|PIC1|WASHINGTON, USA - Public attitudes towards Muslims and Islam have grown more negative in the United States in recent years, according to a poll released Tuesday.

The Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reported that four in ten Americans (43 per cent) who were recently surveyed said they had a favourable opinion of Muslims, while 35 per cent expressed a negative view. In 2004, opinion of Muslims was more positive with 48 per cent having a favourable opinion while 32 per cent held an unfavourable one.

"There continue to be substantial age, education, political and religious differences in opinions about both Muslims and Muslim Americans," noted researchers in the summary of the survey's findings, which also included views on Mormonism and Pope Benedict XVI.

As was the case with polls in the past, the latest found young people, college graduates, and liberal Democrats more likely to express favourable views of Muslims than were older people, those with less education, Republicans, and conservative and moderate Democrats.

Among religious groups, white evangelical Protestants stood out for their negative views of Muslims. While roughly half of white mainline Protestants (51 per cent) and white Catholics (48 per cent) express favourable views of Muslims, only about a quarter of white evangelicals (24 per cent) said the same, the poll found. Similar religious divisions are seen in views of Muslim Americans.

According to the survey, Muslim Americans are still seen more positively than Muslims in general (53 per cent vs. 43 per cent) as in previous surveys. Unfavourable opinions of Muslim Americans, however, have also edged upward, from 25 per cent in 2005 to the current 29 per cent.

Meanwhile, the belief that Islam encourages violence has increased among groups that express mostly negative views of Muslims, such as conservative Republicans, but also among those groups that have relatively favourable opinions of Muslims, such as college graduates.

There was a significant increase in the proportion of college graduates saying Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence - from 28 per cent in 2005 to 45 per cent today. Furthermore, college graduates are now about as likely as those with no college experience (44 per cent) to express this point of view.

When asked what single word best described their impression of Islam, far more Americans mentioned negative words than positive ones (30 per cent vs 15 per cent). Roughly a quarter (23 per cent) characterised the religion with neutral words. Around a third (32 per cent) did not offer an opinion.

The single most common word used to describe the Muslim religion was "devout" or a variant of this word, such as "devotion" or "devoted", the survey found, with 43 respondents using one of these words to describe their impression of Islam.

Nearly as many (40 respondents in all) said that words like "fanatic" or "fanatical" came to mind when thinking about Islam. Other words commonly used to describe impressions of Islam included "different" (35 total responses), "peace" or "peaceful" (34 responses), "confused" or "confusing" (31 responses), "radical" (30 responses), "strict" (26 responses) and "terror" or "terrorism" (25 responses).

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, conducted August 1-18 among 3,002 adults, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.