A record number of American Muslims said they were victims of discrimination in 2005, a national Islamic group said Monday.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said it received nearly 2,000 civil rights complaints, ranging from reports of physical violence to mosque desecration to verbal abuse.

The numbers, released in a 46-page report by the council, are the highest in the agency's 12-year history and reflect a 30 percent jump from 2004.

The report comes five years after 9/11 at a time when public opinion polls show a growing public unease with Muslims and Islam.

"It is apparent that post-9/11 backlash against Muslims, Arabs and South Asians continues to be a societal problem," the report said. "With the recent renewal ... of the infamous USA Patriot Act, it is imperative for our society to ensure that all Americans are treated equally under the law."

In New Jersey, home to an estimated 300,000 Muslims, the number of complaints -- 70 -- represented an increase of one from 2004, but was enough to make the state the 10th highest in the nation.

And, some of the complaints attracted national attention -- including an incident in which several Muslim men were detained at a Giants football game in the Meadowlands after they were seen praying in a corridor.

The report said the most common complaint, about 17 percent, was what it called due process violations and included improper arrest, detentions and interrogations.

Some of the more serious cases in the report include the pipe bombing of a Cincinnati mosque, and the firing of 50 shots at two cars at a Philadelphia mosque.

Arsalan Iftikhar, the author of the report, described a second New Jersey case in which a man who worked in Wayne was harassed by his co-workers after they found religious books on his desk. The books were thrown in the trash, and a co-worker declared, "These [expletive] books don't belong here!"

Meanwhile, a Wyckoff man who runs the council's New Jersey chapter said many of the complaints he handled were lodged by workers who were told to shave their beards or remove their head scarves.

"We're seeing a deliberate identification of the Muslim in the workplace," Mir Ali said. "People are more quick to identify Muslims and raise these issues."

A Middlesex County man, for example, said his wife was working as a supermarket cashier when she was told by the manager to leave her head scarf at home.

"They said you can't have any religion at the store," said the man, who requested anonymity because his wife still works at the store. "When we told them it was a religious obligation, they asked us to bring a letter from a religious authority."

The matter wasn't settled, however, until the council sent letters to the store's corporate offices that explained how personal displays of religion are protected by the Constitution.

"Once they knew the law, they respected it," the man said.

Demeaning comments

Other common complaints, Ali said, include rude behavior by government workers, such as federal immigration officials. More common, he said, are demeaning comments. He said one headscarf-wearing woman said she was approached by another woman, who said: "You don't have to wear that now, honey, you're in America."

Still, some community activists said the New Jersey numbers show the state remains a relatively hospitable state for Muslims and Arab Americans.

"We'll always have issues in the airports," said Hani Khoury, a lawyer in Hackensack, and president of the state chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "But we generally feel the state is aware of our issues and is anxious to work with us to solve them."

Clifton lawyer Sohail Mohammed said he has conducted workshops on Muslim etiquette for nearly 7,000 law enforcement officers.

"I'm a firm believer that ignorance breeds fear, and fear breeds the type of profiling that the community fears," Mohammed said.

The report, meanwhile, dwells on the steps Muslims have taken at the national level to clarify the Islamic position on terrorism. But the report's author said those steps appear to register little with a skeptical public.

The steps include the issuing of a fatwa, or religious ruling, saying that Islam forbids violence against civilians. The council also took to television for 30-second public-service advertisements.

"We feel like we've stood on every street corner yelling at the top of our lungs," said Iftikhar, the council's legal director. "But there are people who just don't want to hear it."

A Rutherford activist said he blames the president, among others.

"How do you expect the numbers [of civil rights complaints] to go down when our president is speaking on national television about Islamic fascism?" said Hesham Mahmoud, who works with the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

E-mail: chadwick@northjersey.com