Today in Islamophobia

Today in Islamophobia: In the United States, former NYC mayor, Rudy Giuliani launched an anti-Muslim tirade against NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and said he should not attend the September 11 memorial service, meanwhile across the country, members of the GOP continue to make Islamophobic statements, making Muslims a campaign issue ahead of the 2026 midterms, and lastly in Austria, the law banning religious head coverings in public schools for girls under 14 has gone into effect. Our recommended read of the day is by Arya Sundaram for Gothamist on how the election of Zohran Mamdani and other prominent Muslim-Americans has come as a part of a “political awakening” among a younger generation who reject and in many cases, outwardly fight against the rampant Islamophobia that was an “institutionalized force” in a post 9/11 America. This and more below:

United States

How post-9/11 Islamophobia sparked a Muslim political awakening in NYC | Recommended Read

Just a few days after the 9/11 attacks, then-16-year-old Faiza Ali was wearing a hijab at a Rite Aid near her home in Midwood, Brooklyn, when a screaming woman told her to leave. The woman pushed Ali's little sister as other customers and a security guard stood by idly. Ali Najmi remembers when his Pakistani immigrant mother stopped wearing her traditional shalwar kameez outside their home in Glen Oaks, Queens. She started covering the Quran she read on the subway with a paper bag. And Ramzi Kassem, who volunteered as a legal translator at a nearby prison, remembers being briefly detained by a guard who suspected he might be a terrorism suspect. Twenty-five years later, the three now hold key appointments in the administration of the city’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Their paths to the halls of power show that the wave of post-9/11 Islamophobia that cast Muslims as adversaries also sparked a political awakening among a generation that went on to help Mamdani get elected. “Islamophobia after 9/11 became a kind of institutionalized force, primarily through different forms of government repression,” said Moustafa Bayoumi, a Brooklyn College professor who has written about Muslim political organizing in New York City. “The younger generation especially decided that they had to meet those challenges head-on, and they really began organizing collectively under the banner of being Muslim American.” read the complete article

Giuliani says Mamdani should skip 9/11 ceremony during rant against Islam

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to come face-to-face with Rudy Giuliani at the main September 11 memorial service, just days after the former mayor – who led the city at the time of the 2001 terrorist attacks – disparaged his Muslim religion and said he should skip the ceremony. In an interview with right-leaning Newsmax at the weekend, Giuliani said: “Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming.” Mamdani confirmed on Monday, while attending a breakfast celebrating New York’s J’ouvert and West Indian Day Parade celebrations in Brooklyn, that he would attend the main ceremony and multiple 9/11 events on Friday, to stand with the families of those who died and first responders – as he did last year before taking office. In the convoluted tirade on air on Saturday, Giuliani threw insults and baseless comparisons. He appeared to draw parallels between Mamdani’s faith and the 9/11 hijackers acting on the extremist orders of Osama bin Laden, the jihadist militant and terrorist leader killed by US forces during the Obama administration. He remarked that the terrorists brought their ideological opposition to the United States “in the name of the Muslim religion” and “weren’t hiding it like Mamdani is trying to hide it”. He also declared the opinion that the mayor supports a notion that Islam should be the dominant religion. read the complete article

25 years after Sept. 11 attacks, Muslims are still navigating the backlash

It’s midday on a Friday at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury, the largest mosque in New England. More than a thousand men, women and children of all different ethnic backgrounds stream in. Some head to the mosque’s cafe, where they catch up with each other over chai tea and baklava. Then, people gather in the carpeted prayer hall, take off their shoes and sit down for the Friday Jum’ah service. Compare this ordinary scene from a place of worship with the way Muslims say their community has been portrayed and treated since the Sept. 11 attacks. The extremists responsible for 9/11 invoked Islam to justify their actions, putting ordinary Muslims in the United States on the defensive about their faith and contributing to a surge in Islamophobic prejudice and discrimination in the months that followed. read the complete article

The Far Right Goes Into Overdrive in Michigan

In Aug. 18, a group of self-proclaimed “Crusaders,” some of whom carried anti-Muslim placards while others sported swastika armbands and a Nazi flag, were met by counterprotesters outside what would otherwise have been a routine city council meeting in Dearborn, Michigan. The clash came a mere two weeks after a contentious U.S. Senate primary that tested the bounds of Islamophobia in U.S. politics. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said that the demonstration prompted youth football teams to cancel practices and some businesses to close for the day. The protest was organized by Jake Lang, a pardoned Jan. 6 insurrectionist from Florida, who has descended on the Michigan city four times. He had previously staged an anti-Muslim protest at a religious procession on Aug. 2, where three counterprotesters were arrested for attacking him. Amy Doukoure, lead staff attorney at the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told New Lines that the civil rights advocacy group got more hate crime complaints than usual after that protest. But Lang’s latest rally, the “Christian Crusader March,” has been followed by an even sharper rise in violent threats. The march is the latest episode in a decades-long history of anti-Muslim animus directed at the city, and one of the latest stops on Lang’s parade of demonstrations. El-Sayed, who would be the country’s first Muslim senator if he wins in November, has faced a relentless barrage of identity-based attacks since launching his campaign, and especially since securing the Democratic nomination. read the complete article

Abdul El-Sayed uses speech to talk about Muslim faith and American identity

The Democratic Senate candidate for the US state of Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, has used a speech in Detroit to discuss Muslim American identity, while also blasting the US and Israel’s war on Iran. At the Annual Islamic Society Conference on Saturday, the 41-year-old Democrat and public health advocate, who has been on the receiving end of Islamophobic remarks during this election cycle, addressed Islamophobia in the US. “We find ourselves in a moment now, where as people point to us, Muslim Americans, they want to tell us that we don’t belong,” he told the crowd. “They want to tell us that this country is not ours. They want to tell us that because of our names and how we pray, somehow we are less than. But as I look in front of me, I see people who contribute to that big America every single day.” Addressing the state of Muslim American belonging, El-Sayed said that “at their best, being Muslim makes us better Americans … and being American enables us to be better Muslims,” he said. He added that the two sets of ideals are “not mutually exclusive.” read the complete article

Republicans are making Muslims a campaign issue in the 2026 US midterms

Republican Vice President JD Vance called Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim and a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, "very, very evil" at a rally last week, accusing him of defending terrorism because of remarks he made after a March attack on a suburban Detroit synagogue. In Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott, in a close race for another term, attacked a proposed Muslim-led development and called for an investigation into what he described as efforts to create “sharia courts,” a claim disputed by developers and civil rights groups. In Alabama, ‌where Muslims make up less than half a percent of the population, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican running for governor, warned that “the enemy is inside the gates,” referring to what he called radical Islam. The comments reflect an effort to make Muslims and Islam part of the election debate ahead of the November 3 midterms that will determine whether Democrats can wrest control of Congress from President Donald Trump's Republican Party. Critics say the rhetoric unfairly targets Muslims, while Republicans say they are raising legitimate concerns about security, extremism and the role of religion in public life. read the complete article

25 years after 9/11, the US still doesn't know 'why they hate us'

The effort to explain the motives behind the attack, and to understand “why they hate us,” brought a pre-existing debate over Islamist militancy to the center of American public life. In the decade leading up to 9/11, the Washington policy community had been divided over how to deal with the Islamist movement and particularly those extremists who sought to use violence to impose a narrow vision of religious orthodoxy upon reluctant societies. At the heart of the 1990s policy debate was a dispute over causation: are religion and ideology the sources of violent extremism, or are poverty, marginalization and authoritarian misrule to blame? Commentators and politicians on the political right viewed the issue in terms reminiscent of the Cold War. The conflict with Islamism (or “Islamic fundamentalism”) was ideological in nature and, like international communism, had to be confronted with force. Hence, American foreign policy should prioritize security and support our regional allies in their efforts to eradicate both the Islamist opposition and violent extremists. Those on the other side of the debate rejected this vision of a new “green peril” and saw the underlying claims as inaccurate and misleading. To operate from such flawed assumptions, it was argued, would result in a foreign policy that served neither American interests nor those of the Arab (and Muslim) populations most directly affected. The best strategy for dealing with both militant violence and the non-violent opposition was economic development and political reform. The failures of America’s war on terror were rooted in a misdiagnosis of the problem. The Bush administration promoted the idea that the 9/11 hijackers were motivated by their hatred of American values and rejected any notion that U.S. policies contributed to either anti-American sentiment or violent extremism. “They” hated us for who we are, it was argued, not what we do. By framing the challenge of Islamist militancy within a discourse of terrorism and civilizational struggle, governmental leaders embraced a belief common on the political right that “the application of [military] power is the most important thing in winning the war on terrorism.” read the complete article

United Kingdom

What we know about anti-migrant protests and organiser Danny Thomas

This weekend saw hundreds of people take part in two anti-migrant protests. The men in balaclavas in Dover, and the crowd trying to block the migrant coaches in Portsmouth. But how are they linked? The answer is one man - Danny Thomas, more often known as Danny Tommo - and some apparently poor decision-making by Border Force officials. Thomas is a long-term campaigner against migrants and says he is a Christian. "Christ is King!" was shouted alongside "Stop the boats!" at the Dover protest. He first came to public attention in 2016 when he was jailed for two years after pleading guilty to attempting to kidnap at knifepoint a man called Graham Page. When he left prison, he became a close associate of the anti-migrant and anti-Muslim activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. They appear to be less close now, though Robinson has expressed support for this weekend's protests. read the complete article

The legacy of 9/11 on British Muslims: 25 years later

The attacks killed 2,977 people. Thousands more have since died or developed serious illnesses as a result of exposure to the toxic dust and smoke that engulfed the site. It marked the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil in history and became the basis for the George W. Bush administration’s “Global War on Terror”. The UK joined forces with the United States in its decision to invade Afghanistan a month later in October 2001, and then Iraq 17 months later. The legacy of that day has reverberated across the world in the decades since. In many ways, the images of the burning and collapsing Twin Towers have become the defining symbol of the 21st century. Here in the UK, the legacy led to increased security measures, and fractures within communities that are still being healed today. Dr H. A. Hellyer, a geopolitics and security analyst, told the Religion Media Centre that 9/11 had a less significant impact in the UK immediately after of the attacks but that the real change came nearly four years later, with the 7/7 bombings on the London transport network, which killed 52 people, injuring more than 770. “This changed post-7/7 and that’s where I think you see a lot more aggressive activity or a lot more problematisation around Muslims in the UK or in the West.” Dr Hellyer connects this change in framing to the “culture war that we’re talking about today and where the discussion has really centered over the past 15 years in particular”. read the complete article

Racism and threats: The online abuse terrifying Melton councillors and their families

Racism, harassment, misogyny, antisemitism and Islamophobia - all appeared on a Facebook group that targeted elected councillors in Melton. read the complete article

Austria

Austria's Islamic headscarf ban in force as under-14s go back to school

As the new school year begins in Austria, a law banning headscarves in schools for girls under 14 has gone into force. The law forbids "traditional Muslim" head coverings, such as hijabs or burkas, in public and private schools across the country. Integration Minister Claudia Bauer, from the conservative People's Party (ÖVP), says the headscarf is "a sign of oppression and a means of controlling girls from the earliest childhood". But critics say the new law is fuelling anti-Muslim feeling in the country and could be unconstitutional. Carla Amina Baghajati, from the official Islamic Community in Austria (IGGÖ), told the BBC that the organisation "firmly opposes the ban". "We believe it unjustifiably restricts the fundamental right to freedom of religion and disproportionately affects Muslim girls," she said. "Rather than protecting children, it singles out a specific religious practice and risks excluding the very children it claims to support." read the complete article

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