A majority of U.S. Muslims are content with the nation's direction in contrast to many Americans and few Muslims believe there is support for Islamic extremism here, a survey released on Tuesday found.

With the 10th anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks on New York and the Pentagon approaching, the Pew Research Center found that most Muslims felt ordinary Americans were friendly or neutral toward them.

Reuters reported that in contrast to the majority of the general public dissatisfied with the nation's direction, 56 percent of the estimated 2.75 million American Muslims said they are satisfied, the survey showed. Seven out of 10 view President Barack Obama's tenure favorably.

"On a variety of measures, Muslims in America are very content with their own lives and with the communities where they live," Pew researcher Greg Smith said in an interview.

Four out of five Muslim Americans surveyed were satisfied with the way things are going in their lives and rated their communities very positively as places to live.

"We've seen Muslims move in a different direction than the rest of the country (with more) believing America is going in the right direction," Smith said.

Only 6 percent of Muslims in the survey of slightly more than 1,000 surveyed by telephone between April and July said they there is a great deal of support for Islamic extremism in Muslim-American communities. Another 15 percent said there is a fair amount of support among U.S. Muslims of extremism.