BALLWIN • At the pleading of his mother, Syed Hammad Alam keeps his beard neatly trimmed.

The beard that he had proudly started growing a few years ago to ultimately have a fistful of hair was Alam's symbolic entry into manhood and a statement of his deep Islamic faith.

"A full-grown fist beard is obligatory. This is what every Muslim man should have," said Alam, 19, of Ballwin.

But because his family, especially his mother, was worried about his safety, Alam agreed to keep his facial hair short.

"You know how politics are. I just don't want you to get hurt," Alam quoted his mother as saying.

"Until things clear up," Alam said, he will abide by his mother's wishes regarding his appearance. That also means he limits where he wears his traditional Pakistani clothes, a sherwani suit and kupi (cap), to the mosque and around the house.

This has been a tough 10 years for the nation's 2.6 million Muslims. A survey last week suggests Muslim Americans continue to find living in the U.S. after 9/11 more difficult than before the attacks. At least a fifth of those surveyed by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life said they have been called offensive names or singled out by airport security.

Many young Muslims — those who have grown up in a post-9/11 world — say the decade has been particularly complicated.

Becoming an adult can raise deep questions about faith for young people of all religions. But young Muslims have had to come to terms with a faith that has been thrust under intense scrutiny. In doing so, some say, they struggle with engaging in their faith while speaking out against extremism.

In 2001, young Muslims like Alam found their lives forever changed following the terrorist attacks. Seldom did they as elementary or middle school students get questions about their religion, how they dressed or from what country their family came.

But once those behind the attacks were identified as Muslim extremists, there was a sudden interest to know who these students were, what they believed in, where they came from. The innocence of childhood was interrupted with racial slurs. Friends distanced themselves.

"Before the 9/11 attacks, I used to hang out mainly with American Caucasians," Alam said. "After 9/11, my social life became very distorted. People were breaking off from me. Before, they used to come up to me and start talking. After, I'd have to go up to them."

Alam said it was hurtful. He was born in the U.S., yet he felt like he was having to make efforts "to become Americanized" because of his brown skin and foreign-sounding name. His father is from India, his mother from Pakistan.

Young Muslims like Alam say that as they moved into adulthood, they felt burdened with being the ambassador of their faith at their high schools and colleges. In the meantime, some have questioned whether their community could do more to condemn extremists and promote a better understanding of Islam.

In the Pew survey, 48 percent of Muslim Americans of all ages said U.S. Muslim leaders have not done enough to speak out against Islamic extremists.

Uzair Bhatti, 24, says Muslims are fighting the stereotypes they remain saddled with following the attacks. But more has to be done.

"All Muslims need to really focus on turning the page," said Bhatti, born in Washington state and a business student at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. "We have to stand up for our own sakes so we can continue to live freely in this country."

Bhatti and Alam were among five young Muslim Americans who shared with the Post-Dispatch how their lives have changed since 9/11. Most were raised in the faith, but one brings the perspective of a post-9/11 convert. Profiles of the other three follow.

FAIZAN SYED

Faizan Syed, 23, was in eighth grade at Kirkwood Middle School when the attacks happened. Teachers offered all students the option of going home. Syed, as one of three Muslim kids in his school, was pulled aside by a teacher.

"I don't know how people are going to react," Syed recalls the teacher saying. He opted to stay at school that day.

As he has grown up, the heightened interest to learn more about Muslims and Islam has come with its own set of challenges, he said. Educators are called upon to try to explain Islam in classrooms based on little more than a quick Internet search. In doing so, misinformation can be repeated and spread, he said.

"It adds a lot to the confusion," said Syed, "There is a greater desire to learn more but not enough resources."

Syed encountered that while a student at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where there were only a handful of Muslim students.

He would be asked by professors and students about Islam but was not always comfortable acting as the voice of authority. As his interest in politics and history grew, Syed saw it as an opportunity to become the go-to person.

Ultimately, it led to his current position as executive director of the St. Louis chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a position he has held for just five months.

Syed says being a young leader for CAIR is advantageous because his life is a dissection of a world before the terrorist attacks and the sweeping changes and attitudes that came afterward. Young people should not wait around in hopes that perceptions change, he said. While 9/11 will always be a part of this country's history, it should not be used to define Muslims, Syed said.

"It's not enough for us to just live here," Syed said. "If we don't do something, there will be more hatred and a growing misconception."

SARAH BROWN

Sarah Brown of Hazelwood grew up attending Baptist and Pentecostal churches. But about 3½ years ago, after looking at various faiths, she converted to Islam.

"Obviously, I knew about the stereotypes, the stigma," said Brown, 26. "It's a weird experience to go from being a Caucasian female American to all of the sudden being part of 'the other' society."

She left her Evangelical Christian upbringing because, "I didn't feel convinced of what I'd been taught to believe. Islam was the last thing I ever thought to look into."

Muslims represented evil and treated women poorly. Islam was 'something that causes people to do terrible things to others. I had preachers telling me this," Brown said.

But a friend suggested Brown take an independent look at Islam during her religion search.

"It was not at all what I'd been led to believe it was," Brown said. She said she was surprised with its similarities to Christianity and Judaism and that "women were given rights in Islam 1,500 years ago."

Still, the move was hard for her family to take at first.

"My mom brought books home on terrorism from the church library. That was a little disheartening."

And at Brown's job at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Florissant, reactions have varied. She began fully covering her body including wearing a head scarf about 18 months ago.

"I've had people see me and intentionally pass by and go to someone else for help," Brown said. And then there was the woman at the register.

"As I was ringing her out, she said: 'I just feel I need to tell you, you are going to hell,'" Brown said. "I've had people be very blunt with their opinions."

But she sees her job as an opportunity to help untangle the confusion about Islam. She has been asked questions about her faith and for book recommendations on the subject.

"Some people are open and want to learn."

ABBAS ALI

At age 10, Abbas Ali and about two dozen family members came to the U.S. from Pakistan less than six months after the terrorist attacks. It was not until he got here that he understood why their planned moved to the U.S. had been delayed.

His uncle laid out the post-9/11 reality to the family as it arrived in St. Louis.

"The night he picked us up from the airport, he said: 'You're in a different world. You're going to face a hardship. This world can be cruel. It's how you are going to behave is how people behave toward you.'"

Ali wouldn't fully understand those comments for a few more years.

He attended elementary schools in Chesterfield and then Ballwin, placed in English as second language classes with other students from foreign countries.

"It was hard for us to go out and meet Americans because we didn't speak English," Ali said. It did not help that his cousin, who also was his best friend, is named Saddam Hussein, he said.

It wasn't until middle school that Ali realized it was more than the English barrier preventing him from making American friends. Some people were blaming the terrorist attacks on Muslims in general.

As a result, "people were trying to pull themselves away from me," Ali said. His dark skin identified him as different. As foreign. As someone who could be dangerous, he said.

Ali responded by pulling away from Islam, a faith that he embraced as a child. He began hanging out more with his American friends during his first two years in high school.

"I was so involved trying to please my American friends, going to football games, staying out late and partying," he said.

The summer between his sophomore and junior years, things changed. That's when he went to Chicago with his brother and father to a program on spreading the word of Islam.

"I realized I needed to go back to how I was before. I needed to fix myself up. I cried a couple of nights. What am I doing?" Ali said. He was losing sight of who he should be and whom he should be trying to please. He concluded his focus should be on Islam and talking to others about his religion.

"That's hard to do in this day because people are always throwing negative feedback at you."

Like the time when he was working at a McDonald's in high school and a man asked to speak to the manager after asking Ali whether he was Muslim.

Ali asked whether he had done something wrong.

"No, I just want somebody else to take my order," the man told Ali.

"It really hurt me."

After high school, Ali enrolled at St. Louis Community College's Meramec campus, where he joined the Muslim Student Association and eventually became president. He talked with teachers about Islam, and group members set up tables in the student commons passing out information and answering questions.

"Every day, a Muslim is being questioned," Ali said. "We want to spread the word the right way, so that people are not looking at us as just those terrorist people."