TOKYO: Imam Cemil Ayaz makes it clear when he sits down for a chat about Islam in Japan: terrorism is not up for discussion. In fact, says the prayer leader and director of Tokyo's most prominent mosque, don't even mention the word.

"Islam is a religion of peace and a religion of love," said the Turkish imam through an interpreter.

Like the imam, many Muslims in Japan struggle to disassociate their religion from images of militancy and violence.

Although they make up only a fraction of the nearly 2 million foreigners here, the September 11 attacks, Iraq and reports that a suspected Al Qaeda agent recently lived here have intensified the focus on the Muslim community, and not in a good light.

"Since September 11, I think the attitude of people in how they look at Muslims has changed," said Mohammad Zubair, a freelance journalist who reports on the Islamic world for Japan's media.

Zubair says his wife, a Japanese who converted to Islam and now wears a headscarf, often gets the cold-shoulder from fellow Japanese.

"The other (Japanese) women, they keep their distance, like she's someone from another planet," he said.

It's a familiar tale for Japan's Muslims, who number about 100,000 - more than 90 per cent of whom are not Japanese.

Part of the problem, some say, is the media.

In the wake of 9/11, Japan's media have paid more attention to followers of Islam, and not always in a positive way, says Manami Yano, secretary general of the Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan.

"You hear a lot more being said about Muslims, people from the Middle East and Arabs," she said.

"For example, on television there have been comments like 'there are a lot of terrorists among Muslims and Arabs, so we should crack down hard on them.'

"If regularly people hear that, they end up believing it. So it's no mystery that people get stirred up," she said.-Reuters