It's happening not just in New York, but all around the country. Protests targeting mosques and Islamic gathering places, similar to those against the proposed Muslim community center near ground zero, are on the rise.

Anti-Islamic rhetoric appears to be increasing on blogs, talk radio and in political campaigns, too.

"I cannot think of a time in which anti-Islamic sentiment has been higher than it is today," Muslim scholar and author Reza Aslan says. He says the anti-Muslim fervor in the U.S. is even greater now than it was after Sept. 11, 2001.

"What is shocking is that you have mainstream politicians, people like Newt Gingrich, who are openly espousing these views of religious bigotry as a political platform."

He says part of it is due to fears raised by the recent uptick in attempted terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists of American descent or citizenship, such as the failed New York City car bombing. He agrees with others who also point to anxiety over the poor economy as another factor.

"But I think the truth of the matter," Aslan says, "is that there has been certain television networks, news networks and certain politicians — Republican and Democrat — who have really latched on to this paranoia, this fear, of Muslims in the United States and have done so for economic and political gain."

"I am very worried. Very worried," says Aminah McCloud, director of the Islamic World Studies program at Chicago's DePaul University.

She says the anti-Islamic rhetoric is appalling and usually inaccurate. Historically, she says, such rhetoric has often led to horrific violence, including the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.

"To see the rhetoric that enabled people who had good sense to give over to it beginning again scares me to death," she adds.

Human rights lawyer Arsalan Iftikhar, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, agrees. "We're seeing it reach a visceral, political level that we really haven't seen since 9/11."

"Of great concern to the 7 million American Muslims who live in the United States today is that we're starting to see such vitriolic hatred against our way or life — against who we are — by people that we used to consider neighbors," Iftikhar says.

He fears the country is turning into what he calls the "United States of Islamophobia."