Needless to say, this [Christian evangelical attacks on Islam] hasn't helped Muslims feel at home, nor have the kind of poll results you cite, such as the 2004 one that showed half of respondents thought Muslims' civil rights should be curtailed. I've heard a number of Muslims say that their biggest worry is that there will be another attack and precisely that abrogation of their rights will occur. That provides some motivation for community self-policing, but instilling fear is not a sustainable counterterrorism strategy.

One of the oddities of the situation is that this is happening, as you rightly point out, against a backdrop of Muslim appreciation for the fact that religion can play a role in public life. But with polls showing that Americans want religion to play a larger role in their politics, we face the irony that Muslims are being unsettled by the determination of other Americans that their faith inform policy. At least during the current administration, the influence of evangelicals, a good portion of whom favored the invasion of Iraq as part of a fight against evil, has been at an unprecedented peak. We shouldn't kid ourselves: American foreign policy over the last five years has alienated more than a few Muslims, as academic observers and journalists, Barrett included, have noted.

Perhaps as American Muslims become politically organized and vocal, they will develop the kind of aversion to mixing politics and religion expressed by most American Jews. I agree, though, that secularism—which carries an implication that people should compartmentalize and even abandon their faith—isn't the answer. One of the problems Western Europe is having in dealing with its Muslim minorities is that secularism causes plenty of friction and antipathy; think of the controversy over Muslim women who wear the veil.