For years, Muslim New Yorkers have gathered at Washington Sq. Park on the Eid holidays for prayer providers, placing town’s spiritual and ethnic variety on show.
However this 12 months, right-wing influencers have been sharing footage of the gatherings, presenting them as a nefarious “invasion” tied to Muslim American New York Metropolis mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
“The fear-mongering is insane,” stated Asad Dandia, a neighborhood historian and Muslim American activist who helps Mamdani’s marketing campaign. “I believe the group and our management know that we’re on the radar now.”
Muslim People in New York and throughout the USA stated the nation is seeing a spike in Islamophobic rhetoric in response to Mamdani’s victory within the Democratic primaries.
Advocates stated the wave of hateful feedback exhibits that Islamophobia stays a tolerated type of bigotry within the US regardless of showing to have receded lately.
“The extra issues change, the extra they keep the identical,” Dandia stated.
‘Islam isn’t a faith’
It’s not simply nameless web customers and on-line anti-Muslim figures attacking Mamdani and his identification. A flood of politicians, together with some within the orbit of President Donald Trump, have joined in.
Congressman Randy Fine went so far as to counsel with out proof that Mamdani will set up a “caliphate” in New York Metropolis if elected whereas Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a cartoon of the Statue of Liberty in a burqa on X.
Former Nationwide Safety Adviser Michael Flynn attacked the mayoral candidate, arguing that Islam is a political ideology and “not a faith”.
Others, like conservative activist Charlie Kirk invoked the 9/11 assaults and referred to as Mamdani a “Muslim Maoist” whereas right-wing commentator Angie Wong informed CNN that individuals in New York are “involved about their security, residing right here with a Muslim mayor”.
Far-right activist Laura Loomer, a Trump confidant, referred to the mayoral candidate as a “jihadist Muslim”, baselessly alleging that he has ties to each Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.
And Republican Consultant Andy Ogles despatched a letter to the Division of Justice, calling for Mamdani’s citizenship to be revoked and for him to be deported.
On Sunday, Congressman Brandon Gill posted a video of Mamdani consuming biryani together with his hand and referred to as on him “to return to the Third World”, saying that “civilized folks” within the US “don’t eat like this”.
Requires condemnation
“I’m getting flashbacks from after 9/11,” New York Metropolis Council member Shahana Hanif stated. “I used to be a child then, and nonetheless the bigotry and Islamophobia had been horrifying as a baby.”
Hanif, who represents a district in Brooklyn, comfortably received re-election final week in a race that centered on her advocacy for Palestinian rights and requires a ceasefire in Gaza.
She informed Al Jazeera that the anti-Muslim rhetoric in response to Mamdani’s win goals to distract and derail the progressive power that defeated the institution to safe the Democratic nomination for him.
Hanif stated Islamophobic feedback must be condemned throughout the political spectrum, stressing that there’s “a lot extra work to do” to undo racism within the US.
Whereas a number of Democrats have denounced the marketing campaign in opposition to Mamdani, main figures within the occasion – together with many in New York – haven’t launched formal statements on the difficulty.
“We should always all be disgusted by the flood of anti-Muslim remarks spewed within the aftermath of Zohran Mamdani’s victory within the NYC mayoral main – some blatant, others latent,” US Senator Chris Van Hollen stated in an announcement.
“Disgrace on the members of Congress who’ve engaged in such bigotry and anybody who doesn’t problem it.”
Our joint assertion on the vile, anti-Muslim, racist assaults on Zohran Mamdani: pic.twitter.com/QRGOvh0jdG
— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) June 27, 2025
Trump and Muslim voters
On the identical time, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who represents New York, has been accused of fuelling bigotry in opposition to Mamdani. Final week, she falsely accused Mamdani of constructing “references to international jihad”.
Her workplace later informed US media retailers that she “misspoke” and was elevating considerations over Mamdani’s refusal to sentence the phrase “globalise the intifada”, a name for activism utilizing the Arabic phrase for rebellion.
Critics of the mantra claimed that it makes Jews really feel unsafe as a result of it invokes the Palestinian uprisings of the late Nineteen Eighties and early 2000s, which noticed each peaceable opposition and armed battle in opposition to the Israeli occupation.
Whereas Mamdani, who’s of South Asian descent, centered his marketing campaign on making New York reasonably priced, his assist for Palestinian rights took centre stage within the criticism in opposition to him. For the reason that election, the assaults – notably on the appropriate – seem to have shifted to his Muslim identification.
That backlash comes after Trump and his allies courted Muslim voters throughout his bid for the presidency final 12 months. In truth, the US president has nominated two Muslim mayors from Michigan as ambassadors to Tunisia and Kuwait.
Within the lead-up to the elections, Trump referred to as Muslim People “sensible” and “good folks”.
The Republican Social gathering appeared to tone down the anti-Muslim language because it sought the socially conservative group’s votes.
However Corey Saylor, analysis and advocacy director on the Council on American-Islamic Relations, stated Islamophobia goes in cycles.
“Islamophobia is kind of baked into American society,” Saylor informed Al Jazeera.
“It wasn’t entrance and centre, however all it required was one thing to flip the change proper again on, and I might say, we’re seeing that after once more.”
Islamophobia ‘business’
Unfavorable portrayals of Arabs and Muslims within the US media, popular culture and political discourse have continued for many years.
That development intensified after the 9/11 assaults in 2001 by al-Qaeda. In subsequent years, right-wing activists began to warn about what they stated had been plans to implement Islamic spiritual legislation within the West.
Muslims had been additionally the topics of conspiracy theories warning in opposition to the “Islamisation” of the US by immigration.
The early 2000s noticed the rise of provocateurs, “counterterrorism specialists” and assume tanks devoted to bashing Islam and drumming up concern in opposition to the faith in a loosely related community that group advocates have described as an “industry”.
That environment often seeped into mainstream political conversations. For instance, then-candidate Trump called in 2015 for “a complete and full shutdown of Muslims coming into the USA”.
Even in liberal New York, the place the 9/11 assaults killed greater than 2,600 folks on the World Commerce Heart in 2001, the Muslim group endured a backlash.
After the assaults, the New York Police Division established a community of undercover informants to surveil the Muslim group’s mosques, companies and pupil associations.
The programme was disbanded in 2014, and some years later, town reached a authorized settlement with the Muslim group, agreeing to implement stronger oversight on police investigations to forestall abuse.
In 2010, town’s Muslim group burst into the nationwide highlight once more after plans for a Muslim group centre in decrease Manhattan confronted intense opposition because of its proximity to the destroyed World Commerce Heart.
Whereas many Republicans whipped up conspiracy theories in opposition to the group centre, a number of Democrats in addition to the Anti-Defamation League, a distinguished pro-Israel group, joined them in opposing the mission, which was finally scrapped.
‘We’re above this’
Now New York Muslims discover themselves as soon as once more within the eye of an Islamophobia storm. This time, nonetheless, advocates stated their communities are extra resilient than ever.
“We really feel extra assured in our group’s voice and our institutional energy and within the assist that we’ll have from allies,” Dandia stated.
“Sure, we’re coping with this Islamophobic backlash, however I don’t wish to make it appear to be we’re simply victims as a result of we’re in a position to now combat again. The truth that this was the most important Muslim voter mobilisation in American historical past is a testomony to that.”
Hanif echoed his feedback.
“During the last 25 years, we’ve constructed a powerful coalition that features our Jewish communities, that features Asian, Latino, Black communities, to have the ability to say like we’re above this and we’ll look after each other,” she informed Al Jazeera.
