Mamdani Asks Voters to Reject Islamophobia & See Him as Candidate “Fighting for Every Single New Yorker”

By SÍLE MOLONEY

DEMOCRATIC MAYORAL NOMINEE and  Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (A.D. 36), surrounded by members of the Muslim community, addresses the press outside the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx, at 371 E 166th Street north of the Melrose section of The Bronx on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025.
Photo by Síle Moloney

Democratic mayoral nominee and still the mayoral frontrunner according to the latest polls, Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (A.D. 36) was back in The Bronx on Friday, Oct. 24, for another press conference, this time, held outside the Islamic Cultural Center of The Bronx, located at 371 E 166th Street, north of the Melrose section of The Bronx, as he asked voters to reject tired Islamophobic tropes and reiterated that he aims to be a mayor “fighting for every single New Yorker.” Members of the press corps included international media outlets from the UK (BBC), France and Germany.

 

Surrounded by members of the Muslim community, and appearing visibly emotional as he paused at times to hold back tears as he recalled personal anecdotes shared with him by his family as a young Muslim growing up in New York City, the assemblyman said, “Six years ago, shortly after I’d announced I was running for State assembly, a well meaning Muslim uncle pulled me aside, [..] his eyes kind, his beard proud, and his face heavy with the implications of the unsaid.”

 

Mamdani said the uncle smiled softly, looked at him with care and in a quiet voice, told him he did not have to tell people [as a candidate] that he was Muslim. “I had not learned the lesson that he had been taught time and again, the lesson that safety could only be found in the shadows of our City, ” the assemblyman continued. “It is in those shadows alone where Muslims could embrace their full identities, and then, if we were to emerge from those shadows, that it is in those shadows that we must leave our faith.”

 

He continued, “These are lessons that so many Muslim New Yorkers have been taught again and again, and over these last few days, these lessons have become the closing messages of [former Democratic New York Gov. and independent mayoral candidate] Andrew Cuomo, [Republican mayoral candidate] Curtis Sliwa, and [New York City Mayor] Eric Adams. Yesterday, Andrew Cuomo laughed and agreed with a radio host who said that I would cheer another 9/11.”

DEMOCRATIC MAYORAL NOMINEE and  Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (A.D. 36), surrounded by members of the Muslim community, addresses the press outside the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx, at 371 E 166th Street north of the Melrose section of The Bronx on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025.
Photo by Síle Moloney

As reported, Adams recently dropped out of the mayoral general election, after persistent calls for him to do so over much of his campaign, and has since endorsed Cuomo, who he previously called a “snake and a liar.”

 

Mamdani continued, “Yesterday, Eric Adams said that we can’t let our city become Europe. He compared me to violent extremists, and he lied again and again when he said that our movement seeks to burn churches and destroy communities.” Mamdani said the day before Sliwa had “slandered him from the debate stage” when Sliwa alleged that Mamdani supports global jihad.

 

“Every day, Super PAC [political action committee] ads imply that I am a terrorist, or mock the way I eat, push polls that ask New Yorkers questions like whether they support invented proposals to make halal food mandatory, or political cartoons that represent my candidacy as an airplane hurtling towards the World Trade Center,” he said.

 

The Democratic mayoral nominee added, however, that he did not want to use the closing days of his campaign to speak to those topics any further. “I want to use this moment to speak to the Muslims of New York City,” Mamdani said. His voice cracking, he added, “I want to speak to the memory of my aunt who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab.”

 

He continued, “I want to speak to the Muslim who works for our City, whether they teach in our schools, walk the beat for the NYPD,
New Yorkers who all make daily sacrifices for the City they call home only to see their leaders spit in their face. I want to speak to every child who grows up here marked as ‘the other,’ who is randomly selected in a way that never quite feels random, who feels that they carry a stain that can never be [inaudible / cleared?]”

 

The assemblyman said growing up in the shadow of 9/11, he has known what it means to live with an undercurrent of suspicion in the City. “I will always remember the disdain that I faced, the way that my name could immediately become the ‘Muhammed’ and how I could return to my City only to be asked in a double-mirrored room at the airport if I had any plan on attacking it.”

 

Mamdani said since he was very young, he has also known that he was spared the worst of it. “I was never pressured to be an informant like a classmate of mine,” he said. “I’ve never had the word ‘terrorist’ spray-painted on my garage as one of my staff had to endure, my Mosque has never been set on fire. To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity, but indignity does not make us distinct; there are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does.”

 

The assemblyman said that since announcing his candidacy for mayor one year ago, he had sought to be the candidate fighting for every single New Yorker, not simply ‘the Muslim candidate,’ and that he carries those indignities with him each moment of the race, doing so all while being the first major Muslim candidate in the history of the city.

 

Mamdani continued, “I thought that if he could build a campaign of universality, if I could define myself as the leader I aspired to be, one representing every New Yorker, no matter their skin color or religion, no matter where they were born, I thought that if I worked hard enough, it would allow me to be that leader.”

DEMOCRATIC MAYORAL NOMINEE and  Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (A.D. 36), surrounded by members of the Muslim community, addresses the press outside the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx, at 371 E 166th Street north of the Melrose section of The Bronx on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025.
Photo by Síle Moloney

He added, “I felt that if I behaved well enough, or bit my tongue enough, in the face of racist, baseless attacks, all while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith; I was wrong.” He said no amount of redirection is ever enough. “In doing this, I have told the wide-eyed young child of Jackson Heights, the first time voter in Parkchester that they, too, should remain in the shadows.”

 

He continued, “In many ways, I have become that same uncle who pulled me aside six years ago. No more…. The dream of every Muslim is simply to be treated the same as any other New Yorker and yet for too long, we have been told to ask for less than that, and to be satisfied with whatever little we receive. No more…”

 

Mamdani continued, “For as long as we have lived, we have known that no matter what anyone says, there are still certain forms of hate that are acceptable in this city; Islamophia is not seen as inexcusable. One can incite violence against our mosques and know that condemnation will never come. Elected officials in this City can sell T-shirts calling for my deportation without any fear of accountability. The consequences amidst this inaction are stark; more than one million Muslims in this City, existing all while being made to feel as if we are guests in our own home, no more…”

 

He continued, “We stand on the precipice of an election, but that is not what today is about. We know that in less than two weeks, we will say goodbye to a disgraced former governor and our current indicted mayor. The bigger question is whether we are willing to say goodbye to something much larger than either of these two men.”

 

He added, “It is whether we are willing to say goodbye to anti-Muslim sentiment that has grown so endemic in our City that when we hear it, we know not whether the words were spoken by a Republican or a Democrat, we know only that it was spoken in the language of politics in an era of ever-diminishing bipartisanship.”

 

He said that while it seemed Islamophobia has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement (across the aisle), and while he appreciated all who rushed to his defense over the past few days, he thought of those Muslims in the City “who do not have the luxury of being the Democratic nominee,” and who do not have the luxury of being deemed worthy of solidarity, while his opponents in the race “brought hatred to the forefront.”

 

He continued, “This is just a glimpse of what so many have to endure every day across the City, and while it would be easy for us to say that this is not who we are as a City, we know the truth. This is who we have allowed ourselves to become, and a question lies before each of us: Will we continue to accept a narrow definition of what it means to be a New Yorker, that makes smaller every day the number of those guaranteed a life of dignity? Will we remain in the shadows or will we, together, step into the light?”

 

While it is true that some European cities and towns have become heavily populated by Muslim residents leading to some reports of intimidation by woman in particular, and there has been understandable concern over a series of terrorist attacks in European cities and towns in recent decades with ties to Islamic terrorist groups (among other terrorist attacks by other non-Muslim groups), to suggest that all Muslims are terrorists is, of course, clearly racist.

 

And while there are European city neighborhoods like Molenbeek, for example, located on the outskirts of Brussels in Belgium, heavily populated by Muslim immigrants that often make headlines for the wrong reasons, there is an argument to be made that rather than “becoming Europe,” a New York City led by a Muslim mayor who is laser-focused on affordability could actually avoid some of the missteps made by European political counterparts in ignoring core social issues like affordability and lack of opportunity which perpetuate ghetto-like suburbs, disaffection, and the growth of terrorism cells in places like Molenbeek.

 

Research has also shown that those who have negotiated peace agreements in post-conflict zones, whether it’s Bosnia, Northern Ireland, or anywhere else, have seen that when resources, funding, education, and support are provided to local youth in particular, it helps deter the growth of terrorist networks, no matter the religion. Mamdani’s central campaign theme of affordability and dignity addresses these very points.

 

Meanwhile, there are also, of course, successful examples of Muslim integration into various European countries, and hugely successful international Muslim soccer stars like Mohamed Saleh, Karim Benzema, Paul Pogba, N’Golo Kanté and Lamine Yamal who have become heroes to millions of European and international soccer fans.

Panjabi MC – Mundian To Bach Ke (Beware Of The Boys) (Official Video) Video courtesy of Altra Moda Music via YouTube

In August, CAIR (Council of American-Islamic Relations) had also condemned similar anti-Muslim rhetoric leveled against Mamdani during the summer, saying in part that it strongly condemned ADL (Anti-Defamation League) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt’s “dishonest and Islamophobic attacks” against the assemblyman, calling them attacks that “misstate basic facts and subject Mamdani to an obvious double standard because he is a Muslim.”

 

They said that in a prior interview on CNBC, Greenblatt “repeatedly falsely claimed that Mamdani had not visited ‘a single synagogue,’ when in fact, he had attended Shabbat services in Park Slope, Brooklyn in February; had joined a town hall co-hosted with UJA-Federation and the Jewish Community Relations Council in May; and participated in two forums at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in June, according to forward.com.

 

CAIR also clarified that although Greenblatt “falsely claimed” Mamdani “believes” in the phrase “globalize the intifada,” the assemblyman has never used the phrase and has said he also now discourages others from using it. Mamdani is reportedly open to keeping on Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, as NYPD police commissioner.

 

On the same day as the press conference took place, Mamdani finally received the backing of Democrat and minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (NY-8), who represents parts of Brooklyn. The New York Times reported that Jeffries emphasized that the Democratic Party needed to unite in the face of an “existential” threat from Republican U.S. President Donald Trump.

 

The news followed several other formal high profile endorsements by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, former presidential candidates U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Alessandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), NYS Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (S.D. 35), NYS Assembly Leader Carl Heastie (A.D. 83), the majority of the Bronx Democratic Party, including Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, Rep. Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), among others across the City and State.

 

Mamdani did not facilitate a Q&A after the press conference, even as questions have been raised in recent days about a photo in which he posed with a controversial imam, Siraj Wahhaj. Critiques over his lack of work experience prior to becoming an assemblyman also continue to prevail.

 

The Democratic nominee concluded, “There are 12 days remaining until Election Day. I will be a Muslim man in New York City each of those 12 days, and every day that follows after that. I will not change who I am, how I eat, or the faith that I am proud to call my own but there is one thing that I will change. I will no longer look for myself in the shadows; I will find myself in the light. Thank you very much.”

 

Given Mamdani’s steadfast refusal to denounce the very essence of who he is, to fold and appease his male opponents and critics who appear to be weaponizing Islamophobia to deter voters from electing the City’s first Muslim mayor, maybe it’s time the assemblyman simply leans further in and adopts Panjabi MC’s now famous “Mundian To Bach Ke” (“Beware of the Boys”) as his campaign anthem…

 

The mayoral, and other, general elections in New York City take place on Tuesday, Nov. 4. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Early voting begins Saturday, Oct. 25, through Sunday, Nov. 2. The voter registration deadline is Saturday, Oct. 25, which is the last day your application can be received by the Board of Elections to be eligible to vote. For more information, visit  https://www.nycvotes.org/how-to-vote/elections-calendar/#voter+registration+deadline.