Khaled A Beydoun is an assistant professor at the Barry School of Law and an affiliated professor of the University of California-Berkeley Islamophobia Project.

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Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson's comments on Muslims in US political life made headlines, but scholar Khaled Beydoun says such comments don't happen in a vacuum - but rather are rooted in a legal tradition of suspicion towards Muslims. Earlier this month, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told US media he would "not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation," in response to a question about whether "Islam is consistent with the Constitution".

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http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-moore-open-letter-to-donald-trump-we-are-all-muslim-2015-12

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http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/26/ipso-sun-print-statement-british-muslims-headline

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http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/04/12/3768665/anti-islam-protest-atlanta/

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Trump calls for the surveillance of Muslims on US soil after attacks

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Donald Trump called for the surveillance of Muslims on American soil and advocated the use of waterboarding or more aggressive forms of torture on suspects in terror attacks Tuesday.

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The threat to UMNO posed by M'sia's rising Islamophobia

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Last year, controversial Malaysian blogger Alvin Tan posted an online video of himself doing a rendition of the azan, or Muslim call to prayer - shirtless and playing a keyboard.

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"whosoever kills an innocent human being, it shall be as if he has kill all mankind, and whosoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he saved the life of all mankind" (5:32)

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hellemanworld.blogspot.com

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14publications.com

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Globalresearch.ca

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A woman loses the debate at CNN with a Muslim woman نقاش حول النقاب

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A women loses the debate at CNN with a Muslim women, the debate was about Niqab and women in Islam .

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Professor Reza Aslan on CNN / Does Islam Promote Violence?

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Reza Aslan (Professor, UC Riverside) calls out the media for generalization and bigotry when reporting on Muslims.

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" Why is it that no one within the Muslim community there in France knew what these guys were up to?" CNN anchor John Vause asked Yasser Louati, a French anti-Islamophobia activist.

Louati responded graciously, saying the world's 1.6 billion Muslims should not be held responsible for the actions of a few extremists. "Sir, the Muslim community has nothing to do with these guys -- nothing," he said. "We cannot justify ourselves for the actions of someone who just claims to be Muslim."

Vause dug in his heels, claiming he had "yet to hear the condemnation from the Muslim community on this, but we'll wait and see."

All the CNN anchor would have had to do is search "Muslims condemn Paris attacks" on the Internet to find hundreds of instances of the Islamic community condemning last Friday's deadly terrorist attacks in the French capital, including the social-media campaign #notinmyname.

Media writers like The Washington Post's Erik Wemple and Salon's Jack Mirkinson condemned Vause's astonishing display of ignorance. But far too often, journalists are able to pass off casual bigotry as journalistic inquiry.

It's not just the fear-mongers at Fox News, who exploit terrorist attacks to fuel anti-Muslim hostility with such consistency it's almost not worth commenting on. It's the mainstream media, and while Islamophobia rears its head in print as well as online, it is most pronounced on television.

Make no mistake: When producers dream up panel discussions about whether Islam is a violent religion, they aren't merely "asking the question": they're perpetuating prejudice. Yes, a good percentage of Americans hold this view, but the role of us in the media is to dispel such myths -- not legitimize them. Ultimately, presenting tolerance and bigotry as equally valid sides of a balanced debate only ends up fueling bigotry.

Islamophobia in media coverage follows a predictable cycle. When someone commits an act of random violence and information is scarce, first comes the warrantless speculation.

"Journalists, especially TV journalists, love scoops," says Nathan Lean, a scholar at Georgetown University's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. "So what happens is a lot of them ask leading questions -- they insinuate, infer, hypothesize: 'Could it have been an attack carried out by Al-Qaeda?' Then all of a sudden the conversation is dominated by Al-Qaeda."

This is how NBC's "Today" show ended up running a ludicrous segment on Monday about the possibility of the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, using the PlayStation 4 to plot terrorist attacks. It's how an image of a Sikh man in Canada was doctored using Photoshop, and landed on the front page of La Razón, one of Spain's largest newspapers. It's also how Time magazine falsely reported that Uber had charged four times its normal rate during the Paris attacks.

In the unfortunate event that an attack is terrorism-related and the perpetrator is a radical Islamist, journalists invariably ask , "Why aren't Muslims condemning this?" as CNN's Vause did.

" We still see this expectation that Muslim institutions have to come out and condemn things that you wouldn't expect other groups have to condemn. There's the assumption of collective responsibility," says Corey Saylor, legislative director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group .

"The number one victims of ISIS are Muslims, the notion that somehow we're not fully committed to combatting that twisted ideology is difficult to wrap your mind around," he adds.

In fact, CAIR, like countless other Muslim organizations, strongly condemns terrorism whenever incidents occur -- it has done so more than 100 times. In 2014, the group even signed on to an open letter to ISIS, which was penned by 120 Muslim scholars, that meticulously deconstructed the group's theology.

The vast majority of citizens in Muslim countries hate ISIS as much as any of the flag-waving patriots on Fox News. A recent survey from the Pew Center of 11 countries with substantial Muslim populations shows widespread negative attitudes toward the terrorist group -- in no country did support for ISIS rise above 15 percent. That's a smaller percentage than Americans who believe in UFOs (21 percent), think there's a link between vaccines and autism (20 percent) and deny climate change (37 percent). Strong majorities in most of these countries also support the recent airstrikes against ISIS .

Courtesy of the Pew Research Center

There are many differences within the diverse global community of Muslims, which includes Saudi Arabia -- a U.S. ally and possibly one of the most extremist Islamic regimes on the planet -- as well as secular-progressive Turkey and Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh, all of which have elected female heads of state. The same prejudice that flattens the nuances that exist within the Muslim community blinds journalists when they are faced with the good Muslims do, and blames them for the monstrous acts of a dangerous minority.

"All the good things Muslims are doing get ignored while the barbaric subset of the Muslim world that claims our faith become our spokespeople," Saylor says. The open letter to ISIS was largely ignored by the media, but "if you have one crazy guy in a cave in Afghanistan waving a sword, you can guarantee him several news cycles."

The media's default of erasing distinctions between terrorists and non-terrorists, and between attackers and victims in the Muslim world is why we are currently in the midst of an insane discussion (if you can call it that) about allowing Syrian refugees into the country.

Nearly all of the half-dozen or so suspects involved in the Paris attacks were born and raised in Europe. And yet, based on the discovery of a single Syrian passport found near the body of one of the suicide bombers, our current discourse is revolving around whether we should turn away tens of thousands of innocent, suffering people because one of them might be a terrorist.

Instead of relying on credible sources of expertise on the matter, the mainstream media more often gives pundits, who have limited information but a lot of opinions, a platform to disseminate misinformation. Instead of giving anti-Muslim activist Pam Geller a means of reaching millions of people with her racist rhetoric, why not talk to someone from the Migration Policy Institute, the country's most-authoritative think tank on migration issues?

MPI found in a 2015 report that "the refugee resettlement program is the least likely avenue for a terrorist to choose" to infiltrate the country. The reason is pretty obvious once you get to know even a little about the program: The process of gaining refugee status puts applicants in direct contact with the FBI, and they have to undergo a "painstaking, many-layered review" that takes several years.

"It's not like news organization ask the dumb questions and get them out of the way. We don't get smarter, better, more informed. When terrorism strikes, the campaign of misinformation repeats itself, time and again."

Amplifying ignorance isn't harmless. It's the reason 29 Republican governors and one Democrat have pledged not to accept Syrian refugees, despite the fact that the Constitution they love to brandish forbids them from doing so.

Whether it's CNN's Don Lemon asking a respected Muslim lawyer if he supports ISIS or News Corp. Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch suggesting we should give Christian refugees from Syria first dibs on coming in, the most frustrating thing about media coverage of terrorist attacks is that it doesn't get any better over time. It's not like news organizations ask the dumb questions and get them out of the way. We don't get smarter, better, more informed. When terrorism strikes, the campaign of misinformation repeats itself, time and again.

As journalists, it's our job to know better, and do better.

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Islamophobic Media Coverage Is Out Of Control. It Needs To Stop.

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As journalists, it is our duty to dispel myths and counter misinformation -- not perpetuate them.

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Threats, harassment, vandalism at mosques reach record high | CNN

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American mosques and Islamic centers have been the victims of vandalism, harassment and anti-Muslim bigotry at least 63 times this year.

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Islamophobia: Does America Have a Muslim Problem?

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American Islamophobia: At least six mosque projects across the U.S., not just in New York, have faced bitter opposition this year

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Eric K. Ward, Former Program Officer, Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice

It's clear that there has been a troubling rise in xenophobic political rhetoric, hate speech, and brazen incidents of violence against American Muslim, South Asian, and Arab communities in the United States. In the months following the peak of the Syrian refugee crisis, hate crimes against American Muslims tripled. In recent days, police in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has been investigating the execution-style murders of three young American Muslims.

With demographic anxiety and political rhetoric fueling discrimination and hostility, the Ford Foundation-together with the New York Community Trust, the New York Foundation, and Philanthropy New York-hosted a discussion on "Confronting Islamophobia in America Today." Leaders from the nonprofit, government, social service, and philanthropic sectors came together to discuss the major issues affecting these minority communities, and to strategize about how to advance inclusion. Here are some highlights from the day's conversations.

We're at risk of failing a generation of American Muslims

Participants agreed that discrimination and bigotry are worse for American Muslims today than they were in the months following 9/11. And as Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, stressed, there is now a generation of young American Muslims who don't have any reference to a pre-9/11 America, who only know and experience an America "that doesn't love them, doesn't embrace them, [and] doesn't think they belong here." If the "acceptable bigotry" we're seeing continues-if more Americans don't speak out against Islamophobia, and if policymakers and government continue to fall short in providing support for the community-we will fail this generation of young American Muslims.

Tackling anti-Muslim bigotry can't be the only priority

Typically, we see the needs of American Muslims framed in one of two ways: in terms of national security reform, or anti-Muslim bigotry. Leaders are constantly stamping out prejudice-fueled fires, diverting attention and resources from equally pressing problems facing the community: issues like poverty, illiteracy, and the threat of deportation. Communities need an approach that addresses all of those issues, and resources to help develop the kind of educational and leadership programs that can build resilience amid conflict.

American Muslims' identities are complex, and about more than being Muslim

At a time when most young Americans have the luxury of time to discover who they are, Muslim youth are often presumed to be representing their community, and bear the burden of responsibility that comes with that. Too often, that means other parts of their lives-everything from going to the movies to struggling with poverty-are invisible. "We always have to know what's going on because we constantly need to justify or explain ourselves and our [Muslim] ideologies and beliefs," said Hebh Jamal, a 16 year-old New York City high school student and member of the Arab American Association of New York (AANY). (Jamal was featured in a recent New York Times article on this issue and the psychological, emotional, and social toll of anti-Muslim bigotry on young American Muslims.)

Bigotry has roots in widely accepted policies

While terrorist attacks and global tensions unquestionably incite prejudice, there are other insidious drivers at work-namely, more than a decade of policies that officially sanction the marginalization of American Muslim communities. Official forms of discrimination pervade law enforcement, schools, and immigration policy, institutionalizing a system of bias that makes bigotry against Muslims acceptable in this country. As Fahd Ahmed, executive director of DRUM South Asian Organizing Center, powerfully argued, if the police are "indiscriminate against [American Muslim] communities, how can we expect the public to be any different?"

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How can we fight Islamophobia in America?

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Eric K. Ward, Former Program Officer, Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice It's clear that there has been a troubling rise in xenophobic political rhetoric, hate speech, and brazen incidents of violence against American Muslim, South Asian, and Arab communities in the United States.

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WASHINGTON - Cities across the USA are preparing for the next phase that inevitably follows a terror attack: anti-Muslim backlash.

Across social media, in public forums on college campuses, and even in mainstream political rhetoric from presidential candidates, anger over the deadly terror attacks in Brussels has spawned discontent and suspicion directed at Muslim groups. After the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, leaders in California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and spoke out quickly to dissuade anti-Muslim sentiment.

The aftermath of an attack "is always a difficult time for Muslims in the United States," said Nabil Shaikh, a leader of the Muslim Students Association at Princeton University.

"On Princeton's campus, students took to anonymous forums like Yik Yak to comment that there are Muslims at Princeton who are radical and would therefore condone yesterday's attacks," Shaikh said. "These comments not only are appalling and inaccurate but also threaten the well-being of Muslim students."
One 35-pound bomb in Brussels attack failed to go off; suicide note found
Unlike in Belgium and Paris following the November terror attacks, the backlash in the U.S. is not as confrontational.

Europe has seen occasional anti-Muslim rallies in Flemish cities such as Antwerp and Ghent. Some Muslim leaders have accused police in Europe of overtly targeting Muslim communities in lockdowns and raids of homes.

Muslim communities in the U.S. face opposition more in the form of rhetoric - but in an election year, such rhetoric can lead to sweeping change.

The day of the Brussels attack, Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz said that the U.S. needs to "empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized." His comments struck an already raw nerve in Muslim communities throughout the U.S. although Donald Trump praised Cruz's idea.

President Obama called the approach "wrong and un-American."

"I just left a country that engages in that kind of surveillance, which by the way the father of Senator Cruz escaped, to America, the land of the free," he said, referring to Cuba.

Politics plays a role in fostering anti-Islamic sentiment, said Khusro Elley of Chappaqua, N.Y., a trustee at Upper Westchester Muslim Society in Thornwood, N.Y.
Reports: Paris bombmaker one of two suicide bombers at Brussels airport
"The average Muslim still feels intimidated, still feels scared, still feels insecure," especially in a political climate where it's become common to depict Muslims as terrorists, he said.

While brutal attacks on Muslims in the United States haven't been reported to the Council on American-Islamic Relations since the Brussels attack, bullying and hate speech are growing, said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based civil-liberties group.

"For girls, it's pulling on the hijab and calling them terrorists, and for boys it's saying that they have a bomb in their backpack and calling them terrorists," Hooper said. Some politicians make the problems worse. "They really have mainstreamed Islamophobia."
Brussels terror attacks: What we know now
Children hear the hate speech on TV and hear their parents agreeing with it, he said. Increasingly, they're taking the language to school.

In Louisville, more than two dozen Islamic leaders gathered Wednesday to condemn the attacks and urge the public not to link all Muslims with terrorism, describing a growing level of Islamophobia.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, a Democrat, called some Republican political candidates' responses in wake of the Brussels attack "naive and unrealistic."

"For them to play to people's basest fears" to gain political support is "contrary to American values," Fischer said at an interfaith prayer vigil, contending that such candidates are "masquerading as presidential timber."

Muslims in Louisville haven't felt fearful, especially since non-Muslim volunteers came out in force to paint over anti-Islam graffiti two days after the Louisville Islamic Center was vandalized Sept. 16, said Mohammed Wasif Iqbal, head of the center. But Iqbal said some have criticized Islamic leaders for not condemning attacks strongly enough.

"We will stand here every single time and condemn it," he said, arguing that extremists should not define the Islamic religion.

Muhammad Babar, a Louisville Islamic leader with Muslim Americans for Compassion, called the Brussels attack heartbreaking.

"Do not see us through the actions of ISIL," he said. "We are as American as you are."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations' Florida chapter has seen a fivefold increase in reports of hate incidents during 2015 compared with 2014, 26 vs. five, said Hassan Shibly, the chapter's chief executive director. A grand majority occurred in the final two months of the year, after the Paris terrorist attacks.
Brother: Missing American couple found in Brussels
"Unlike what happens after the mass shootings committed by white supremacists that happen almost daily in America, whenever an act of terrorism involves those who identify themselves as Muslims, politicians respond by calling for the curtailment or the rights of American Muslims," he said. "Our enemies can never destroy us. We can only destroy ourselves if we allow fear and hate to turn us against each other."

The national Council on American-Islamic Relations, founded in 1994, called for Cruz to retract his demand for law enforcement to secure Muslim neighborhoods.

"Mr. Cruz's call for law enforcement to 'patrol and secure' neighborhoods in which American Muslim families live is not only unconstitutional, it is unbefitting anyone seeking our nation's highest office and indicates that he lacks the temperament necessary for any president," the national council's executive director, Nihad Awad, said in a statement.
Islamic State trains 400 fighters to attack Europe in wave of bloodshed
Awad called Cruz's plan fascist-like.

"I do feel that with the attacks in Brussels and especially after Paris, people feel like they are entitled to speak hatefully," said Maira Salim, president of the Muslim Student Association at Wichita State University. "It's actually a lot worse than what happened after 9/11. ... I'm all for free speech, but hate speech is not OK."
Contributing: Kevin Wong, Princeton University; Seth Harrison, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News; Chris Kenning, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal; Jennifer Portman, Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat; Kevin Brown, Wichita State University. Follow Mike James and Linda Dono on Twitter: @UsatoMike and @LindaDono

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'Islamophobia': U.S. cities face anti-Muslim backlash

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Increasingly, American Muslims are battling bullying and hate speech, some of it from politicians.

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Begin podcast at about 4 minutes 30 seconds.

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Police are investigating a possible hate crime at SDSU. Students rallied Monday to fight Islamophobia. ◂ San Diego's News Source - 10News, KGTV, delivers the latest breaking news, weather forecasts, video on demand and live video streaming straight to you, keeping you in touch anywhere, any time.

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Jews Recommit to Standing Against Islamophobia

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Jewish Americans speak out against Islamophobia and pledge to take action against it--from police surveillance of the Muslim community to Islamophobic ads in public spaces-- and to stand for justice and dignity for all communities.

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In response to recent hate crime and bullying against Muslims due to islamophobia, we walked the streets of downtown Toronto to see the reactions of Canadians on what they think makes a Muslim. The response was touching and inspiring.

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Islamophobia Is Ruining America-But Not How You Think

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When we continue to conflate Islam with terrorism, we miss the opportunity to make good choices for the better of our country

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Trump, Cruz Belgium statements dismay U.S. muslims

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After Sen. Ted Cruz called for increased surveillance of Muslims in the U.S., many Muslims in the community known as Little Arabia in California challenged the GOP presidential candidate or dismissed his comments as mostly meaningless rhetoric.

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Are we going to fail a generation of American Muslims?

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Linda Sarsour, Executive Director of the Arab Association of New York, discusses confronting Islamophobia in America and explains how there is now a generation of young American Muslims who don't have any reference to a pre-9/11 America. More: http://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/posts/how-can-we-fight-islamophobia-in-america/ Full event: http://www.fordfoundation.org/the-latest/ford-live-events/confronting-islamophobia-in-america-today/ ________ Subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=fordfoundationTV Follow Ford Foundation on social media!

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Cyber effects of Islamaphobia

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Effects of Islamaphobia on Women

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How to combat Islamaphobia

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The issue of Islamaphobia

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In a 2011 meeting, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, as well as the League of Arab States, a key partner, identified Islamophobia as an important area of concern. Gallup developed a specific set of analyses, based on measurement of public opinions of majority and minority groups in multiple countries, to guide policymakers in their efforts to address the global issue of Islamophobia.

Research shows that the U.S. identified more than 160 Muslim-American terrorist suspects and perpetrators in the decade since 9/11, just a percentage of the thousands of acts of violence that occur in the United States each year. It is from this overall collection of violence that "an efficient system of government prosecution and media coverage brings Muslim-American terrorism suspects to national attention, creating the impression -- perhaps unintentionally -- that Muslim-American terrorism is more prevalent than it really is." Never mind that since 9/11, the Muslim-American community has helped security and law enforcement officials prevent nearly two of every five al Qaeda terrorist plots threatening the United States[1] and that tips from the Muslim-American community are the largest single source of initial information to authorities about these few plots.[2]

Islamophobia affects more than a small fringe group of Muslims. Through various research vehicles and global polling efforts, Gallup has collected a wealth of data detailing public opinion about various aspects of respect, treatment, and tolerance relative to Muslims worldwide. This brief serves as a snapshot of opinion and thought displayed by people from multiple countries, regions, and communities -- findings that chronicle perceptions associated with Islamophobia globally.
Respect and Fair Treatment
Globally, many Muslims report not feeling respected by those in the West. Significant percentages of several Western countries share this sentiment, saying that the West does not respect Muslim societies. Specifically, 52% of Americans and 48% of Canadians say the West does not respect Muslim societies. Smaller percentages of Italian, French, German, and British respondents agree.

Data reported from 2011[3]

Looking specifically at data from the U.S., U.K., France, and Germany, opinions about respect in the West for Muslim societies generally stayed consistent from 2008 to 2011, aside from a 9-percentage-point decrease among Germans.

Data reported from 2008 and 2011[4]

Several elements can affect the interactions and degree of respect between Muslim and Western societies. Differences in culture, religion, and political interests may shape one population's opinion toward the other. Definitions of Islamophobia tend to attribute fear or hatred of Muslims to their politics or culture, and to Islam and the religiosity of Muslims.

When asked where they think tensions between the Muslim and Western worlds originate, answers vary. Those in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) nations and in the U.S. and Canada equally cite religion and political interests as the primary cause of tensions. Sub-Saharan Africans more often cite religion than politics, while Europeans say political interests are the driving force behind Muslim-West tensions.

Data reported from 2008[5]

Religion and culture outpace politics across all regions surveyed as the root cause of tension between Muslim and Western worlds. This is significant in discussions about Islamophobia, considering political interests can vary and change while cultural and religious differences are more ingrained within populations.

Recent examples of Islamophobia exist within several countries. In late 2009, the largest party in the Swiss parliament put to referendum a ban on minaret construction. The government opposed the ban, citing harm to the country's image -- and particularly Muslims' views of Switzerland. Nearly 60% of Swiss voters and 22 out of 26 voting districts voted in favor of the ban, leading to cries of Islamophobia by leaders in countries such as Pakistan and organizations such as the United Nations.

In the month following the referendum, Gallup asked a representative sample of Swiss adults a series of questions about the issue specifically and Muslim rights in general. Most Swiss say that religious freedom is important for Swiss identity. About one-third agree that there is an irresolvable contradiction between liberal democracy and Islam. However, the Swiss are more likely to disagree (48%) than agree (38%) with that statement. Rather, 84% say it is possible for a Muslim to be a good Swiss patriot. When asked if those in the Swiss Muslim community have reason to believe they have been discriminated against in the wake of the minaret ban, two-thirds (68%) say no. Furthermore, most Swiss say they do not believe that the recent belief that Switzerland was being seen as willing to infringe on the rights of its Muslim minority in the wake of the referendum on minarets has harmed Switzerland's reputation in the international community.

Despite a very public debate on the banning of a religious symbol of Islam, much of the Swiss population did not believe that the Swiss Muslim community should feel discriminated against.

In 2008, Gallup asked representative samples from a subset of majority-Muslim countries about public perceptions of fair treatment of Muslims in the U.S., France, Britain, and China. While about one-third of this subset say that Muslims living in each of those countries are treated as equal citizens regarding their rights and freedoms, about one-quarter of respondents say these Muslims are not. About 40% of this subset of majority-Muslim countries say they don't know how these four countries treat their Muslim residents. The notion that Muslims in these countries are treated unfairly supports the idea that Muslims in general believe that unfair treatment of Muslims -- a component of Islamophobia -- does exist in Western societies.

Data reported from 2008

Research in a subset of majority-Muslim countries from within the MENA region, though, finds that more than one-half do not agree that Muslims in the West are treated as equal citizens. One-quarter of this population say Muslims in the West receive equal treatment, while about one-fifth say they do not know. This is another example of Muslims globally seeing the West as mistreating Muslims in their countries. This belief adds to the perception of Muslims being excluded from social, political, and civic life in Western societies.

Data reported from 2008 and 2009

Majorities of representative populations within majority-Muslim countries globally say each of five actions Western societies could take are very important to showing respect to Muslim societies. About 8 in 10 say it would be very important to them, personally, if Western societies were to abstain from desecrating the Qur'an and other Muslim religious symbols. About 6 in 10 say it would be very important to them if those in the West treated Muslims fairly in the policies that affect them, protect the rights of Muslim minorities in these societies, accurately portray Muslims in Western media, and work with Muslim societies as equal partners on issues of mutual interest.

Data reported from 2011
Prejudice
According to "Fear, Inc.," a report by the Center for American Progress, a network of misinformation experts actively promotes Islamophobia in America. The promotion of Islamophobia creates both prejudice and discrimination among the general population. Prejudice plays a key role in the existence and proliferation of Islamophobia. Prejudice alone, as a negative judgment, opinion, or attitude, is a detriment to a population's overall well-being. Prejudice combined with overt actions, rising to the level of discrimination, creates a dangerous environment for its victims. Gallup analyses offer an examination of prejudice against Muslims and Islam in a number of countries and regions globally.

In the U.S., about one-half of nationally representative samples of Mormons, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, and Jews agree that in general, most Americans are prejudiced toward Muslim Americans. Specifically, 66% of Jewish Americans and 60% of Muslim Americans say that Americans in general are prejudiced toward Muslim Americans.

Data reported from 2010

Muslims (48%) are more likely than Americans of other major religious groups to say they, personally, have experienced racial or religious discrimination in the past year. Muslim Americans are more than twice as likely as U.S. Jews, Catholics, and Protestants to say they experienced such discrimination in the past year.

Data reported from 2010

The 48% of Muslim Americans who say they experienced racial or religious discrimination is on par with Hispanic Americans (48%) and African Americans (45%), as calculated from a combination of these same groups. Arab Americans (52%) are most likely to say they experienced this type of discrimination.

Self-reported knowledge, whether accurate or not, about the religion of Islam seems to affect Americans' feelings of prejudice toward Muslims. Of Americans who say they have no personal prejudice toward Muslims, 29% say they have no knowledge at all about Islam. In fact, those who say they hold no prejudice toward Muslims are more likely than those who say they hold a little, some, or a great deal of prejudice to say they have no knowledge about Islam.

Data reported from 2007 and 2009

Even among Americans who report no personal prejudice toward Muslims, one-third say they have an unfavorable opinion about Islam (36%). Unsurprisingly, those indicating they have a great deal of prejudice toward Muslims are the most unfavorable about Islam (91% unfavorable). That one-third of those with no reported prejudice have an unfavorable opinion of Islam is alarming because it indicates that those who harbor no reported prejudice for the people maintain negative views about the religion.

Data reported from 2007 and 2009

People who display a personal prejudice toward Muslims are not negative about religion in general or minority religions overall. For example, Americans who say they are at least a little prejudiced against Muslims express favorable opinions about Judaism, regardless of the degree to which they hold prejudice against Muslims.

Familiarity with individual Muslims makes a small difference in reported levels of personal prejudice toward Muslims. Fifty-three percent of those Americans who say they hold no prejudice toward Muslims say they know someone who practices Islam. Comparatively, 44% of those who say they have a great deal of prejudice toward Muslims say the same.

The greater their self-reported prejudice toward Muslims, the more likely Americans are to say most Muslims around the world do not want peace and are not accepting of other religions and of people of races other than their own. Regardless of personal prejudice against Muslims, at least one in five Americans say that most Muslims around the world are not accepting of other religions and of people of different races other than their own. In fact, about one-third of those reporting no prejudice toward Muslims say Muslims around the world are not accepting of other religions.

Data reported from 2007 and 2009

Gallup finds Muslim Americans, however, are among the most integrated religious groups in the U.S. Gallup Religious Tolerance Index, which measures people's attitudes toward religious faiths different from their own and ranks survey respondents by three categories: Isolated, Tolerant, and Integrated people (see sidebar for definitions).

Among U.S. religious groups, 44% of Muslim Americans are integrated, on par with Mormons (46%) and greater than Jewish Americans (36%), Protestants (35%), and Catholics (34%).

When examining religious tolerance globally, the U.S. and Canada and sub-Saharan Africa rate as the most integrated regions Gallup studied. Respondents from sub-Saharan Africa are also most likely to explain the root causes of tensions between Muslim and Western societies as religious. MENA and Asia are the most isolated regions, along with Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Muslim respondents globally are no different from Western societies in their level of integration and openness to people of other faiths.

Data reported from 2008 through 2010[6]

Gallup's Global Practice Leader for Faith Communities, Dr. Albert L. Winseman, developed the Religious Tolerance Index in 2002 with Gallup scientists Dr. Jim Harter and Julie Hawkins to measure Americans' attitudes toward religious faiths that are different from their own. The Index is based on respondents' level of agreement with the following five statements on a scale of "1" (strongly disagree) to "5" (strongly agree):

· I always treat people of other religious faiths with respect.

· Most religious faiths make a positive contribution to society.

· I would not object to a person of a different religious faith moving next door.

· People of other religions always treat me with respect.

· In the past year, I have learned something from someone of another religious faith.

From the combination of their answers, Gallup classifies populations as:

Isolated: Isolated individuals tend not to be members of any particular faith group, but if they are, they tend to believe in the truth of their perspective above all others. They do not want to know about other religions. They also neither respect nor feel respected by those of other faiths.

Tolerant: Tolerant individuals have a "live-and-let-live" attitude toward people of other faiths, and they generally feel that they treat others of different faiths with respect. However, they are not likely to learn from or about other religions.

Integrated: Integrated individuals go beyond a "live-and-let-live" attitude and actively seek to know more about and learn from others of different religious traditions. They believe that most faiths make a positive contribution to society. Furthermore, integrated people not only feel they respect people from other faith traditions, but they also feel respected by them.

In America, prejudice toward Muslim Americans exists among both men and women, young and old, uneducated and learned. Still, there are some differences in prejudice levels within different demographic groups. Men are more likely than women, for example, to say they have some or a great deal of prejudice toward Muslims. Those who report a great deal of prejudice toward Muslims are more likely than those who report none or smaller levels of prejudice to have completed only a high school-level education. And those who report a great deal of prejudice toward Muslims are more likely than those with lesser or no such prejudice to be married. Higher levels of prejudice toward Muslims do not correlate with age and urbanicity, though.

Data reported from 2007 and 2009

As Americans' self-proclaimed prejudice toward Muslims increases, so too does the likelihood of claiming the Republican party as their political affiliation. Fifty percent of those who report a great deal of prejudice toward Muslims say they are Republicans, compared with 17% of those who identify as Democrats and 7% as independents. Those who report no prejudice toward Muslims are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, 39% to 23%, respectively.

Data reported from 2007 and 2009
Loyalty to the United States
Gallup asked Americans whether they think Muslim Americans are loyal or not loyal to the U.S. Perceptions of disloyalty tend to fuel the flames of Islamophobia. If one believes that Muslims are not loyal, one may also believe that Muslims should be feared, not trusted, and not treated fairly. A feeling that Muslim Americans are disloyal to the U.S. is examined as a crucial component of Islamophobia. Women are more likely than men to think that Muslims in American are not loyal to the U.S. Those who think Muslim Americans are loyal to the country are younger than those who say Muslim Americans aren't loyal to the U.S. And while most Americans (87%) strongly agree that they would not object to a person of a different religion living next door to them, those who say Muslim Americans are loyal to the U.S. are more likely than those who don't to strongly agree that they would not object to neighbors of a different faith.

Americans who think their Muslim peers are loyal to the U.S. are more likely than those who question this loyalty to have confidence in a number of major U.S. institutions. Specifically, those who say Muslim Americans are loyal to the country are more likely to say they themselves have confidence in the U.S. judicial system (63% vs. 41%), in honesty of elections (49% vs. 27%), in the media (29% vs. 14%), in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (73% vs. 61%), and in local police (82% vs. 75%). The exception to this is Americans' confidence in the military, which is slightly greater among those who say Muslim Americans are not loyal to the U.S. However, most Americans say they have confidence in the military, regardless of their opinion about Muslim Americans' loyalty.

Data reported from 2010

Overall, one-third of Americans say they think Muslim countries have a very unfavorable opinion of the U.S. People who say Muslim Americans are not loyal to the U.S. are much more likely than those who say Muslim Americans are loyal to think people in Muslim countries harbor very unfavorable views of the U.S. Overall, though, majorities of Americans who say Muslim Americans are loyal or not loyal to the U.S. think people in Muslim countries have at least somewhat unfavorable views of America.

Data reported from 2010

Of those who say Muslim countries have unfavorable views of America, more than one-half (57%) say it is based mostly on misinformation provided by the media and government in those countries about what the U.S. has done, while about one-third (32%) say it is mostly because of what the U.S. has done. Those who say Muslim Americans are not loyal to the U.S. are much more likely to say these unfavorable views in Muslim countries are because of misinformation by these countries' media and government (70%), and not based on past U.S. actions (17%). Those who say Muslim Americans are loyal to the U.S. are still more likely to say unfavorable views in Muslim countries are due to misinformation (54%) than to U.S. actions (35%).

Two-thirds of Americans surveyed in this particular study say that religion is an important part of their daily lives. Those who say Muslim Americans are not loyal to the U.S. are more likely than those who say Muslims are loyal to claim religion is an important part of their daily life (74% vs. 65%).
European Muslims Feeling the Pressure
Gallup collected data in 2008 from representative samples in Germany, France, and the U.K., focusing on several issues related to the social and cultural integration of Muslim communities in these three countries. And while majorities of the adults in these countries agree that people from minority groups enrich the cultural life of their nations, sizable minorities of these respondents express fear about certain aspects of Muslim culture.

Data reported from 2008

Only the general population in the U.K. includes a sizable minority -- more than one-quarter -- that says people with different religious practices than theirs threaten respondents' way of life. The Muslim populations in France, Germany, and the U.K. are less likely than the general public in these countries to say those with differing religious practices threaten their way of life.

Between 16% and 21% of people in France, Germany, and the U.K. say they would not like Muslims as their neighbors, similar to the percentages of each country's general population that say they would not like homosexuals as neighbors. Generally, people in these countries are more likely to say they would not like Muslims as neighbors than they are to say the same about Jews, Christians, atheists, blacks, and Asians. An exception exists in the U.K., though, where 22% of people say they would not like immigrants or foreign workers as neighbors.

Data reported from 2008

Significant proportions of the French, German, and British publics consider different Muslim practices and relationships threatening. For example, 16% of Germans, 30% of British, and 39% of French say that wearing the hijab -- the traditional head covering worn by Muslim women -- is a threat to European culture. Similar proportions associate Muslims with terror, as 23% of Germans, 25% of the French, and 34% of the British say that Muslims are sympathetic to al Qaeda.

Overall, however, large majorities of French (90%), British (90%), and German (95%) respondents say they have not experienced racial or religious discrimination in the past year. Among Muslims in each of these three countries, those in France and Germany are significantly more likely than the general population to say they experienced discrimination in the past year.
Addressing Islamophobia by Bringing People Closer Together
Proportions of the general populations in these three countries are reluctant to have Muslims as neighbors. This reluctance manifests itself in people's decisions of whether or not to live in diverse communities. However, individuals living in mixed communities might be most open to those different from themselves, and least likely to be Islamophobic.

The general populations in France (49%), Germany (51%), and the U.K. (48%) are most likely to say they live in a neighborhood generally comprised of people who share their ethnic and religious backgrounds. Significant percentages of each population, though, say their neighborhoods are made up of a mix of people, including those who share their ethnic and religious backgrounds and others who do not. Specifically, 40% of French, 38% of German, and 43% of British respondents say they live among diverse neighborhoods. Muslims in France (74%), Germany (53%), and the U.K. (54%) are more likely to say they live in diverse neighborhoods than mostly homogenous ones.

Gallup studied more closely what types of neighborhoods people in each of these three European countries say they would live in if they could.

In France, people are most likely to want to live in neighborhoods with a mix of people of varying religious and ethnic backgrounds, regardless of where they currently live. Fifty-two percent of those who live in a more homogeneous community would prefer a diverse neighborhood, and 80% of those who currently live in a more diverse neighborhood or local area would want to stay in such a neighborhood.

In the U.K., people are more apt to prefer a community similar to the one in which they currently reside. Specifically, 55% of those who live in a mostly homogenous neighborhood now would prefer to live in that same type of situation, while 80% of those who live in a diverse neighborhood currently would prefer that if they could live in any neighborhood in the country.

Those in Germany who live among people of mostly similar religious and ethnic backgrounds are somewhat split between wanting to live in a mostly homogenous neighborhood (42%) or in a more varied one (48%) if they could chose anywhere in the country to live. Those who already live among people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds, though, are much more likely to say they would choose the same type of neighborhood (74%) than to reside among mostly similar people (19%) if given the choice.

In Germany, France, and the U.K., though, Gallup found that isolated individuals are more likely than tolerant and integrated people to say they live among people with mostly similar religious and ethnic backgrounds. Integrated (70%) and tolerant (65%) people are more likely than isolated individuals (49%) to say they live in more diverse neighborhoods.

Data reported from 2008

Additionally, isolated respondents in Germany, the U.K., and France are more likely than tolerant and integrated respondents to say they would not like Muslims as neighbors. The same holds true when considering whether they would want immigrants or foreign workers as their neighbors.

Data reported from 2008

Isolated people in France, the U.K., and Germany are more likely than their tolerant and integrated counterparts to say women who wear the hijab are a threat to European culture. Conversely, people are more likely to say the wearing of the hijab is an enrichment to European culture as they move from isolated to tolerant to integrated, as measured by the Religious Tolerance Index.

Data reported from 2008

People who are isolated (38%) are more likely than those who are tolerant (22%) or integrated (15%) to say Muslims are sympathetic to al Qaeda. Those who are isolated (29%) are also more likely than tolerant (13%) or integrated (6%) people to agree that others with different religious practices than their own threaten their way of life.

Within key Western societies, there are genuine negative perceptions, prejudices, and discriminations targeted against Muslims. Seeing Muslims as not loyal, voicing prejudice against Muslims, and avoiding Muslims as neighbors are all symptoms of Islamophobia that exist in the West. However, these feelings do not characterize Western countries. They are generally shared by a subset of the general population, though they exist in substantial enough numbers to draw both attention and concern. The very existence of Islamophobia is something to be addressed. The degree to which individuals expressing Islamophobia have particular views of Muslims in their communities, Muslims globally, and Islam as a religion is genuine and quantifiable with measurable outcomes.
Survey Methods
[1] Alejandro J. Beutel, "Data on Post-9/11 Terrorism in the United States" (Washington, D.C.: Muslim Public Affairs Council, 2011), available at http://www.mpac.org/assets/docs/publications/MPAC-Post-911-Terrorism-Data.pdf

[2] Charles Kurzman, "Muslim-American Terrorism Since 9/11: An Accounting" (Chapel Hill, NC: Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, 2011), available at http://sanford.duke.edu/centers/tcths/about/documents/Kurzman_Muslim-American_Terrorism_Since_911_An_Accounting.pdf

[3] Please refer to the Gallup Muslim-West Perceptions Index: Inaugural Findings report for methodology.

[4] Please refer to the Gallup Muslim-West Perceptions Index: Inaugural Findings report for methodology.

[5] Data appear in Abu Dhabi Gallup Center report Measuring the State of Muslim-West Relations: Assessing the "New Beginning," page 35.

[6] Results are based on face-to-face interviews with approximately 1,000 adults in each country in the regions listed, aged 15 and older, from 2008 through 2010.

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Islamophobia: Understanding Anti-Muslim Sentiment in the West

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Globally, many Muslims report not feeling respected by those in the West. Significant percentages of several Western countries share this sentiment, saying that the West does not respect Muslim societies. Specifically, 52% of Americans and 48% of Canadians say the West does not respect Muslim societies.

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Defining Islamaphobia

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CAIR Calls for Resignation or Removal of Wisconsin County Supervisor Who Spreads Conspiracy Theories, Anti-Muslim Bigotry Online