Ahmad: Zohran Mamdani and How to Be a ‘Good’ Muslim in America
2025/10/14 2 Comments
Good long read on Mamdani and being Muslim in America:
…But Muslims have been made to grin and bear it in America for more than two decades. Watching Mr. Mamdani stand unwaveringly in the face of a stream of anti-Muslim abuse is to witness the distillation of that dynamic in a single person. I’d be lying if I said I think his fate in this particular matter will improve over time. It is a certainty that Mr. Mamdani, if he wins the mayoralty, will have to contend with even more Islamophobic slurs, on a national scale.
In the face of this, it’s easy to become cynical, even as his popularity marks a moment of triumph for Muslims. Mr. Mamdani sees it differently.
“I used to be quite consumed by forever being a minority — of being an Indian in Uganda, Muslim in India, all of these things in New York City,” he said to me. It’s a sentiment he’s had to express often over the course of his campaign. It’s at once well rehearsed and heartfelt. “I remember my father telling me that to be a minority is also to see the truth of the place, to see promise and to see the contradictions of it.”
Mr. Mamdani finds hope in that tension.
“I was always left with a cleareyed sense of the world that I was in,” he said, “and how to ensure that the contradiction of that world didn’t leave you with a sense of bitterness.”
Meher Ahmad is an editor in the Opinion section.
Source: Zohran Mamdani and How to Be a ‘Good’ Muslim in America
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
I can appreciate that being a Muslim in the US is difficult. But some of those difficulties for Mr. Mamdani are an own goal: he refused to condemn the phrase “Globalize the intifada.” Mamdani is correct: Arabic terms are often misinterpreted. But “the intifada” refers to two campaigns (one in 1987, one in 2000) of suicide bombings and other attacks by Palestinians on Israel. If the intifada is to be globalized, it can only be interpreted as attacking Jews everywhere, including in the US. Jews are 12% of the population of New York City and they are justifiably nervous.
Understood. But it is like a number of arabic words that can be employed in either a peaceful or violent manner. Jihad can refer to inner spiritual struggles or violence, similarly intifada can refer to peaceful uprising or the violence that was reflected in suicide bombings. Unfortunately, the popular use refers to violence.