Timothy Rodriguez has lived in New York all his life. But the notion of a Muslim mayor never entered the realm of possibility for him.
That changed Tuesday when Zohran Mamdani’s victory made him New York’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor-elect.
“It’s a big win for New York City, of course, it’s a big win for Muslims,” Rodriguez, 35, told me after news of Mamdani’s win broke on Tuesday night. “I’m happy to see change and that these things are possible.”
I first met Timothy a few hours earlier, in downtown Brooklyn, outside the Al-Farooq Mosque. It sits on a block of Atlantic Avenue, home to two Middle Eastern grocery stores and shops selling goods such as spices, Islamic decorative arts, and clothing. When we spoke, he and his sister, Ally, 33, had just wrapped up the Asr prayer, one of the five daily prayers for observant Muslims. Neither had voted yet, but they both hoped to see Mamdani elected.
“A lot of Muslims don’t feel like they have a place here,” Timothy said. He hopes that, like former President Barack Obama, Mamdani can “inspire” other Muslim New Yorkers to run for office and help “break the stigma that Muslims aren’t good people.”
The siblings cited Mamdani’s relentless focus on affordability for their support. “Prices are high, rent is high,” Timothy said.
“Especially food,” Ally chimed in, her young daughter hoisted on her hip. The fact that Mamdani is also Muslim, she said, was merely “a bonus.”
Throughout his historic campaign, Mamdani has been outspoken about his faith. According to the New York Times, the 34-year-old democratic socialist visited more than 50 mosques on the campaign trail, with members of his campaign visiting nearly 200. Mamdani has also addressed Islamophobia head-on, in visits to city mosques and online, detailing his and his family members’ experiences with racist attacks after former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo laughed at a conservative radio host’s suggestion that Mamdani would be “cheering” in the event of another 9/11. “That’s another problem,” Cuomo added. (Cuomo later rejected allegations of Islamophobia, claiming that Mamdani was trying to “divide people” by making an issue out of the radio exchange.)
But the comments by Cuomo were only the latest in a series of escalating attacks, which started in earnest on the night of Mamdani’s primary upset back in June. As I wrote at the time:
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Donald Trump Jr., Laura Loomer, and Charlie Kirk were among the right-wingers who fired off Islamophobic smears about Mamdani and Muslim New Yorkers to their millions of followers after Cuomo’s surprising concession. The posts come days after reports that Mamdani has faced threats and attacks prompting an investigation by the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force.
Since then, others have piled on. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa baselessly accused Mamdani of supporting a “global jihad.” Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams also decried the rise of “Islamic extremism” in Europe. Even on Tuesday, as New Yorkers headed to the polls, NBC News reported that a pro-Cuomo super PAC was running a last-minute ad depicting Mamdani in front of the Twin Towers on 9/11, accompanied by a quote from leftie streamer Hasan Piker, saying “America deserved 9/11.” (The Cuomo campaign has sought to tie Mamdani to those comments, even after Mamdani disavowed them as “objectionable and reprehensible.”)
“What a lot of this anti-Muslim rhetoric and Islamophobia has done for a lot of people in the city is that people feel like they have their Muslim identity on the sidelines,” Saman Waquad, president of the Muslim Democratic Club, of which Mamdani is a member, told me.
Though Waquad said that the racist attacks “put a target on all of our backs,” she was encouraged by Mamdani’s decision to stand proud in his identity as a Muslim New Yorker. “When we see Zohran show up as a Muslim and not shy away, it gives people more courage to come out for him,” she added. “In many ways, he’s one of us.”
Noting that the city is home to an estimated one million Muslims, Waquad added: “That’s a lot of folks that are going to feel seen.”
Tazul Islam, a 40-year-old office manager from Queens, whom I also met outside the Al-Farooq Mosque on Tuesday afternoon, told me he hopes Mamdani remains proud of his faith once he is officially sworn in as mayor.
“Hopefully, he can fix some of the misunderstandings and myths about the religion,” Islam said. The faith, he added, “has a lot more to do with making the world a more beautiful place than the scare tactics we hear.”
