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A majority of New Yorkers say a Muslim group has a right to build an Islamic center and mosque near the site of the September 11 attacks in Manhattan but think it should be built elsewhere, according to a poll released on Friday.

The Muslim cleric behind plans to build a mosque close to the Ground Zero site has blamed politicians such as Sarah Palin for fuelling a rise in Islamophobia.

Four people were killed in Indian Kashmir on Monday when police fired on Muslim protesters who set fire to a Christian missionary school to denounce reports that copies of the Koran had been damaged in the United States, officials said.

Amid threats of Koran burning and a heated dispute over a planned Muslim cultural center in New York, Muslim leaders and rights activists warn of growing anti-Muslim feeling in America partly provoked for political reasons.

Turks voted on Sunday on whether to amend the constitution in a referendum seen as a tussle between a government led by conservative Muslims and its secular opponents for influence over the EU candidate country's future.

Real estate mogul Donald Trump has offered to buy the lower Manhattan site where a Muslim group plans to build an Islamic community center for 25 percent more than the current owners paid for it.

We already know the numbers. Pew finds that 18% of Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim. A new Newsweek poll, taken after the controversy over the New York mosque, places that figure at 24%. Even if he's not a Muslim, Newsweek finds, 31 percent think it's "definitely or probably" true that Obama "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world."

President Obama said Sunday he isn't worried about a recent poll showing that nearly one-fifth of Americans believe he is a Muslim.

Americans increasingly are convinced — incorrectly — that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, and a growing number are thoroughly confused about his religion.

The developers of an Islamic cultural center that would include a mosque near Ground Zero have rejected Gov. David Paterson's offer to help them find a different site. Paterson said today the group is apparently committed to building in the proposed site.