Presumably, it was Muslims among the crowd who cheered when, in his victory speech, the mayor-elect broke into Arabic, referencing the “Little Egypt” section of Astoria, Queens, known for its Muslim population. “We will fight for you because we are you,” Mamdani said. “Or, as we say on Steinway, ana minkum wa alaikum.” (This roughly translates: “I am from you and for you.”)
“It’s a distinctively Muslim approach to democratic socialism,” one scholar of Islam told The New York Times. “He has articulated an understanding of Muslimness that is tied to marginality, invisibility, not being seen.” Abdul El Sayed, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan, added: “There’s a beautiful tradition in our faith that if you were to eat a full meal, and your neighbor could smell your meal and didn’t have [any], then you would be committing a sin. [So you must] ask yourself: What is wrong with sharing your food? What is wrong with sharing your resources?”
The abovementioned Times story being a notable exception, much of the press coverage of Mamdani has cast him solely as a political actor. “The Democrats have a new winning formula,” The Atlantic’s Derek Thomas headlined a story on Mamdani. “Here’s what Mamdani’s NYC mayoral win, and the rise of a democratic socialist, could mean for Democrats nationwide,” CBS News headlined another. No worries: he won’t succeed outside NYC, the centrist think tank Third Way promised its readers.
