As Barack Obama surges ahead in the polls, the message is clear America is ready for a black president - as long as he isn`t Muslim.

There is no doubt that calling someone a Muslim is now considered a slur in American politics. The US media has reported on “accusations” that Obama might be a follower of Islam (a claim that 12 per cent of voters believe), as if practising the religion was somehow a crime. The link has been reinforced by the idea that Obama may be hiding his true religion, as some terrified voters have assumed.When a John McCain supporter at a recent rally said she didn`t trust Obama because he was an Arab, the senator replied “No. He`s a decent family man.”

While pundits have expressed anxiety that the white electorate may feign support for Obama while secretly voting for a white candidate, no one is even bothering to pretend they would ever vote for a Muslim. Or even want a Muslim to vote for them.

Fatemah Fakhraie, who runs the feminist Muslim website Muslim Media Watch, says “I certainly don`t think anyone is chasing the Muslim vote. Hearing the word Muslim used as a smear is very damaging. It`s damaging to know that people in my country, the country I was born and raised in, don`t view me as American. It`s alienating for many US Muslims to feel like they don`t belong in their own homes.”

Yet Muslims in America are not surprised, according to Sayyeda Mirza-Jafri, a philanthropy consultant from New York, and are not letting it shake their faith in Obama. “Most people think let him distance himself from us,” she says. “It`s not because he`s insensitive to the way Muslims feel. It`s the way America is. There is just so much Islamophobia. We know he`s a moral, good man.”—Dawn/Guardian News Service