Asad Dandia was eight years old when he watched the Twin Towers fall from his Pakistani immigrant parents’ home in New York. By 19, he was living the backlash himself a police informant had posed as his friend to infiltrate his family’s home, part of a since-disgraced surveillance program targeting Muslim New Yorkers [1]. Twenty-five years later, Dandia leads walking tours celebrating the very Muslim community that program tried to surveil into silence. This community has not just endured, but transformed the city around it [1].
A Community That Built, Rather Than Retreated
In the face of two decades of suspicion, New York’s Muslim community did something remarkable: it grew, organized, and built. The city is now home to roughly one million Muslims, about nine percent of its population, and has added more than 100 mosques since 2001 [1, 3]. A new mosque rising in the Bronx’s “Little Yemen” neighborhood is set to become the largest in New York State [4]. Nationally, the number of mosques nearly quadrupled from around 1,200 in 2000 to nearly 2,800 by 2020, according to Pew Research Center data [5].
From Marginalized to a Political Force
That growth became political power. Zohran Mamdani, who took his oath of office on a Quran, is now New York’s first Muslim mayor elected with the backbone support of Muslim voters, including a Bangladeshi immigrant community in Queens that grew fivefold between 2000 and 2020 [4]. Abdullah Akl, political director for the Muslim American Society of New York, says the shift reaches even Staten Island, long a stronghold of the city’s white, working-class conservative population, which has seen a significant rise in its Muslim population too [4].
The Backlash Hasn’t Disappeared, But Neither Has the Community
None of this progress erased Islamophobia. In March 2026, a far-right influencer organized a rally outside the mayor’s own residence protesting what they called an “Islamic takeover” of the city, and a sitting U.S. senator publicly suggested Mamdani be sent to Guantanamo Bay [1]. Nationally, about half of Americans surveyed in 2026 still said they believe Islam encourages violence more than other religions, a share far higher than before 9/11 [5]. But for a community that has weathered surveillance, suspicion, and now renewed political attacks, the response has consistently been to stay, build, and lead.
As Dandia told AFP, twenty-five years after 9/11, he still grieves what happened that day but says he refuses to be held responsible for it, insisting he is “as much of a New Yorker as anybody else” [1].
Sources
- AFP via Malay Mail, “New York Muslims find new voice 25 years after 9/11 backlash,” September 10, 2026 — https://www.malaymail.com/news/world/2026/09/10/new-york-muslims-find-new-voice-25-years-after-911-backlash/234515
- The Express Tribune, “New York’s Muslims reclaim their city after 9/11 backlash” — https://tribune.com.pk/story/2627430/new-yorks-muslims-reclaim-their-city-after-911-backlash
- AFP via The Standard, “New York’s Muslims reclaim their city after 9/11 backlash” — https://www.thestandard.com.hk/world/article/341855/
- Washington Post (via MSN), “In Mamdani’s New York, Muslims become a political and demographic force” — https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/in-mamdani-s-new-york-muslims-become-a-political-and-demographic-force/ar-AA1ToPK4
- Arabella Star Magazine (AFP), “New York’s Muslims reclaim their city 25 years after 9/11” — https://www.arabellastarmagazine.com/new-yorks-muslims-reclaim-their-city-25-years-after-9-11/international/
