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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United States, during his swearing-in ceremony, Zohran Mamdani put his hand on the Quran, Islam’s holiest book, making him the first mayor in New York City to do so, meanwhile in Australia, Muslim Australians have expressed concerns for their safety after a surge in reports of Islamophobia following the Bondi terror attack, and in the United Kingdom, a London restaurant which was only open for five days has been subject to ‘abhorrent’ racism by one local. Our recommended read of the day is by Aftab Malik for The Guardian, who writes that in the aftermath of the Bondi terror attack, Muslim Australians have faced a sharp rise in Islamophobia—including threats, vandalism and physical attacks. This and more below:
Australia
Islamophobia has surged since the Bondi attack. Australia’s Muslim community should not have to endure this abuse | Recommended Read
While many Australians remain in a state of anger, grief and reflection due to the devastating Bondi terror attack, Muslim community leaders are in a predicament. What is to be done about the ensuing rise of anti-Muslim sentiment, hatred and racism that their communities face? Following the 14 December mass shooting, community registers that document Islamophobia have largely been reluctant to speak publicly about the spike in Islamophobia, out of concern of being perceived to trivialise the killing of Jewish Australians, their suffering, or vying for sympathy from the public. Nevertheless, the registers have recorded a surge in reports of Islamophobia. These include individuals receiving abusive and threatening calls, a spate of mosques and Islamic centres across Australia reporting vandalism, a Muslim cemetery in New South Wales being desecrated, physical attacks and a wave of online hate. The Islamophobia Register Australia and Action Against Islamophobia have both recorded a spike in such incidents. The Islamophobia Register Australia, for example, has recorded a 740% increase in reports since the Bondi terror attack. We cannot afford to return to the days of suspicion, profiling, guilt by association, securitisation and surveillance, where Muslims felt they had to constantly prove their innocence and reassure others that they pose no threat. Muslim Australians find this exhausting and distressing. They should not have to carry the collective responsibility for acts of terror carried out by criminals. read the complete article
'Not our fault': Surge in Islamophobic attacks across Australia following Bondi terror attack
Muslim Australians have expressed concerns for their safety after a surge in reports of Islamophobia following the Bondi terror attack. People report being spat on, verbally assaulted, and mosques have been vandalised. Faith leaders say it is "unacceptable" that the actions of two alleged gunmen have led to a rise of hate against the broader Muslim community. read the complete article
United States
In Mamdani’s New York, Muslims become a political and demographic force
In a city famous for its ethnic diversity, where power has been held by successive waves of Dutch, Irish, Italian, Jewish and Black residents, Muslims are now rising to prominence and becoming a distinct political force. In November, they formed the backbone of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral election victory, ushering in a new era for New York and the city’s changing demographics. The 34-year-old assemblyman took office Thursday as the city’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor, bringing hope to Muslim residents who for decades have felt they were merely on the edges of municipal power. “We feel reflected in him,” Hafeez Raza, a 64-year-old seamstress in Brooklyn, said about Mamdani. “For the first time in a long time, people here feel the power to speak.” New York’s Muslim community includes surging populations of South Asians, Indo-Caribbeans, Arabs and Africans as well as a historical population of African American Muslims. They have transformed neighborhoods from the Bronx to Brooklyn to Queens, revitalizing commercial districts and building schools and houses of worship while navigating immigration crackdowns and Islamophobic attacks. The Muslim community, which 25 years ago endured harassment and government surveillance after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is finding New York more of a safe haven as the Mamdani era begins, residents and community leaders said. They expect the new mayor to become a vocal advocate for their communities and a foil for conservative politicians, including those in places such as Washington, D.C., Florida and Texas, who continue to vilify them and their institutions. read the complete article
I’ve been a New Yorker for 23 years. Today Zohran Mamdani’s swearing-in makes this city a real home
I’ve been a New Yorker for 23 years. During that time, I have travelled across the world to give lectures and I’ve never been asked what I think of Michael (Bloomberg), Bill (de Blasio), or Eric (Adams) – our mayors since I moved here. None of them has come close to encapsulating the arduous and necessary complication of identity that many New Yorkers feel in this city of a million Muslims. But ever since he announced his mayoral candidacy at the end of 2024, Zohran has seemed to represent something that my life has bumped up against many times since I have lived here. During my citizenship oath in NYC in 2011, we were told that in the hall for the ceremony were people from 140 countries about to become US citizens. Few other cities hold the allure of New York in the global imagination. And few other Muslims have reached Mamdani’s level of first-name celebrity status, or the ability to complicate the narrative of what a Muslim is. Mamdani lives in Queens, the site of the fundraiser for the Asiyah Women’s Centre. “The capital of linguistic diversity, not just for the five boroughs (of New York City), but for the human species, is Queens,” Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro wrote in Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas. There are as many as 800 languages spoken in New York City, and nowhere in the world has more than Queens, according to the Endangered Language Alliance. Donald Trump, whose regime plans to ramp up efforts in 2026 to strip naturalised people of their US citizenship, is also from Queens. As is Republican New York City councilwoman Vickie Paladino, who called for the “expulsion of Muslims” in the wake of the Bondi Beach massacre. In a year when their politics had begun to feel undefeatable, Zohran’s win is a breath of hope. Mamdani excites so many, in the US and abroad, because to co-opt and misquote Robert Frost, he is the more enticing of the two roads diverging in Queens, and across the US at the moment. He makes more urgent – and youthful – the choice to embrace social justice and reject hate and nationalism at a time when older politicians are succeeding in their bigotry and chauvinism. read the complete article
Mamdani Is First New York Mayor to Use the Quran at His Swearing-In
Mayor Zohran Mamdani represents a range of demographics that New York City has not seen before in top leadership: South Asian, millennial, Muslim. For the hundreds of thousands of Muslim residents who have taken pride in seeing one of their own rise to the mayoralty, his inauguration brought another significant first. During his swearing-in ceremony shortly after midnight on Thursday, he put his hand on the Quran, Islam’s holiest book, making him the first mayor in New York City to do so. One of the Qurans was from Mr. Mamdani’s grandfather. The other once belonged to Arturo Schomburg, the Black writer and historian. It was lent to the mayor by the New York Public Library. For a separate public ceremony at City Hall on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Mamdani will use his grandfather’s Quran and one owned by his grandmother. Showcasing the Quran that belonged to Mr. Schomburg, an Afro-Latino writer whose work shaped the Harlem Renaissance, underlines the city’s blend of faiths and racial and ethnic backgrounds. read the complete article
GOP senator says 'enemy is inside the gates' as Mamdani takes office
Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville from Alabama posted on social media: "The enemy is inside the gates" upon learning that Zohran Mamdani became the first mayor of New York City to be sworn in using a Quran. Mamdani is the first Muslim mayor of New York, the nation's largest city. Tuberville, a conservative football coach-turned-politician, has a history of making anti-Muslim statements, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. On Dec. 14, the GOP lawmaker wrote on X, "Islam is not a religion. It's a cult. Islamists aren't here to assimilate. They're here to conquer." Several months prior, Tuberville gave a speech on the Senate floor with a “BAN SHARIA LAW” poster. Sharia is Islamic religious law. read the complete article
Will Mamdani’s Inauguration Open a New Chapter for New York City’s Muslims?
On January 1, New York City’s first ever Muslim and South Asian mayor will take office, inheriting the largest police force in the United States while assuming responsibility for a city that’s seen a rise in immigration raids and deportations ever since Donald Trump became president over the last year. Zohran Mamdani’s victory in November came on the heels of a campaign focused on making the city more affordable. His messaging was clear, consistent, and connected directly to the concerns of New York workers in every community across the city. The attacks against Mamdani felt almost like outdated caricatures, reminiscent of a time when Muslim hate was much more bluntly spoken and acceptable across the political aisle. Systemic Islamophobia has long been normalized, but that more candid, virulent brand of hate was brought back into fashion with the rise of Donald Trump. And while the anti-Muslim rhetoric that dominated his 2016 campaign caused real harm, Trump was still generally regarded as extreme and outlandish, especially by Democrats. Now, Democrats, who’d long couched their harmful rhetoric and policies in flowery language and progressive aesthetics, jumped on the bandwagon, suggesting Mamdani’s win would make the city unsafe. Mamdani’s response to the wave of Islamophobia directed at him, however, signaled a turning point, not only in the election, but hopefully the future of the city as well. Addressing New York City’s roughly 1 million Muslims, Mamdani doubled down on his Muslim-ness and invited the rest of us to do the same. He challenged the casual racism and dehumanization of Muslims that has become so acceptable in this country, to the point that repeatedly questioning a Muslim about Jewish safety has been framed as not only reasonable, but in the public’s best interest. And then he won, in spite of — or perhaps because of — all of the blatant attempts to tear him down. read the complete article
United Kingdom
London restaurant owner faces shocking racist abuse just days after opening
A London restaurant which was only open for five days has been subject to ‘abhorrent’ racism by one local who warned they will ‘never eat there’. Customers and staff at the Axe and Ember Smokehouse in Walthamstow, east London, which opened only five days ago, were called ‘P***s’ while they sat enjoying the prime cuts of meat on Sunday night. Those sat inside said they spotted the woman giving them a ‘thumbs down’ signal from outside the window for a few minutes before one of the owners, Uzma Hussain, went over. Uzma, who is a practising lawyer, said she was then subject to verbal abuse for around half an hour before the woman left. She told Metro: ‘I was born and bred in Walthamstow Village. I have only ever had positive experiences, so I just went into shock when she started calling me all of these horrible names.’ Footage shows the woman calling the group a number of slurs, telling them all: ‘You are a p***, you are not from here.’ When another man walking his dog tells the woman to ‘take those opinions home’ she repeatedly yells: ‘You f*** off.’ read the complete article
Fact Check: Electrical fault caused Christmas tree fire, not arson by Muslims in UK
A video of an electrical fire engulfing a Christmas tree at a shopping centre in China's southwestern Sichuan province has been misrepresented online as Muslims committing arson in Britain during the Christian holiday. “Muslim in UK burned Christmas Tree,” Instagram posts on Christmas Day said. “Should they deserve the same treatment on Eid?” the post added, referring to festivities in the Islamic calendar. But the video shows an incident in China, not the UK, and the local fire department said the cause of the blaze was not deliberate. The tree and its surroundings in the video match published in December 2024 to the WeChat profile of a shopping centre in Chengdu. The centre, Sanli Plaza, had posted highlights of its Christmas lighting ceremony which took place on December 8 that year. read the complete article
International
‘People Are Taking the Wrong Lessons From His Victory’
As Zohran Mamdani begins his term as New York’s mayor today, one man across the Atlantic will be watching closely: his London counterpart Sadiq Khan. Almost a decade since he was elected the first Muslim mayor of a Western capital, Khan, now 55 and in his third term, said it was “heartbreaking” to see the same anti-Islam tropes once directed at him now aimed at Mamdani. And yet, he noted in an interview with POLITICO Magazine, Mamdani took the attacks head on and came out victorious. The center-left Labour mayor exchanged some messages with the American democratic socialist during the campaign and calls Mamdani by his first name. Khan has plenty of reasons to swap notes with the New York mayor, and not just because of their shared faith, their stewardship of global financial capitals or a desire to talk political strategy. While Khan and Mamdani have different politics, they’re both now presiding over cities more liberal than the rest of their country and focused on the skyrocketing cost of living. You’ve been in a position of high office for nearly a decade as one of the most prominent Muslim men in British public life. What advice would you give Zohran Mamdani? Firstly, it’s not for me to give Zohran advice. He’s won an inspirational campaign to be the Democratic candidate and then a remarkable campaign to become the mayor. [But] what I found disappointing was almost 10 years after my experience in a very similar city, you had the same tropes, the same prejudice, the same anti-Muslim hatred rearing its head, in Zohran’s case — using parallels with 9/11, in my case with 7/7 [a deadly series of 2005 bombings on London’s public transport]. It was heartbreaking for me to see, distressing for me to see, but I was impressed by how he dealt with it. read the complete article