BOSTON – For many American Muslims, Republican nominee Donald Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric has worked as the biggest incentive they needed to register their votes before 2016 presidential elections.

“After hearing what Donald Trump’s had to say, it’s become an obligation to vote,” Bilal Durrani, a busy electrical engineering student at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, told Boston Globe last Friday.

Though Durrani used to ignore the political noise, he made the paperwork at a voter registration table at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury earlier this year.

Durrani is not the only American Muslim to do so.

According to the Pew Research Center, Muslims represent just 1 to 2 percent of the country’s population.

However, the majority of the 3.3 million community lives in strategic places, or swing states, like Florida, Ohio and Virginia.

When the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington-based rights organization, launched its 2016 Muslims Vote campaign, the goal was to lead 1 million Muslim constituents to the voting booths.

“Sometimes, you need a catastrophe or a threat to bring people together,” said Hazem Bata, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America, whose 53rd annual convention in Chicago over Labor Day weekend offered prime booth space to four organizations helping attendees register people to vote.

“Donald Trump is our catastrophe,” he added.

A surge in Muslim electoral participation could have consequences beyond the presidential race, helping Democrats in down-ballot races and perhaps creating a more cohesive voting bloc in future presidential contests.

The country’s Muslim population is expected to more than double by 2050, to about 8.1 million, or 2 percent of the total population, according to the Pew Research Center.

“We’re finally being able to begin to organize,” said Nadeem Mazen, Cambridge’s first Muslim city councilor and a community organizer who created Jetpac Inc., a nonprofit seeking to empower Muslim and other minority voices in civic life.

“That will bear fruit in future elections.”

CAIR said it has already detected a surge in Muslim voter registration.

A June analysis of a private national database found about 824,000 voters whose names matched a list of traditionally Muslim names the group developed.

A similar list from 2012 contained about 500,000 Muslim names, the group reported.

“Not every one of those voters is Muslim; however, it points to a strong increase in the number of Muslims that have registered to vote,” Robert S. McCaw, the group’s government affairs director, said.

“I definitely believe Trump’s continued focus on the Muslim community has been a factor in this increase.”