{"id":237279,"date":"2025-10-19T23:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T23:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/237279\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T23:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T23:02:12","slug":"hatred-for-the-united-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/237279\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Hatred for the United States’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Muslims are blasting<\/a> Zohran Mamdani\u2019s association with controversial Imam Siraj Wahhaj, warning that legitimizing the former terror suspect could fuel radical extremism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am particularly concerned to see mosques used as political rallying platforms in the free and democratic United States,\u201d said Dalia Ziada, a Muslim scholar and fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy embracing Wahhaj, Zohran Mamdani is sidelining moderate Muslims and normalizing an extremist ideology that once inspired terror on American soil and still fuels radicalization within segments of the Muslim community today,\u201d she told Fox News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"ZohranZohran Mamdani (center) visits controversial Imam Siraj Wahhaj (right) on Friday. X\/ZohranKMamdani<\/p>\n

The dire concern comes after Mamdani, 34, posted a photo of himself visiting with Wahhaj, 75 \u2014 a man federal prosecutors once considered an \u201cunindicted co-conspirator\u201d in the fatal 1993 World Trade Center bombing and who once even called on Muslims to infiltrate American democracy for use as a \u201cweapon\u201d of Islamic causes.<\/p>\n

Despite those allegations and Wahhaj\u2019s past comments, Mamdani \u2014 New York City\u2019s leading mayoral candidate and a lefty Democratic Socialist \u2014 called the prominent imam \u201cone of the nation\u2019s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century\u201d after meeting with him Friday.<\/p>\n

Ziada said she fears that Mamdani\u2019s embrace of Wahhaj will set back American Muslims who reject religious extremism by deepening the prejudice they have come to face from past terror attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sends the wrong message to moderate Muslims who are working hard to separate faith from extremism,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it tells the broader American public that those aspiring to lead this country have forgotten what extremist ideology once did to New York\u2019s skyline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wahhaj was suspected in the 1993 terror attack that killed six people after some of its masterminds attended his mosque.<\/p>\n

\"AMuslim women\u2019s advocates noted there were no women present in the photos Mamdani posted with Wahhaj on Friday. Zohran Mamdani\/X<\/p>\n

He was never indicted because of a lack of evidence and has always maintained<\/a> his innocence \u2014 but he later defended that attackers and called the CIA and FBI the \u201creal terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wahhaj has also openly denounced the US government as being controlled by the devil and even once told the Wall Street Journal<\/a> that America would one day be \u201cpersuaded\u201d into embracing a society of strict Islamic law where adulterers are stoned and thieves\u2019 hands are cut off.<\/p>\n

His own son is serving a life sentence after being convicted of keeping a band of teenagers at a squalid New Mexico encampment where he trained them for violent terror attacks. Wahhaj has described his son\u2019s behavior as \u201csick\u201d at the time and said he called police to stop him.<\/p>\n

Despite Wahhaj\u2019s insistence that he does not embrace violence and that he has no association with terrorists, some Muslims aren\u2019t put at ease \u2014 and even less so by Mamdani\u2019s embrace of the controversial imam.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was stunned and bewildered by his call to destroy America and make Islam great,\u201d said Soraya Deen, founder of Muslim Women Speakers Movement, of the first time she saw Wahhaj speak 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

Deen \u2014 whose organization advocates for Muslim women<\/a> opposed the religion\u2019s extremist views \u2014 noted that there wasn\u2019t a woman present in any of the photos Mamdani posted from Wahhaj\u2019s mosque.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the gender jihad women are facing in the Muslim world, Mamdani poses for a photo op that emboldens the men suppressing women\u2019s rights,\u201d she told Fox.<\/p>\n

\u201cA theologian spewing hatred for the United States \u2014 and Mamdani smiling beside him, calling him \u2018one of the nation\u2019s foremost Muslim leaders\u2019 \u2014 is dangerous for America and dangerous for Muslims,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Muslims are blasting Zohran Mamdani\u2019s association with controversial Imam Siraj Wahhaj, warning that legitimizing the former terror suspect…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,46718,5871,3,21783,24265,21,19,22,20,25,194,24,10766],"class_list":["post-237279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-islam","tag-metro","tag-news","tag-nyc-mayoral-election-2025","tag-terrorism","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-usa","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}