Mamdani’s victory in New York is expanding Islamophobic reactions in the United States | News from Islamophobia

For years, Muslim New Yorkers gathered at Washington Square Park during the Eid holidays for prayer services, putting the city’s religious and ethnic diversity.

But this year, right -wing influencers have shared images from the rallies, presenting them as a harmful “invasion” linked to the candidate for the American Muslim town hall in New York Zohran Mamdani.

“Fear is crazy,” said Asad Dandia, a local Muslim American historian who supports Mamdani’s campaign. “I think the community and our leadership know that we are on the radar now.”

American Muslims in New York and through the United States said that the country saw a peak in Islamophobic rhetoric in response to Mamdani’s victory in Democratic primaries.

The defenders said that the wave of hateful comments shows that Islamophobia remains a tolerated form of fanaticism in the United States, although it seems to have fallen in recent years.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” said Dandia.

‘Islam is not a religion’

It is not only anonymous Internet users and online anti-muslim figures attack Mamdani and his identity. A flood of politicians, some of which on the orbit of President Donald Trump, joined.

Congressman Randy Fine went so far as to suggest that Mamdani will install a “caliphate” in New York if it was elected while MP Marjorie Taylor Greene published a cartoon of the Statue of liberty In a burqa on X.

Former national security advisor Michael Flynn Attacked the candidate for the town hall, arguing that Islam is a political ideology and “not a religion”.

Others, like the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, invoked the attacks of September 11 and called Mamdani as “Muslim Maoist” while the right -wing commentator Angie Wong told CNN that the inhabitants of New York are “concerned about their security, living here with a Muslim mayor”.

The far -right activist, Laura Loomer, a confidant of Trump, described the candidate for the town hall as “jihadist Muslim”, alleging without foundation that he had links with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.

And republican representative Andy Ogles sent a letter to the Ministry of Justice, calling for the dismissal of Mamdani citizenship and its offset.

On Sunday, the member of the Congress Brandon Gill published a video of Mamdani eating from the Biryani with his hand and called him “to return to the Third World”, saying that “civilized people” in the United States “do not eat like that”.

Call for condemnation

“I receive flashbacks after September 11”, member of the New York Municipal Council Shahana Hanif said. “I was a child at the time, and fanaticism and Islamophobia were always horrible as a child.”

Hanif, which represents a district in Brooklyn, has comfortably won the re-election last week in a race that focused on her plea for Palestinian rights and calls a cease-fire in Gaza.

She told Al Jazeera that anti-Muslim rhetoric in response to Mamdani’s victory aims to distract and derail the progressive energy that beat the establishment to guarantee democratic appointment for him.

Hanif said that Islamophobic comments should be condemned through the political spectrum, stressing that there is “so much more work to do” to cancel racism in the United States.

While several Democrats have denounced the campaign against Mamdani, party personalities – many of whom in New York – have not published official statements on the issue.

“We must all be disgusted by the flood of anti -Muslim remarks spit in the aftermath of the victory of Zohran Mamdani in the primary mayor of New York – some, other latents,” American senator Chris Van Hollen said.

“Shame on the members of the Congress who have embarked on such a bigotry and anyone who does not challenge it.”

Our joint declaration on racist vile and anti-muslim attacks against Zohran Mamdani: pic.twitter.com/qrgovh0jdg

– Congress Rashid Tlaib (@raphida) June 27, 2025

Trump and Muslim voters

At the same time, the Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who represents New York, was accused of having fueled fanaticism against Mamdani. Last week, she falsely accused Mamdani of having made “references to world jihad”.

Her office told us later to the media that she “spoke badly” and that she raised concerns about Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the expression “globalizing the intifada”, a call for activism using the Arabic word for uprising.

The criticism of the song claimed that it makes the Jews in danger because he invokes the Palestinian uprisings of the late 1980s and the early 2000s, which saw peaceful opposition and an armed struggle against Israeli occupation.

While Mamdani, who is of South Asian origin, concentrated his campaign on the affordable New York appointment, his support For Palestinian rights took the front of the scene in criticism against him. Since the elections, attacks – in particular right – seem to have moved to his Muslim identity.

This reaction comes after Trump and his allies courted Muslim voters during his candidacy for the presidency last year. In fact, the American president appointed two Muslim mayors from Michigan as ambassadors in Tunisia and Kuwait.

In the performance of the elections, Trump called Muslim Americans as “intelligent” and “good people”.

The republican party seemed to alleviate the anti-Muslim language because it sought the votes of the socially conservative community.

But Corey Saylor, director of research and advocacy at the American-Islamic Relations Council, said Islamophobia is in cycles.

“Islamophobia is sort of cooked in American society,” Saylor told Al Jazeera.

“It was not in the center, but everything it needed was something to return the switch, and I would say that we see it again.”

“Industry” of Islamophobia

The negative representations of Arabs and Muslims in the American media, pop culture and political discourse have persisted for decades.

This trend intensified after the attacks of September 11 in 2001 by Al-Qaeda. During the following years, right -wing activists began to warn of what they said that plans to implement Islamic religious law in the West.

Muslims have also been the subject of conspiracy theories by warning against the “Islamization” of the United States by immigration.

The early 2000s saw the rise of provocateurs, “experts against terrorism” and reflection groups dedicated to the denigration of Islam and fear against religion in a vaguely connected network that community defenders have described as an “industry”.

This atmosphere has regularly infiltrated traditional political conversations. For example, then candidate Trump called In 2015 for “a total and complete closure of Muslims entering the United States”.

Even in Liberal New York, where the September 11 attacks killed more than 2,600 people at the World Trade Center in 2001, the Muslim community underwent a reaction.

After the attacks, the New York police department created a network of infiltrated informants to monitor mosques, businesses and student associations in the Muslim community.

The program was dissolved in 2014 and a few years later, the City concluded legal regulations with the Muslim community, agreeing to implement stronger surveillance on police investigations to prevent abuse.

In 2010, the city’s Muslim community again burst into national spotlights after the plans of a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan, it was faced with intense opposition because of its proximity to the World Trade Center destroyed.

While many Republicans have whipped conspiracy theories against the community center, several Democrats and the Anti-Diffamation LeagueAn eminent pro-Israeli group, joined them to oppose the project, which was ultimately rebuilt.

‘We are above that’

NOW new York Muslims find themselves once again in the eye of a storm of Islamophobia. This time, however, lawyers said their communities were more resilient than ever.

“We feel more confident in the voice of our community and our institutional power and in the support we have of the allies,” said Dandia.

“Yes, we are dealing with this Islamophobic reaction, but I do not want to give the impression that we are only victims because we are able to retaliate now. The fact that it was the greatest mobilization of Muslim voters in American history testifies.”

Hanif echoes her comments.

“Over the past 25 years, we have built a strong coalition that includes our Jewish communities, which includes Asian, Latin and black communities, to be able to say as we are above that and we will take care of each other,” she told Al Jazeera.