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New York (AP) - Nine years of denouncing terrorism, of praying
side-by-side with Jews and Christians, of insisting "I'm American,
too." None of it could stop a season of hate against Muslims that
made for an especially fraught Sept. 11. Now, Muslims are asking
why their efforts to be accepted in the United States have been so
easily thwarted.

      "We have nothing to apologize for, we have nothing to fear, we
have nothing to be ashamed of, we have nothing that we're guilty of
- but we need to be out there and we need to express this," said
Imam Mohammed Ibn Faqih in a sermon at the Islamic Institute of
Orange County in Anaheim, Calif., the day before the 9/11
anniversary.


      There is no simple way for American Muslims to move forward.


      Images of violence overseas in the name of Islam have come to
define the faith for many non-Muslims at home. The U.S. remains at
war in Afghanistan, and although America has formally declared an
end to its combat operations in Iraq, U.S. troops there continue to
fight alongside Iraqi forces.


      Within the U.S., domestic terror has become a greater threat,
while ignorance about what Islam teaches is widespread. More than
half of respondents in a recent poll by the Pew Forum for Religion
& Public Life said they knew little or nothing about the Muslim
faith.


      Some U.S. Muslims say their national organizations share the
blame, for answering intricate questions about Islam with
platitudes, and failing to fully examine the potential for
extremism within their communities. Muslim leaders often respond
when terrorists strike by saying Islam is a "religion of peace"
that has no role in the violence instead of confronting the
legitimate concerns of other Americans, these Muslim critics say.


      "There's a quaintness and naivete or outright whitewashing of
some very complex issues," said Saeed Khan, who teaches at Wayne
State University in Detroit. "This has caused a lot of frustration
for a lot of Muslim Americans, myself included."


      The summer frenzy about Islam in America has revolved around
Park51, a community center and mosque planned two blocks from New
York's ground zero. Opponents and supporters of the center
converged on the area for protests and counter-protests Saturday
after the morning memorial ceremony at the World Trade Center site.


      In recent months, mosques in Tennessee, California, New York and
elsewhere have been shot at and vandalized. Threatening messages
were left at one mosque. A Florida pastor caused a global uproar
with his ultimately unfulfilled threat to make a bonfire of Qurans
on Sept. 11.


      Many Jewish, Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, evangelical,
atheist and other groups have responded with an outpouring of
support for Muslims, but suspicion remains high among many
Americans.


      Islamic centers have become a focus of non-Muslim fears. Federal
authorities have placed informants in mosques, saying doing so is a
critical counterterrorism tool. Muslim groups have separately
created national campaigns encouraging congregations to monitor for
any sign of radicalization, but they have also complained bitterly
about the use of informants, worried the innocent will be caught up
in the net police have set for criminals.


      Akbar Ahmed, professor of Islamic studies at American
University, found a wide range of mosques - from literalist to
modernist to mystical - while researching his book, "Journey Into
America, The Challenge of Islam." He said many mosques are engaged
in internal struggles between Muslims with rigid and modernist
views, but he found none that fit the imaginings of anti-Muslim
conspiracy theorists.


      Historians, and several Muslim leaders, see similarities to the
prejudice Roman Catholics and Jews experienced as newcomers to
America starting in the 19th century. The hierarchical Catholic
church was denounced as a threat to the separation of church and
state. Synagogues were banned in many states, and Jews were viewed
as undermining the nation's Christian character.


      Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of
Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Connecticut, said the
experience of Japanese Americans in World War II more closely
parallels the current plight of Muslims. After the Pearl Harbor
bombing, Silk said Americans asked, "Are our Japanese different
from those Japanese?"


      "I don't think we're about to round up all the Muslims and put
them in concentration camps," Silk said. "But I don't think we've
ever seen the degree of legitimacy given by people in positions of
authority to straight-up, anti-Islamic expression."


      The Muslim Public Affairs Council, a Los Angeles-based advocacy
group, blames bigotry on "a small cottage industry" that foments
prejudice on the Web and elsewhere. These organizations have
dramatically expanded their reach since 2001 through social media,
and have made celebrities of Muslim converts to Christianity who
disparage Islam as thoroughly violent.


      "The reality is that there are very well-funded initiatives to
spread misinformation about Islam," said Ingrid Mattson, president
of the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella group for
thousands of Muslims. "For the Muslim community, we are finding
ourselves so stretched. We're a young community."


      U.S. Muslim condemnations of terrorism have failed to persuade
other Americans.


      This year, in response to recent cases of young Americans lured
into jihadist movements by Internet preaching, nine prominent U.S.
Muslim scholars made a YouTube video denouncing radicalism. Other
American Islamic scholars have written edicts, or fatwas, saying
violence is contrary to Islamic teaching. The Islamic Society of
North America dedicated its 2005 annual convention, which draws
tens of thousands of Muslims, to fighting terrorism and extremism.


      However, suspicion persists among other Americans that Muslims
say one thing in public and something different among themselves.
U.S. Muslim groups that still accept foreign funding are the most
vulnerable to this charge. Many critics, within and outside the
Muslim community, also find the condemnations so broad that they
are meaningless since they rarely denounce specific terrorist
groups, including al-Qaida.


      It doesn't help that many of the statements against violence are
delivered in heavily accented English at a time of heightened
anti-immigrant feeling in the United States.


      "I think that part of the reason the general American public is
not listening is the common human impulse to fear and mistrust what
we don't know or understand," said Abdullahi An-Na'im, an expert
in Islam and human rights at Emory University School of Law.


      Throughout the recent anti-Muslim outburst, American Muslim
leaders have taken pains to acknowledge that many in their
community have prospered in the U.S., and that Muslims have more
freedom here than they would in many other countries.


      At the same time, fatigue is setting in. They wonder: How many
more times will they have to condemn violent extremism before
non-Muslim Americans believe them?


      Associated Press Writer Gillian Flaccus in Anaheim, Calif.,
contributed to this report.
      

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Nine years of denouncing terrorism, of praying
side-by-side with Jews and Christians, of insisting "I'm American,
too." None of it could stop a season of hate against Muslims that
made for an especially fraught Sept. 11.

Fellow Americans' suspicions frustrate US Muslims

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