GREENSBORO, NC (NNPA) - Last year marked the highest number of Muslim-related civil rights cases ever recorded in the United States, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

As sad as that is, it’s not surprising: A national poll from Cornell University found that almost one in two Americans feel that the U.S. should curtail Muslim-Americans’ civil liberties—such as making them register with the government.

“It’s understandable, based on the climate of hysteria that has been whipped up by the Bush administration and fueled by the media,” explained Khalid Griggs, the imam of the Community Mosque of Winston-Salem.

While reports of mistreatment in passenger profiling and unfair arrests, search and seizure have considerably dropped since 9/11, incidents of hate crimes towards Muslims have more than doubled in the U.S., according to CAIR.

Imam Griggs said that a major problem is that President George Bush “trumpets” Islam as being a religion of peace, but does not condemn or correct people like Reverend Franklin Graham, who once said that “Islam is a very evil and wicked religion.”

The Cornell survey also found that of the 715 people polled, respondents who classified themselves as highly religious Christians supported limitations on Muslim-Americans significantly more than the respondents who categorized themselves as less religious.

“In every culture and every religion, there is good and bad,” said Bassam Allamadani, a Muslim who resides in Greensboro. “This (terrorist attack) happened before when Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols did what they did in Oklahoma. It doesn’t mean that all Christians are bad.”

Mr. Allamadani owns a convenience store on Pleasant Garden Road. After 9/11, many of his usual customers stopped shopping there. He blames that lack of business on the 2001 terrorist attacks.

“We don’t feel sometimes that we are free in this country like everyone else, because of what happened on September 11,” he said. “Our religion is peaceful. It teaches us love and care. We believe that (Osama) bin Laden doesn’t represent the Muslim community.”

Sheik Badi Ali, of the Triad Islamic Center in Greensboro, also believes that the climate towards Muslims in the U.S. is the result of an “unfair campaign” against Islam by the “Bush regime.”

“We’ve been scapegoated unfairly,” he said. “We don’t feel like we belong in America.”

There is no scientific count of the amount of Muslims living in the U.S., according to the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. But reportedly, the denomination is growing rapidly, with an estimated 1.1 to seven million. It is also estimated that over 40,000 live in North Carolina, with over 5,000 in the Triad area.

To help combat discrimination against Muslim-Americans, Sheik Ali has been reaching out to other minorities for support, particularly Blacks.

The American Muslim Council reported that 42 percent of all Muslims in the U.S. are Black.

“They really lived it before us,” he said. “We might get some strength from them, and some guidance.”

Imam Griggs says that the discrimination that Muslim-Americans have received is no different from the unfairness that he has witnessed as an African American.

“That special treatment has been expanded towards Islamic people,” he said, sarcastically.

CAIR also pointed out that the increase of anti-Muslim rhetoric, which often portrays Muslims as enemies of the U.S., and the USA Patriot Act contributed to the sharp increase in reported incidents.

Imam Griggs knows a number of Muslims who have been harassed and denied privileges and access to certain places. But rather than retreat from public view, he said that community involvement, such as clothing and food giveaways, and free health clinics by the Community Mosque help to give Muslims a positive image.

“We are American citizens, and we have the right like anybody else living in this country,” said Mr. Allamadani. “What makes America great is that everybody comes from different backgrounds and different countries. Everyone should have equal rights.”