For our extensive collection to refute Islamophobia, please click here.

For our extensive collection to refute Islamophobia, please click here.

(CNN) In a time of terrorism, suspicion and doubt have put a sharp focus on American Muslims after violent attacks rocked Paris, San Bernardino, California, and many other places around the world. With about 3 million Muslims living in the United States, many Americans want to know: Who are they? CNN interviewed some Muslim Americans who reveal how complicated it has become to practice their faith in a country they love.

Snapshot: Muslims in the U.S.

There are 3.3 million Muslims in the U.S., which is about 1% of the country’s population.
65% of Muslims in the U.S. identify with Sunni Islam. 11% identify as Shia. 15%, that’s about 1 in 7 Muslims, have no specific affiliation, describing themselves, for example, as “just a Muslim.”
Among African-American Muslims who were born in the U.S., 63% are converts to the faith.
About 7 in 10 U.S. Muslims (69%) say religion is “very important” in their lives. Similar to U.S. Christians, among whom 70% say religion is very important in their lives.
A majority of Muslims in the United States are immigrants or children of immigrants. Among Muslims who were born in the U.S. about 40% describe themselves as African-American, according to a 2011 report by the Pew Research Center. Many of these African-American Muslims converted to Islam.

THE RAPPER SHAPING YOUNG MINDS

Alia Sharrief has many identities. She’s black, she’s Muslim, she’s a hijab-wearing hip-hop artist.

If you ask Sharrief about her identity, she’ll tell you instantly that she loves being black and Muslim. There’s even a popular hashtag called #BeingBlackandMuslim that she uses regularly on social media to show her pride.

But being black and Muslim isn’t the same as being just Muslim, she says.

“I deal with the struggles of Islamophobia and the prejudices against black people,” she says. Stories about African-Americans like Eric Garner and Michael Brown dying in police altercations have hardened the Oakland, California, resident.

That’s the case for Sharrief’s parents. Her mother and father grew up as Southern Baptists in Mississippi and Georgia, respectively, before converting to Islam in their teenage years after the civil rights movement.

Sharrief has found ways to combine her faith with her African-American heritage.

The 26-year-old elementary school teacher is also an up-and-coming rapper. She has opened for hip-hop artists like Grammy-winner Kendrick Lamar in the past. But Sharrief challenges the stereotypes of mainstream hip-hop artists by sporting a headscarf and spitting out lyrics about Islam and the Prophet Mohammed when she’s performing.

Her music often surprises audiences. They’ve never seen a hijab-wearing Muslim woman rap before. “I hear, ‘Wow, I haven’t heard anything like this,'” she says. The audience’s excitement makes her want to keep talking about Islam.

Sharrief teaches second and third-graders at a Muslim charter school in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sometimes, she shares her music with her students. They love it and always request to hear more.

“I deal with the struggles of Islamophobia and the prejudices against black people.”

She’s trying to reclaim the American Muslim narrative through her work, she says. She wants to highlight all the good things Muslims are doing around the world, like when Muslims raised about $50,000 to rebuild burned African-American churches in the United States back in June 2015.

But it feels like she’s starting over whenever there’s a terrorist attack in the name of Islam, she says.

After Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, shot and killed 14 people during a holiday party in December in San Bernardino, California, about a six-hour drive from Oakland, Sharrief felt nervous walking around the Bay Area. She noticed people looking at her hijab, which made her uncomfortable.

“When (San Bernardino) happened, I heard things like, ‘all you Muslims are dangerous,'” she says. “I have never had a thought like that. I have never wanted to hurt someone.”

Her best weapon against the violence is her music, she says. “There are so many stereotypes about Muslims, and I want to say: ‘Hey, I come in peace. We don’t believe in this stuff.'”

THE MEDICAL STUDENT AT THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL

The nerves were already kicking in.

Madiha Khan had been waiting more than two hours for the most important interview of her life.

So many things were running through her head: “Will I like it here? Will they want me here? Will they care that I’m different?”

This was Khan’s first interview at the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Liberty University. She chose her words thoughtfully. She wanted to be a doctor. She wanted to help people.

Then one of the faculty members asked a question that gave her pause: “How do you think you will fit in here?”

Liberty University is a staunchly conservative school in Lynchburg, Virginia. Saying that it has deep Christian roots is an understatement. Southern Baptist pastor and televangelist Jerry Falwell founded the university decades ago, and it has become a pit stop for many conservative politicians. Republican candidate Ted Cruz announced he was running for president on campus in March 2015, and Donald Trump was endorsed by Jerry Falwell Jr., son of the late televangelist, in January.

With her fair skin and hazel eyes, Khan blends in well on campus. But she’s a Muslim with Pakistani origins. Liberty sounds like the last place a Muslim student would want to be at, but Khan liked the university’s religious identity, she says. The 23-year-old was drawn to Liberty’s beliefs.

“I’m not a Christian, but I share the same values as this school,” she remembers saying during the interview.

There’s no drinking on campus, and students are expected to dress modestly. Those were some of the little things that spoke to Khan, who grew up in a relatively non-practicing Muslim household in the New York City borough of Queens.

It’s been about six months since Khan started school, and she’s one of six Muslims who she knows of on the graduate school campus, which can be challenging when it comes to practicing her faith at school.

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