BUDAPEST, Hungary — The recent discovery of what researchers believe is the tomb of Suleiman the Magnificent, the greatest ruler of the Ottoman Empire, could have Muslim tourists flocking to Hungary — just as its government is accused of fueling Islamophobia with its virulent reaction to Europe’s refugee crisis.

The 450-year-old tomb is thought to lie beneath a hilltop vineyard near the sleepy town of Szigetvar, 20 miles from Hungary’s border with Croatia, which the government sealed with razor wire two months ago after doing the same on the frontier with Serbia.

The fences keep most refugees out of Hungary; inside the country, Muslims complain of rising abuse and suspicion, which community leaders blame on the firebrand rhetoric of a leader who has become a scourge of Europe’s liberals.

Hungary’s populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban has claimed for months that Europe is being overrun by refugees who threaten to overwhelm its economy and security and alter its very culture and identity.

“Those arriving have been raised in another religion and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians but Muslims,” he said in September, when Hungary built the fence on the border with Serbia.

As well as erecting hundreds of miles of steel fencing, the government has paid for billboards, newspaper ads and radio messages that link the mostly Muslim refugees to a variety of threats, including terrorism.

This month the United Nations refugee agency and major rights groups jointly urged Hungary to stop “portraying those fleeing war and conflict as criminals, invaders and terrorists based on their religious beliefs and places of origin.”

The government insists it is willing to protect genuine refugees and opposes only uncontrolled economic migration, but Hungary’s small Muslim community says it is already suffering from rising intolerance fueled by Orban’s fiery rhetoric.

“In Hungary our situation was quite good in the past. We lived in peace, with no major problems,” said Zoltan Sulok, the president of the Organization of Muslims in Hungary. “But with the way key speakers of the government have communicated, the general situation has deteriorated, and now there are lots of verbal insults and even attacks against Muslims.”

“Now women are insulted and sometimes spat on, or their headscarves are dragged down. This never happened before,” he added.

At a mosque in Budapest, the leaders of the Hungarian Islamic Community agreed that Hungary’s Muslims have never felt so threatened.

“Society here is now very anti-immigrant and anti-refugee, and with that has come a very strong anti-Muslim feeling too,” said Ahmed Miklos Kovacs, the imam of the mosque and the vice president of the organization.

“We feel it everywhere — on television, social media and on the street. Our women who wear headscarves have the most problems … It’s dangerous, of course, and we are scared for our community,” he said.