This post was originally published on the HuffingtonPost - Religion page.  I would love to know what you you think. Please post your comments on HuffPost.

This is the tale of one city, one Islamic Center and two news stories. An iconic photo, taken a year and a half ago, represents the first story: a plywood sign announcing "Future Site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro," spray painted over with the words, "Not Welcome." That story put the town on the map. CNN produced a 43-minute documentary that aired this past April. The Daily Show featured it in a segment "Tennessee No Evil." Faiz Zhakir, vice president of the Center for American Progress and one of the researchers behind Fear, Inc., called it "ground zero of Muslim bashing in America."

The second story, garnering almost no national attention, is represented by a picture taken last week of 10 individuals with shovels, a classic American groundbreaking scene. Even CNN gave only a brief notice to The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro's breaking of ground on Sept. 29. The stories belong together and they deserve to be widely told.

In the spring of 2008, Imam Ossama Bahloul, Ph.D., a graduate of the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo, chose to turn down a bigger job offer and opt for a quiet life in the city of Murfreesboro, Tenn., 35 miles south of Nashville. With a population of 100,000, Murfreesboro, according to its website, is the fastest growing city in the state, as well as the most livable. The 250 Muslim families, some having lived there for almost 30 years, were outgrowing their small meeting space; Friday prayers were spilling into the parking lot. In 2009 the group purchased a 15-acre plot and in May, 2010 Rutherford County Regional Planning Commission approved plans for an Islamic Center whose eventual size might reach 52,960 square feet.

As soon as the sign announcing the future site of the Islamic Center went up, spray paint defaced it. Vandals tore down a second sign. In July, several hundred residents marched in protest against the mosque. In August, things got worse. Police deemed a fire on the site as arson, and gunshots were heard nearby. The same month, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, then running for governor, spoke against the mosque. "You could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, a cult, whatever you want to call it."

In September, 17 land owners sued Rutherford County, claiming that the county should have investigated the substantive beliefs of the Islamic Center before approving its plans. During the trial, plaintiffs called to the stand Frank Gaffney, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan, as an expert on sharia. "I don't hold myself out as an expert on sharia law," Gaffney told the court. "But I have talked a lot about that as a threat." Gaffney testified that "Sharia is the enemy-threat doctrine we face today." They asked the court to consider Islam as a political system or ideology, not just a religion.

The U.S. Justice Department disagreed. It filed a friend of the court brief in which it explained that "every U.S. court addressing the question has treated Islam as a religion for purposes of the First Amendment and other federal laws. ... Islam falls plainly within the understanding of a religion for constitutional and other federal legal purposes, and qualifies as a religion under the various tests courts have developed." The brief even quoted a dissenting opinion by Justice Scalia (joined by Justices Relmquist, Thomas and Kennedy) in favor of a public display of the Ten Commandments that noted that Islam, along with Christianity and Judaism, is one of "the three most popular religions in the United States," and that "these three monotheistic faiths account for 97.7% of all believers."

The Justice Department also argued that the county would be in danger of violating the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act that Congress passed in 2000 in response to findings that "religious institutions in general, and minority faiths in particular, frequently face overt and subtle discrimination in the application of land use and zoning regulations."

In May of this year, after the CNN documentary was aired, the judge ruled against the plaintiffs and on Aug. 30, the judge upheld his decision: "Those who are adherents to Islam are entitled to pursue their worship in the United States just as are those who are adherents to more universally established faiths (in our community)" the judge wrote. He continued, "The plaintiffs have established that there may be extremist members within the group of worshipers even here in Rutherford County, but that does not change the fact that Islam exists as a religion apart from the extremist philosophies."

Last month, I visited Murfreesboro as part of Clergy Beyond Borders' caravan that included two imams, an evangelical minister and another rabbi. We were invited to speak at Middle Tennessee State University, the largest undergraduate institution in the state, by the Muslim Students Association, the Jewish Student Union and the Wesley Student Association. The local NBC news carried a two-minute segment about the event. We were heartened that the friendly audience we met considered themselves the mainstream of their community. The protestors who had made the news, they told us, were a small, if vocal, minority.

Despite initial difficulty finding a contractor and a recent bomb threat, the Muslims we met in Murfreesboro seemed confident and optimistic. Lema Sbenaty, a 20-year-old pre-med student at MTSU who grew up in the town, was featured in the CNN documentary. Articulate, self possessed and beautiful, Lema organized our visit with her fellow students. She told us that she attended every day of the six week trial, eventually laughing at the absurdity of some of the attacks. Lema was happy with the court's decision, but not surprised, having received hundreds of emails from non-Muslims she never met, telling her they were her allies. She was looking forward to celebrating the ground breaking.

Like Lema, Imam Bahloul also looked to the future with hope. He too received messages of solidarity from around the country. Many included contributions for the proposed Islamic Center, sometimes in the form of a $10 bill. One well-meaning Christian in Texas offered the imam land on his ranch to build the mosque. "I had to explain to him that we could not accept his generous offer. The families in our congregation live here in Murfreesboro. And we are not planning to move."

This post was originally published on the HuffingtonPost - Religion page.  I would love to know what you you think. Please post your comments on HuffPost.

While meeting to prepare my taxes, my accountant asked me, "What's new and good in your line of work?" She knows that I am a long time interfaith educator and that in the last few years I have been working in coalitions with members of other faith communities to combat religious prejudice against Muslims in this country.

Despite much to deplore and enormous challenges ahead, I could answer that there is some good news about Islamophobia. Obviously, the good news needs to be heard in the context of the bad news, bad both for Muslims and for the rest of us who care about America. Recent reports by the Pew Research Center (August), the Center for American Progress (August) and the Brookings Institution and the Public Religion Research institute (September) all document the bad news. More than half of all Muslims under the age of 30 report being the victims of religious intolerance in the last year (Pew). In the last decade, seven foundations have poured more than $40 million into efforts to drum up fear of Muslims in America (CAP). Forty-seven percent of Americans believe Islam is incompatible with American values (Brookings). Clearly, religious prejudice against Muslims continues to be a concern -- a serious concern. At the same time, each report also includes the seeds of some good news.

First, the Brookings study, "What It Means to be an American: Attitudes in an Increasingly Diverse America Ten Years after 9/11," reveals that most Americans have very little direct experience of Muslims. The majority have no opportunity to speak to a Muslim, even occasionally. What's good about that? In fact, it helps explain findings such as the Gallup Poll that placed Muslims as the most disliked religious group in America. We tend to dislike what we do not know. Robert Putnam describes the opposite situation as the "Aunt Susan effect." In his book "American Grace," Putnam observes how positive feelings develop as people get to know the "other" as friends and eventually family members.

With the exception of African American Muslims, Muslims are part of a recent immigrant community. The Pew study, "Muslim Americans: No Sign of Growth in Alienation or Extremism," reports that 63 percent of Muslim Americans are first-generation immigrants to the U.S., with 45 percent having arrived since 1990. (Strikingly, 81 percent of Muslim Americans are citizens of the U.S., including 70 percent of those born outside the U.S., a higher percentage than most other immigrant groups.) Muslims simply have not had the time to integrate into American society, but there is evidence, also in that study, that the process is well under way.

The Brookings report broke down responses by age of the informants. Americans ages 18-29 were twice as likely as those ages 65 and older to know Muslims personally. In each category, the young are moving in the direction Robert Putnam would predict will lead to better news. The future looks more promising than the past.

Second, most Americans do not know much about Islam. Once again, this can be the good news. In the Brookings study, people were asked how much they believe they know about Islam. Fourteen percent said they know a lot about the religious beliefs and practices of Muslims, 57 percent said they know a little, and 29 percent said they know nothing at all. The group that was most likely to say they know a lot about Muslims was, interestingly, Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement (21 percent).

What they know, unfortunately, was provided by a small cadre of well funded scholars, bloggers and media personalities, in particular, those on Fox News. The Center for American Progress recently documented the effort to shape the perception of Americans about Islam through an "echo chamber" of recycled information and misinformation. "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America," shows how movements like the one to ban so-called "Sharia law" are created. A "solution in search of a problem," state legislation proposing to keep Islamic law from superseding American law did not emerge out of spontaneous grassroots concern. In fact, according to a recent article in the New York Times, one of the chief authors of this legislation confessed that "if this law passed in every state it would not have served its purpose." The purpose is to stir up suspicion and controversy, not to actually pass legislation that the author himself knows is unconstitutional as well as unnecessary.

As people learn more about the work of this small group and their funders, we will be in a better position to offer a counter narrative. The good news lies in the more than 80 percent of Americans who know little or nothing about Islam and know that they know little or nothing about it. Americans are evenly divided over the question of whether Islam and democracy are congenial, but the question is flawed. It presumes a static entity called "Islam." Like other great religious traditions, Islam is evolving and multidimensional. Neither Roman Catholicism nor Judaism were, in essence, "democratic," but American versions of both of those traditions became part of the fabric of American religious life, as will American Islam. Again, this has already begun to happen.

This brings us to the third piece of good news, the outpouring of support for Muslims by their sisters and brothers in other religious communities in America. On Sept. 8, I stood proudly, shoulder-to-shoulder, with representatives of 26 national religious organizations, organized by the Islamic Society of North America. We said we refused to allow our communities to be victims of campaigns of misinformation. We can also use the Internet. Around the country, people commemorated 9/11 with formal programs and through simple acts of friendship.

Could I tell a darker story today? Of course. Should we be complacent? Far from it. The bad news is that there are people waking up early in the morning to take advantage of Americans' ignorance about Islam and to fill the void with fear. The good news is that others are determined to wake up earlier still and help Americans live the best of our country's values.

Valarie Kaur, a 2011 graduate of Yale Law School, is also an award winning documentary film maker. As the newly appointed Executive Director of a new multifaith initiative called Groundswell at Auburn, she exemplifies the young leadership that is making multifaith work so exciting today. Valarie is part of the most religiously diverse generation in American history. Coming into adulthood in "the ashes of September 11th," Valarie, like many other emerging leaders, is embracing the challenges of pluralism in remarkable new ways.

When I entered this field in the 1970's, a typical "interfaith" event included Protestants, Catholics and Jews. I remember a Jewish mentor telling me that talking to Christians was a good idea. "Tell them not to teach hateful things about Judaism and not to convert our children." Of course, there were those whose vision was greater than that, and in a future post I hope to write about the pioneers of interfaith work in America whose efforts should be honored.

But today, I want to call attention to Valarie and her generation whose spiritual drive, inclusiveness and passion for justice should hearten the most cynical soul.

In the weeks leading up to the House hearings on "the radicalization of American Muslims," anti-Muslim rhetoric continued apace in some segments of the media. At an Islamic Society of North American dinner in Arlington, Virginia last month, over 200 Muslims shared their concerns as panelists discussed the challenges facing the Muslim community. Professor Ingrid Mattson, the immediate past president of the organization, began the program by reminding the audience, "We are not alone -- our interfaith family has our back."

This is not the first time Americans of faith have stood behind a religious group singled out for suspicion. In 1921, at a time of widespread, virulent defamation of Jews, John Spargo, a lay Methodist minister, social critic and activist, said "It should not be left to men and women of the Jewish faith to fight this evil ... Anti-Semitism commands our special attention today ... but my plea is not for pro-Semitism." Rather, he opposed efforts to "divide our citizenship on religious lines." He did so out of "loyalty to American ideals." In a lecture later that year, Spargo called religious hatred "American treason." In his eyes, the "Jews' problem" was actually an American problem.