As Barack Obama surges ahead in the polls, the message is clear: America is ready for a black president - as long as he isn't Muslim.

There is no doubt that calling someone a Muslim is now considered a slur in American politics. The US media has reported on "accusations" that Obama might be a follower of Islam (a claim that 12% of voters believe), as if practising the religion was somehow a crime. The link has been reinforced by the idea that Obama may be hiding his true religion, as some terrified voters have assumed.

When a John McCain supporter at a recent rally said she didn't trust Obama because he was an Arab, the senator replied: "No. He's a decent family man."

While pundits have expressed anxiety that the white electorate may feign support for Obama while secretly voting for a white candidate, no one is even bothering to pretend they would ever vote for a Muslim. Or even want a Muslim to vote for them.

Fatemah Fakhraie, who runs the feminist Muslim website Muslim Media Watch, says: "I certainly don't think anyone is chasing the Muslim vote. Hearing the word Muslim used as a smear is very damaging. It's damaging to know that people in my country, the country I was born and raised in, don't view me as American. It's alienating for many US Muslims to feel like they don't belong in their own homes."

Yet Muslims in America are not surprised, according to Sayyeda Mirza-Jafri, a philanthropy consultant from New York, and are not letting it shake their faith in Obama. "Most people think: let him distance himself from us," she says. "It's not because he's insensitive to the way Muslims feel. It's the way America is. There is just so much Islamophobia. We know he's a moral, good man."