When he was running for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani made it clear on more than one occasion that he wasn’t just running against Andrew Cuomo, and certainly not against Curtis Sliwa; he was running against “Islamophobia.” His claims about that malady that so enrages and terrifies the left, however, as they are fictional from start to finish, need constant shoring up. He recently tried again, using an incident at a mosque that involved no non-Muslims at all; he can always count on a compliant establishment media not to call him out.
During his campaign, Mamdani claimed fancifully that “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 fear of any accountability.” In the face of these heartrending challenges, he declared: “I will not change who I am. I will not change the faith that I am proud to belong to.”
As evidence of how he was a victim of attacks on his race and religion, his campaign, according to Gothamist, “pointed to a recent political flyer proposed by a pro-Cuomo super PAC that darkened and lengthened Mamdani’s beard.” Those who didn’t see the original picture and the way it was rendered on the Cuomo flyer might have gotten the impression that Cuomo’s people had made Mamdani look like Osama bin Laden. In reality, the photo on the flyer was standard stuff for campaign material of this kind: Mamdani was cast in harsh light and shadow, making him look vaguely menacing despite the benign half-smile on his face. Innumerable other candidates had gotten the same treatment on their opponents’ flyers and had not immediately cried “racism” and “Islamophobia.”
Mamdani posted the original photo of himself with the version from the PAC's flyer on X, with the comment: “Andrew Cuomo is afraid he’ll lose, so his donors want you to fear me. His SuperPAC just sent out a mailer that artificially lengthened and darkened my beard. This is blatant Islamophobia—the kind of racism that explains why MAGA billionaires support his campaign.”
The Cuomo flyer clearly enraged Mamdani, for he later added another statement: “This wasn’t an accident. Thickening and darkening my beard—playing into racist tropes—was meant to make me look threatening, because Andrew Cuomo and the donors propping up his flailing campaign are scared.”
The idea that New Yorkers, of all people, would be susceptible to “racist tropes” and less likely to vote for someone who had a longer and darker beard than Mamdani was straight out of the most paranoid far-left perspective on America. And now that he is safely ensconced in Gracie Mansion, Mamdani has not given up the pretense that he has somehow triumphed over entrenched, powerful forces that dislike him solely because of his peaceful, benign, and cuddly religious faith.
As PJ’s Catherine Salgado reported Sunday, Hizzoner posted in high dudgeon about an apparent “Islamophobic” attack at a New York City mosque:
Yesterday, during Friday prayers at the Muslim Center of New York in Queens, a man reached for his pocket and congregants saw what looked like a firearm, creating a terrifying situation for Muslim New Yorkers who had gathered to worship.
I’m immensely grateful and relieved that an MTA employee, a cab driver and an NYPD officer acted quickly to help ensure no one was hurt. Every New Yorker should be able to observe their religion without fear or intimidation.
The mayor did not mention, either in that post or at any other time, that what really happened was that a Muslim, for unknown reasons, pulled out a BB pistol inside the mosque. Now, why would Mamdani leave out the all-important detail that this “terrifying” BB gun brandisher was a Muslim? Likely for the same reason that in Oct. 2025, he invented a story of his fictional aunt being afraid to ride the subway while wearing a hijab in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
There were so few, if any, actual attacks on hijab-wearing women after 9/11 that Mamdani had to make one up. And even that one was just about his “aunt” being afraid, not actually being attacked. In real life, there was one — only one! — massively publicized story of a woman being attacked in New York City for wearing a hijab. That one came fifteen years after 9/11, and as it turned out, the putative victim made up that one, too.
Mamdani’s “terrifying” BB pistol, however, shows that he is still trying to shore up the sagging narrative of “Islamophobia.” Expect more creative fictional stories from the mayor and his comrades in the near future.
