WASHINGTON, Oct 2: There is a greater understanding and acceptance of Islam in the American society after 9/11, though discrimination against Muslims also has increased, says a recent survey.

The survey, conducted by the PEW Forum on Religion and Public Life, acknowledges that the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001 have led to discrimination against Muslims in jobs and immigration and cases of harassment also have increased.

“But after the initial backlash against the community in the wake of the attack, Americans have made efforts to understand Islam and its followers and now they know most of their Muslim neighbours they earlier hardly cared for,” said a senior State Department official was quoted in the survey as saying.

The US government also has made concerted efforts to check harassment of Muslims in offices, schools and public places, he added.

Mr Timothy Samule of the PEW Forum said that in the survey, rating of the Muslims as a community has gone up. “The US has now a more favourable view of Islam after 9/11,” he said.

Statistics collected from the Federal Bureau of Investigations show that after a sharp rise in hate crimes against Muslims, there has been a marked fall in such crimes in the subsequent years.

The statistics revealed that anti-Muslim incidents shot up to 481 in 2001 from 28 in 2000, but in 2002 the number of such criminal incidents fell to 155 and it went down further to 149 in 2003. The figure 481 was 26 per cent of all the incidents of hate crime in the US in 2001.

Mr Zahid H. Bukhari, Director of American Muslim Studies Programme of George Town University, told surveyors that though post 9/11 Muslims went through a very challenging time in US, the incident started a churning within the community and Islam came in for a lot of attention in the country. The religion which was so far shrouded in mystery for the common American was now, exposed to them in its aspects, he said.