Mamdani’s rise reflected in Muslim neighborhood that was targeted after 9/11
Marwa Janini was 10 years old and growing up in Brooklyn on September 11, 2001.
In the aftermath of the al-Qaeda terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 people and destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center, she remembers the start of intense surveillance and the fear that followed in the Muslim and Arab community. And, even as a young girl, she remembers thinking that those targeted in the wake of the attack needed a way for their voices to be heard.
Today, she leads an organization that provides that representation – the Arab American Association of New York – and she is at the center of something that might have seemed unthinkable to her and others 25 years ago: She is part of the transition team for New York’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who will be sworn in on January 1.
Why we wrote this
Muslims in Bay Ridge, New York, remember the days of suspicion and fear following the September 11 terrorist attacks. They could not have predicted the day that has now arrived: the election of a Muslim as mayor of New York City.
Mr. Mamdani received nearly 51 percent of the vote in a mayoral election that saw the highest turnout since 1969, winning over a diverse mix of demographics and communities across the city. In Bay Ridge, a neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn known for being home to New York’s largest Arab community and a sizable Muslim population, Mr. Mamdani won a majority of the vote, although the western part voted largely for former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Over the decades, the Bay Ridge neighborhood has evolved from a former hotbed of European immigrants to a place now known informally as “Little Palestine” or “Little Yemen,” particularly around 5th Avenue between 67th and 75th Streets. There, the window signs are often in Arabic and not English; recordings of the Koran are broadcast on televisions and radios in neighborhood stores; and the call to prayer, or Adhan, sounds from the local mosque.
Many New Yorkers see Mr. Mamdani as a candidate ready to tackle the city’s affordability crisis, although some question whether he can deliver on his campaign promises. For many of the city’s Muslims, his victory also prompted reflection on their community’s journey from political marginalization to one of their own becoming New York City’s highest elected official.
“The story of Muslim New Yorkers and Arab New Yorkers is not one of linear progress,” says Janini. “There are a lot of complexities. This is a community that continually has to fight to feel safe, supported and seen.”
Mr. Mamdani, while promising to be the mayor of all New Yorkers, made a direct promise to Muslims in his victory speech, saying that the city’s more than a million Muslims will now know that they belong, “not only in the five boroughs of this city, but in the halls of power.”
“The most… striking moment”
After 9/11, a covert counterterrorism program run by the New York Police Department targeted Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent in Bay Ridge and other New York communities. The Arab American Association of New York, as well as mosques, student groups and businesses were targets of police.
A lawsuit filed in 2013 accused the New York Police Department of civil rights violations by surveilling Muslims without cause. The agreement led to major reforms within the department, including banning investigations based on race, religion or ethnicity; and increased oversight of rules that protect against discriminatory and unjustified surveillance.
Asad Dandia, one of the plaintiffs, had discovered that a charity he co-founded had been infiltrated by an NYPD informant. He says the case inspired him to get involved in community organizing.
“It was probably the most visible and impactful moment in our history where we actually took a stand against the discrimination and injustice perpetrated by the city government,” Dandia said.
This momentum continued. In 2013, organizers launched the Muslim Democratic Club of New York to mobilize voters. Mr. Mamdani’s chief lawyer, a member of his transition team, helped found the group. Four years later, Mr. Mamdani served as director of canvassing for Khader El-Yateem, a Palestinian-American and Lutheran pastor who ran for Bay Ridge City Council. Despite losing El-Yateem, the campaign helped mobilize people there, and Mr. Mamdani’s political career has its roots in the work he did in Bay Ridge.
Culturally, the history of the community continues to evolve. Just three years ago, a woman named Basma, who asked that only her first name be used for privacy reasons, arrived here from Algeria.
“I heard people speaking Arabic, and there was a store playing Algerian music and I was walking and crying and laughing at the same time,” she says. “It’s the same [as Algeria] – food, language, gossip.
“At least listen to us”
Amir Ali, a Yemeni business owner in Bay Ridge, said he was happy that Mr. Mamdani represented Muslims in public life.
“It matters to me to have a good image of Islam other than the one shown in the media,” says Mr. Ali. “That’s what we care about. He shows the American Muslim what we want him to show.”
But what matters most to Mr Ali and others interviewed for this article is the issue Mr Mamdani has focused his campaign on: affordability. A poll taken in early 2025 found that nearly two-thirds of New York City residents feel it is increasingly difficult to meet their basic needs, and nearly half of those surveyed have considered leaving the city. Mr. Ali has personal experience with rising costs: He says his store’s monthly rent has increased by about $2,000 in recent years.
“A lot of people voted for [Mr. Mamdani]not just Muslims, not just Middle Easterners, because all of these people are really struggling to get affordable prices,” Mr. Ali says. “They need someone to at least – even if they’re not going to fix the problem – look at it and at least hear us out. “
A democratic socialist, Mamdani’s platform includes things like city-owned grocery stores and rent freezes. His political opponents seized on it. “Yes, he says he’s a socialist,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, whose district includes most of Bay Ridge. “But guess what, my friends, these are policies straight out of Karl Marx’s communist playbook.”
Mr. Mamdani also faces headwinds in other constituencies in the city, which is home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. Some of his public statements related to the war in Gaza have been criticized by Jewish organizations and leaders, notably when he apparently refused to condemn the phrase “globalizing the Intifada” – a phrase they say condones violence against Jews. Mr. Mamdani said that is not language he uses. During a debate in October, he said he recognized Israel’s right to exist, but would not “recognize the right of a state to exist with a system of hierarchy based on race or religion.”
Still, about a third of Jewish New Yorkers voted for Mr. Mamdani, and he said he would be a mayor “who protects Jewish New Yorkers.” His pro-Palestinian stance, meanwhile, won the support of many in New York, where 44 percent of registered voters sympathized more with the Palestinians while 26 percent sympathized more with Israel, according to a New York Times and University of Siena poll.
Ms. Janini, a Palestinian American, said it was once unimaginable to her that elected officials from a country so closely aligned with Israel would publicly express support for the Palestinians. Mr. Dandia, an urban history tour guide in New York who is part of Mr. Mamdani’s informal advisory team, says the mayor-elect’s position has reversed the sentiment of many voters who felt politically invisible on the issue.
Zareena Grewal, associate professor of religious studies at Yale University, says the post-9/11 period was a time of political transformation for Muslims in New York City and led to the success of a grassroots movement.
She said Muslims were the “canary in the coal mine” on issues such as affordability.
“It was welfare issues related to poverty, surveillance, racism, unequal access, discrimination in schools and health care that really pushed Muslim New Yorkers to come together across their political differences, work in tandem and achieve results,” says Grewal.
