Muslims in America

No, one is a religious identity and the other a national one, and they conflict no more than being Christian and American does. But the deeper concern is whether Muslims can be loyal, comfortable participants in American life. The evidence says yes emphatically: surveys consistently find Muslim Americans overwhelmingly proud to be American and satisfied with their lives, and they serve throughout American institutions, thousands in the armed forces, tens of thousands in medicine (Muslims are disproportionately represented among American physicians), in law enforcement, courts, classrooms, and elected office. Muslim religious values, family, charity, education, honest work, and care for neighbors, map closely onto professed American ones.

The challenge of weaving together heritage and American identity, familiar to every immigrant generation from Irish Catholics to Jews, has been sharpened for Muslims by the post-9/11 decades and recent political rhetoric questioning their belonging, so where tension exists, it is far more often imposed on Muslims than felt by them. Further, there is the distinct experience of African American Muslims, a third of the community, whose ancestors came involuntarily and among whom Islam is often embraced precisely as an American inheritance reclaimed. Their history makes the point better than any survey: Muslims have been part of America since before it was the United States.

Which Muslims and what aspects of America are we talking about? Neither Muslims nor the United States is a monolithic entity. “Hate” is also a very strong word.

Surveys over many years have found that Muslims abroad tend to distinguish sharply between American society and American foreign policy, admiring the former, its technology, universities, economic opportunities, and personal liberties, while criticizing the latter. Favorability ratings for the United States in Muslim-majority countries have risen and fallen with particular administrations and particular wars, which is itself evidence that what is being judged is policy rather than a people.

If some Muslims disagree with specific aspects of foreign or domestic policies, this cannot reasonably be described as “hatred” of America as a whole.

No, and both the ethics and the statistics bear this out. Muslim Americans number in the millions; the individuals involved in violent extremism are a vanishing fraction of less than one percent, and study after study finds that a person’s religion or region of origin predicts nothing useful about whether they pose a danger. Statistically, an American’s risk from terrorism of any kind is minute compared with everyday risks no one organizes their fears around, and in recent years domestic extremist violence has come predominantly from other sources. Judging individuals by group stereotype misleads in both directions: it wrongs the millions of peaceful people it stigmatizes, and it distracts vigilance from actual warning signs, which are behavioral, not demographic. It is also worth remembering that “Middle Eastern” and “Muslim” are far from the same: most Middle Eastern Americans are not Muslim (many are Christians), and most Muslim Americans are not Middle Eastern.

Fear of this kind usually recedes with acquaintance; researchers consistently find that learning more about Islam and simply knowing a Muslim personally are among the strongest predictors of holding no anti-Muslim prejudice. That is the premise of ING’s educational programs and the Know Your Neighbor: Multifaith Encounters program, which creates exactly those opportunities, and of the thousands of mosque open houses held across the country every year. We would extend the invitation here: the antidote to fear is not an argument but a neighbor.

Estimates vary because the U.S. Census does not ask Americans about their religious affiliation, but surveys generally estimate that there are about 5-7 million Muslims in the United States, representing roughly 1-2% of the population.

Muslim Americans are one of the most racially and ethnically diverse religious communities in the country. They include African Americans whose families have lived in America for centuries, immigrants and their descendants from South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe, and other regions, as well as converts from many different backgrounds.

Muslims live throughout the United States, with significant populations in major metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, and the San Francisco Bay Area. There is therefore no single Muslim American cultural or ethnic identity. Muslim Americans also differ widely in religious practice, political views, socioeconomic status, education, occupation, and the ways they understand and practice their faith.

While there are no exact figures on the total number of Muslims in the U.S. in general, since the U.S. Census cannot ask about religious affiliation, various polls over the last decade estimate that there are between 5 and 7 million Muslims in America. Of these, around 20% are converts, the majority of whom are African Americans. Another 8-10% are Latine converts.

The image has a longer history than most people realize; it did not begin with 9/11 or even with television. Its oldest layer is medieval: during the Crusades, European polemicists depicted Islam as a violent heresy and Muhammad as an impostor, caricatures visible in works from the Song of Roland, which portrays Muslims as idol-worshippers, to Dante, who placed Muhammad in hell. Centuries later, European colonial powers ruling Muslim lands revived and systematized these images, portraying Muslims as fanatical, backward, and despotic, a body of representation scholars call Orientalism, because such depictions help to justify ruling over these peoples. Those tropes passed into Western literature, painting, scholarship, and eventually American film and news, where they remain recognizable today: the same figure of the violent, irrational Muslim, updated for each era’s conflicts.

Education does little to correct the inheritance, because American curricula largely skip the chapters that would complicate it. Students rarely learn that for centuries Muslim civilization led the world in science and scholarship, or that this legacy is embedded in Western life: algebra originates from a work by the Muslim mathematician al-Khwarizmi, while the word algorithm derives from his name; Ibn Sina’s medical canon trained European physicians for half a millennium; Ibn Rushd’s commentaries on Aristotle shaped Thomas Aquinas; and the recovery of Greek learning that helped inspire the Renaissance ran substantially through Arabic translations. When the standard survey jumps from Rome to the Renaissance, Muslims enter the story only as Crusade adversaries or modern combatants, so conflict becomes the only context in which most Americans ever encounter them.

Onto this prepared ground comes the media, which for most Americans, few of whom know many Muslims personally, is the main source of information. News gravitates toward violence and sensation generally, but the imbalance is measurably worse for Muslims: Media Tenor found that between 2007 and 2013, 80% of news coverage of Muslims on ABC and CBS, and 60% on Fox News, was negative, focused on terrorism and violence. A study by researchers at Georgia State University and the University of Alabama found that an attack by a perpetrator identified as Muslim receives on average four and a half times more coverage than a comparable attack by a non-Muslim. The effect is that a small fringe stands in for a community of billions, while the everyday lives and contributions of Muslim Americans go largely unreported. Media framing also treats a Muslim’s violence as an expression of their religion, where the same act committed by anyone else is often explained by their politics, economics, psychological state, or personal history,  and coverage has tended to track U.S. military involvement in Muslim-majority countries, mirroring official attitudes.

The pattern remains responsive to events: Muslim American civil rights organizations recorded record complaint numbers in the years after October 2023, alongside a parallel surge in antisemitic incidents, a reminder that hostility toward one minority rarely stays contained.

While it is unreasonable to expect that Muslim Americans should bear the double burden of both dealing with the prejudice against them and working to prevent it, Muslim Americans are nonetheless engaged in various campaigns and projects to counter hate and bigotry. As was the case with previous ethnic and religious groups such as Jewish, Catholic, German, Irish, and Japanese Americans, this may turn out to be a prolonged struggle for civil rights. For African Americans or Latino Americans, this struggle is ongoing, and Muslim Americans join other groups in calling for an end to bigotry of any sort.

The following are some of the ways that Muslim Americans and their allies are working to combat Islamophobia:

• Since Islamophobia is based on ignorance, education about Islam and Muslims is one of the most potent tools against it. ING, founded in 1993, has delivered tens of thousands of presentations about Islam and Muslims in the San Francisco Bay Area and nationwide. These presentations not only provide authentic and accurate information about Muslims and their faith but also give audiences an opportunity to interact with a Muslim face-to-face, often for the first time. ING’s impact studies demonstrate the effectiveness of ING’s work in dispelling stereotypes and prejudice against Muslims.
• Islamophobia often leads to violations of Muslims’ civil rights. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Muslim Advocates are the leading organizations in the country addressing this issue.
• Interfaith allies are key to improving Muslims’ standing in the U.S. Many people of various faiths have come out in support of Muslims, particularly when Muslims are under attack. The steps they have taken include:
  • Organizing multifaith vigils around mosques
  • Publishing articles and letters in support of Muslims
  • Holding counter-protests against Islamophobic demonstrations
  • Encouraging congregants to visit mosques and build relationships with Muslims
  • Welcoming Muslims into interfaith organizations and events
• National organizations such as Shoulder to Shoulder, Peace Catalyst, and the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom exist specifically to build solidarity between Muslims and people of other faiths. The Know Your Neighbor Coalition, founded at the White House in 2015, and Multifaith Encounters, its grassroots outreach led by ING, bring Muslims and others together to build mutual understanding.
• Many mosques also engage in interfaith outreach. Open houses and interfaith dinners have become popular ways of reaching out to neighbors of different faiths and have met with great response.
• Civic participation has grown markedly as well. A record number of Muslim Americans won public office in November 2025, including Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City and Ghazala Hashmi as lieutenant governor of Virginia, the first Muslim woman elected to statewide office in the U.S.
• Much is being done by both Muslims and their allies to combat Islamophobia, but more needs to be done, and help is always welcome.

Yes. The Constitution specifies that no religious test shall ever be required for public office, and the use of a scripture in oath-taking is a custom, not a legal requirement; officials may swear on any book or none. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, took his ceremonial oath in 2007 on a Quran once owned by Thomas Jefferson, a detail that captures how long Islam has been part of the American story. Muslim officials at every level of government have since done the same, as Jewish officials use the Hebrew Bible and some Christians use family Bibles.

No, and the fear rests on a misunderstanding of both Islam and Muslim Americans. Islamic law’s own principles bind Muslims to honor their covenants, and citizenship is understood by contemporary scholars as a covenant obligating Muslims to uphold the constitutional order of their country. Surveys consistently show Muslim Americans supporting the separation of religion and government at rates comparable to other Americans, and the dozens of Muslims now serving in Congress, state legislatures, city halls, and courts have records on housing, transit, budgets, and public safety, the ordinary work of government, rather than on religious legislation. Muslim Americans, as members of a small religious minority, have a particularly strong stake in the First Amendment’s guarantee that government favors no faith; it is the same guarantee that protects the religious freedoms of all Americans.

Zohran Mamdani’s election in November 2025 as New York’s first Muslim mayor was a milestone comparable to earlier firsts by Catholic, Jewish, and Black candidates for high office: evidence that American voters increasingly judge Muslim candidates as candidates. It does not mean Muslim Americans agree with him or any single figure. Muslim voters, like others, span the political spectrum and vigorously debate and question their elected leaders. His early tenure has also illustrated the particular scrutiny Muslim officials face, from those who question their loyalty because of their faith and, from other directions, those who expect them to answer for the actions of any Muslim anywhere. The healthiest sign will be when Muslim officials can succeed or fail on their records like anyone else. In the meantime, record numbers of Muslim Americans are running for office at every level, a development we view as the American system working as intended.

Muslim Americans are not a voting bloc, and their political behavior has shifted more than that of almost any American religious group. A majority of Muslim voters supported George W. Bush in 2000; after 9/11 and the ensuing civil liberties controversies, most moved toward the Democratic Party; and in the mid-2020s, frustration over U.S. policy in Gaza, along with diverse views on economic and social issues, produced a further fracturing, with significant Muslim support for third-party, Republican, and uncommitted options in 2024. Muslim Americans are also internally diverse, African American, South Asian, Arab, Iranian, Turkish, Southeast Asian, Latino, white, immigrant and native-born, liberal and conservative, and their priorities as voters (e.g., the economy, civil rights, education, foreign policy) vary accordingly. Both major parties now actively court Muslim voters, which community advocates regard as progress.

Recent immigration measures, including expanded enforcement operations and travel restrictions affecting several Muslim-majority countries, are framed by the government in terms of security and immigration status rather than religion, and they affect many non-Muslim communities as well. Nonetheless, their impact on Muslim communities has been substantial, and many Muslim Americans experience them in continuity with the post-9/11 surveillance programs and the 2017 travel ban that courts and researchers documented as targeting Muslims disproportionately. Community organizations report widespread fear among immigrant congregants, including lawful residents. Civil rights groups, including Muslim, Jewish, and Christian organizations working together, are challenging several of these measures in court. ING’s position follows from our principles: we affirm every person’s right to security in their residence and livelihood and to due process under law.

For many years, federal policy treated houses of worship as “sensitive” or “protected” locations where enforcement actions were avoided absent exceptional circumstances. That policy was rescinded in 2025, and religious communities of many faiths, including Catholic, evangelical, Jewish, and Muslim congregations, have expressed alarm and pursued litigation, arguing that enforcement at houses of worship burdens religious exercise. As a legal matter, the publicly accessible areas of a mosque are treated like other public spaces, while entry into private areas generally requires a judicial warrant. Because this area of law is actively changing, mosques and congregants should consult civil rights organizations or attorneys for current guidance rather than relying on any general summary, including this one. What we can say as a matter of principle is that every faith community deserves to worship without fear.

Strong ones, and they are well established in law. Public school students may pray on their own time, wear hijab, fast, and form religious clubs on the same terms as other student groups; schools may not single out religious expression for restriction. In the workplace, federal civil rights law requires employers to reasonably accommodate religious practice, including dress, grooming, and prayer breaks, unless doing so imposes substantial cost, a standard the Supreme Court strengthened in 2023. The Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch, brought on behalf of a young woman denied a job because of her headscarf, affirmed these protections. Muslims who experience discrimination can seek help from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or from civil rights organizations, and ING’s own work in schools and workplaces aims to prevent such conflicts through education.

Attacks and threats against mosques, Muslim schools, and community centers have risen sharply during periods of international conflict and heated political rhetoric, a pattern documented since 9/11 and again since 2023, and monitoring organizations report further escalation in 2026. Researchers consistently find that spikes in anti-Muslim incidents follow spikes in hostile public rhetoric, which is why words matter. In response, mosques have strengthened security, often with federal nonprofit security grants also used by synagogues and churches, while interfaith neighbors have organized in protective solidarity, from clergy standing outside mosques during Friday prayers to joint rapid-response networks with Jewish and Christian congregations, who face parallel threats. Law enforcement agencies prosecute such attacks as hate crimes. We are grateful for every neighbor who has stood with us, and we stand with every community targeted for its faith.

Yes, roughly. Surveys estimate that Black Americans constitute between a fifth and a third of the Muslim American population, making them the largest and longest-established component, and making Islam the second-largest religion among Black Americans. The Muslim American community as a whole is the most racially diverse religious community in the United States, with no single ethnic group forming a majority: it includes South Asian, Arab, Black, white, Iranian, Turkish, Southeast Asian, African, and a rapidly growing Latino Muslim population. The common assumption that “Muslim” means “Arab” or “immigrant” erases the deep American roots of Black Muslims in particular.

Yes. Historians estimate that a substantial share of Africans enslaved and brought to the Americas (commonly cited figures range from ten to twenty percent or more) came from Muslim regions of West Africa, meaning that Islam arrived in America centuries before the modern immigration era. Some left remarkable records: Omar ibn Said, enslaved in the Carolinas, wrote an autobiography in Arabic that is now held by the Library of Congress; Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Abdulrahman Ibrahima, an African prince enslaved in Mississippi, became famous in their own lifetimes. Enslavers suppressed the practice of Islam along with other African traditions, and it largely did not survive intergenerationally, but its memory shaped later movements. For many Black Muslims today, Islam represents not a conversion to something foreign but a return to an ancestral heritage.

Malcolm X (later el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz) is among the most influential Muslims in American history and a bridge figure in several senses. Rising to prominence in the Nation of Islam, he left it in 1964, performed the Hajj pilgrimage, and embraced Sunni Islam after his experience in Mecca convinced him, as his letters movingly describe, that Islam’s vision of human equality transcended race. His autobiography remains one of the most widely read accounts of an American religious journey and has drawn many converts to Islam. For Muslim Americans of all backgrounds, he represents moral courage, self-transformation, and the insistence that faith speak to injustices. For the broader public, his life illustrates the distinction, and the historical connection, between the Nation of Islam and mainstream Islam.

All human beings share a common origin, and no race, ethnicity, language, or nationality is inherently superior to another. The Quran teaches that God created humanity “from a single male and female and made you into nations and tribes that you may know one another; surely the most noble of you in God’s sight is the most conscious of God” (49:13); human diversity is part of God’s plan, and a person is viewed by God based on righteousness, not ancestry. This verse underlies the fourth of our five principles: that God created the diversity among humanity and that we are called to know and respect one another and uphold our collective dignity. The Prophet Muhammad made the teaching unmistakable in his farewell sermon, declaring that an Arab is not superior to a non-Arab, nor is a white person superior to a Black person, nor a Black person to a white person, except in piety and good action. The early Muslim community embodied this diversity and ideal: among its most honored figures was Bilal ibn Rabah, an enslaved Black African freed by the Muslim community who became the first muezzin, the caller to prayer.

These teachings set the standard. Muslim societies, like all human societies, have not always lived up to it. Racism has not been absent from Muslim history, and Muslim American communities continue to confront internal racism, a conversation Black Muslim scholars have often led. For Muslims, anti-racism is a religious obligation, not merely a social ideal.

Yes. Founded in 1930 by Wallace Fard Muhammad, and later led by Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam is an African American socio-religious movement that combined elements of traditional Islam and other Abrahamic traditions with Black nationalist ideas, whereas Islam is the worldwide religion that Muslims believe was revealed by God to the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. The Nation of Islam was fundamentally concerned with empowering African Americans psychologically, politically, economically, and socially.

When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, his son Warith Deen Mohammed moved the organization and most of its followers toward normative Sunni Islam. The Nation of Islam was revived within a few years by several figures, the most prominent being Louis Farrakhan, who preserved Elijah Muhammad’s original teachings. Followers of his organization number in the tens of thousands, far fewer than the African American Muslims who follow mainstream Islam. Farrakhan, now in his nineties, remains its nominal head but day-to-day leadership has passed to others. He remains a well-known and controversial public figure.

The Nation of Islam’s ideology differs from mainstream Muslim belief in several ways, most fundamentally in its basic creed, which is at odds with the central creed of normative Islam. While there are other differences between the two, the Nation adopted many Islamic traditions, such as women’s dress, holidays, and some Islamic terms. Today the Nation of Islam is in transition with some moving toward normative Islam while others still adhere to the movement’s original teachings.