Ahsan Mahmood Khan is the President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim CommunityLos Angeles East Chapter. He says the news does not reflect who Muslims are.

Source: learningenglish.voanews.com
http://learningenglish.share.voanews.eu/flashembed.aspx?t=vid&id=2859993&w=640&h=363&skin=embeded

Muslims around the world will celebrate the holiday of Eid-al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan, on Friday. Ramadan is a time when Muslims fast and focus on God.

For Muslims in the United States, it is also a time to reflect and fight misconceptions and negative stereotypes of Islam.

Muslims feel Islamic extremists hurt their community

Ahsan Mahmood Khan is the President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Los Angeles East Chapter. He says the news does not reflect who Muslim sare.

“You hear a lot in the news about (the Islamic State group) ISIL or ISIS and what is going on in the Middle East. It is just terrible, and we hear this in the news every day.”

He says it is very similar to what happened after the September 11 terrorist attacks against the U.S. in 2001.

Mohammed Zafarullah is the imam of the Baitul Hammed Mosque. He says Islam is a religion of peace. But extremism has led to misconceptions about Islam.

Those people who are doing these kind of things, they say they are Muslim but according to our religion, they are not a real Muslim because that is …they have their own agenda, which they are using in the name of the religion.”

A 2011 study by the Pew Research Center showed that Muslims in the U.S. are concerned about the acts of Islamic extremists. The study explains howlife became more difficult for Muslim-Americans after the September 11 attacks. Some Muslims reported that people looked at them with suspicion and called them offensive names.

More than half of the Muslims surveyed also said they believe government policies single out Muslims in the United States for increased monitoring.

Even more challenges for Muslim women

Muslim women in the U.S. face other challenges in their daily lives. People can notice them more easily because of their hijab – the head covering worn by some Muslim women.

Mozna Khraiwesh is a Muslim woman from… read more at learningenglish.voanews.com