[Al Jazeera] A large proportion of non-Moslem Americans think Islam is incompatible with American values, research by the New America foundation and the American Moslem Institution found.
According to the findings announced on Thursday, 56 percent of Americans believed Islam was compatible with American values and 42 percent said it was not. About 60 percent believed US Moslems were as patriotic as others, while 38 percent they were not.
The study said that although a big majority of Americans - 74 percent - accepted there was "a lot" of bigotry against Moslems existed, 56 percent said they were concerned about "extremism" spreading within the Moslem community.
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Researchers found that Republicans were more likely to hold negative perceptions of Moslems and Islam, with 71 percent saying Islam was incompatible with American values. About 56 percent of Republicans also admitted they would be concerned if a mosque was built in their neighbourhood.
A slight majority of Republicans disagreed with the statement that having more than 100 Moslem candidates in the midterm elections was a positive thing.
Robert McKenzie, a senior fellow at the New America foundation and one of the authors of the study, said there were a number of factors that contributed the shaping of anti-Moslem sentiment, and that they were not limited to the political right.
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