Tulsa, USA - Life changed for all Americans - particularly Muslim Americans - on 9/11.
In the early months after the attacks, Americans showed surprising goodwill toward their Muslim neighbors, especially in Tulsa, but in the last few years, some of that goodwill has eroded.
Before 9/11, life was easy, said Allison Moore, an American convert to Islam who sits on the Islamic Society of Tulsa board.
"People saw us as people," she said. "They didn't have mixed emotions about working with Muslims. They saw us as neighbors and co-workers. And then after 9/11, they started feeling suspicious, ... and some people grew fearful.
"Our lives changed because we were on the defensive, having to explain everything that was in the media and the hate that was being preached about our religion."
Sheryl Siddiqui, longtime spokeswoman for the Tulsa Muslim community, said that in the immediate aftermath of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, except for a few isolated incidents, Tulsans showed tremendous goodwill toward Muslims.
"Most Americans recognized that they were uninformed about Islam, and they were concerned and curious," she said. Non-Muslims offered free security at the mosque and offered Muslim women rides to the grocery store.
Houssam El Soueissi, owner of the Submariner restaurant at 2212 E. 61st St., said someone put a wreath on his business' door with a cross and a note that read: "This store is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, and anyone who messes with Houssam is messing with me."
A history in Tulsa
While other cities, including Oklahoma City, had incidents of violence against Muslims, Tulsa had few.
The reason for that, according to Sandra Rana, also an American convert to Islam, is that "the Muslim community had been fully integrated into Tulsa society, with a 50-year history of community involvement."
But over the course of the last decade, U.S. public opinion has shifted against the religion embraced by a fifth of humanity.
The Pew Research Center found that in 2010, only 30 percent of Americans had a favorable view of Islam, down from 41 percent in just five years.
Oklahoma was the first of three states to pass a law forbidding state judges to consider Shariah law, which is Islamic law, in making decisions. Two dozen other states are considering adopting the ban.
A striking 70 percent of Oklahoma voters approved the measure, which Muslims viewed as a direct attack upon their religion.
An Oklahoma federal judge ruled the law unconstitutional.
A new SoonerPoll.com survey found that 42 percent of respondents believe that the state has become less tolerant of other religions, while 13 percent answered more tolerant.
In a Gallup poll released this month, about half of U.S. Muslims reported having experienced religious or racial discrimination in the past year.
And local Muslims are feeling the shift in public opinion.
"It's made it very difficult," Siddiqui said.
"Our speech is definitely limited. Other than Middle East affairs, I don't think Muslims are allowed to have an opinion in American politics.
"People around us are looking for nefarious intentions in any position we would espouse. For example, I would never put up a pro-Obama yard sign, because that would 'prove' to my neighbors that he's Muslim, when I know he's not. It's that stupid," she said.
Cottage industry
Tulsa Muslims blame the shift primarily on a growing number of books, websites and public speakers warning about the dangers of Islam and Shariah law.
"In the last two or three years we're seeing a very big increase in Tulsa of people who have made a cottage industry of going from church to church and civic group to civic group to spread lies and misinformation about Islam so that they can profit by it," Siddiqui said.
"As Islamophobes got active, that's when things started to change."
She defined "Islamophobes" as people who have an unfounded or irrational fear of Muslims.
"We believe Islamophobes are spreading those fears through lies, distortions and misinformation."
Siddiqui singled out, among others, Brigitte Gabriel, a multilingual Lebanese Christian and former Middle East journalist who speaks widely in the U.S. media and churches warning Americans to wake up to the dangers of radical Islam.
Gabriel has spoken at Temple Israel and the First Presbyterian Church in Tulsa and at Immanuel Baptist Church in Skiatook.
'Dark, cold' religion
Immanuel Baptist Church Pastor Jim Standridge was unapologetic about Gabriel's appearance at his church, calling her a "gracious lady" who was well-received by the congregation.
His viewpoint reflects concerns voiced by many Americans, particularly conservatives and evangelicals.
"I have no qualms with the Muslim people," Standridge said. "I'm not a fan of Islam, but I love all people. Are there good Muslims? Of course there are."
Standridge said he is less concerned about Islam than about "a political correctness that is gripping the whole world that devalues all truth and who we are so that no one can stand up and say right is right and wrong is wrong."
He said America is a land with freedom of expression and freedom of worship for all faiths, "but now Christianity, through political correctness, has become the enemy."
He described Islam as a "dark, cold, legalistic religion that has no grace, no savior and no resurrection."
"Where it's in control, if I speak against it, I can be put in prison or put to death," Standridge said.
"They can bring their Quran to Tulsa and preach, and they will not be imprisoned.
"We have nothing to fear about Islam. We need to fear the political correctness that neuters the word of God," he said.
Radicalism a threat
John Swails, director of the Center for Israel and Middle East Studies at Oral Roberts University, agreed that right after 9/11, Americans were prepared to be open and receptive and to excuse the attacks as an anomaly that didn't represent Islam.
The problem is not Islam, but radical Islam, he said.
"But if only 10 to 15 percent of Muslims are fundamentalists, and only 10 to 15 percent of them are radical, that is 10 to 15 million who are radical. And that's a threat," he said.
"I think Americans' fear is based on reality. Whoever claims otherwise is grasping at straws."
He said he believes that terrorists are not operating as part of a conspiracy but out of a deep undercurrent of anger and hatred toward the United States.
He said he is troubled that so few moderate Muslims have spoken out against terrorism, but he said he understands that they may be intimidated.
Local Muslims countered that their leaders have been outspoken but that the media have failed to report their statements.
Swails also said he is disturbed that the news media go out of their way not to identify terrorists as Muslims.
Local Muslims believe the opposite: that the media have exacerbated their image problem by linking common crimes by Muslims to Islamic terrorism.
Nick Garland, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Broken Arrow, recently preached a four-week series on Islam.
"Any group that declares war against a sovereign nation is a threat," he said. "Radical Islam - and I want to use that term 'radical' - has declared war against the United States.
"But the real threat is broader than Islam," he said. "It's moving away from godliness."
Spiritual struggle
Garland said that "if we don't have strong spiritual convictions, we don't have discernment, and when you don't have discernment, any religion looks the same.
"The danger is that America has lost her spiritual soul, so now we're open to everything, and ironically, the only faith we have zero tolerance for is Christianity. If I'm a Muslim or a Jew I have freedom, but if I want to pray in the name of Jesus, I'm not to mention his name in the public square."
Garland said he fears "that as we struggle with terrorism, we don't realize that the ultimate struggle is spiritual, not economic or political. It can't be remedied by weapons but by an ideological victory."
The Rev. Deron Spoo, pastor of the First Baptist Church in downtown Tulsa, said the tension between Islam and Christianity is nothing new, going back to before the Crusades.
Spoo said he was conflicted on the issue.
"When Jesus said, 'Love your neighbor; love your enemy,' he makes no exceptions. I'm under the directive to love my neighbor," he said.
"But when it comes to politics, I don't know yet how to respond. I tend to tune out the inflammatory voices. It's hard for me to reconcile what Jesus teaches with what they're saying."
Mainline and interfaith community
The backlash against Islam among conservatives and evangelicals is less apparent in mainline churches and in the interfaith community.
Rabbi Charles Sherman of Temple Israel said he does not view Islam as a threat to America.
"I can't speak for the evangelical community, but I don't sense that (fear) in the mainstream churches or the Jewish community," he said.
Tulsa, in particular, has been accepting of Muslims, largely because of its strong interfaith community with a long history of working with Muslims, he said.
Unlike parts of Europe, where a growing, isolated Muslim population is creating polarization, U.S. Muslims are working to be part of American society, he said.
The Rev. Stephen Cranford, who was executive director of Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry on 9/11, blamed the shift in public opinion on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
"It's been very difficult to separate the religious community from the politics of those places," he said.
"Religious extremism is the real danger, regardless of what form it takes," he said.