Frank Islam, chairman of the Frank Islam Investment Group, said the people in the US are large-hearted and it was their inclusiveness and openness which has given place to immigrants like him to play a meaningful role in the development of a pluralistic American society.
"People like Donald Trump symbolise intolerance but they are not the real face of America," Islam said.
Islam, an alumnus of the Aligarh Muslim University, was speaking to reporters here after laying the foundation stone of the Rs 18 crore management complex at AMU, for which he has donated a corpus of USD two million.
In reply to a question, he said for India to become great, it was the education granted to its marginalised sections including Parsis, Dalits and Muslims, which would not only change the landscape of the country but the whole world.
To another query on the rise of Islamophobia in the West, he said it was unfortunate that extremist groups like the Islamic State (IS) have given a bad name to the followers of Islam.
He said Islam was a very "tolerant religion" and people need to work together to remove the distorted image of Islam from the world.