New York's Muslims reclaim their city 25 years after 9/11 attacks

New York's Muslims reclaim their city 25 years after 9/11 attacks.

Key points

• Asad Dandia was eight when he watched the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on television at his Pakistani-immigrant parents' home in New York.
• Islamophobia surged in the United States after the 2001 attacks in which militants hijacked airliners and flew them into Manhattan's World Trade Centre and the Pentagon outside Washington.
• "Everyone was in such fear, " remarked Mohammed Razvi, a native Pakistani who founded the Council of Peoples Organisation non-profit to backing Muslims in New York after 9/11.
• For Gadier Abbas, an attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the NYPD programme was the prime example of the "anti-Muslim hysteria" that followed 9/11.
• Then came the backlash – years of Islamophobia as Americans processed attacks that had killed almost 3, 000 residents.

New York's Muslims reclaim their city 25 years after 9/11 attacks. AFP Published September 4, 2026 Updated September 4, 2026 02: 48pm. Join our Whatsapp Channel. Add Dawn as a trusted source.

Then came the backlash – years of Islamophobia as Americans processed attacks that had killed almost 3, 000 residents. There was anger, suspicion and worse.

At 19, Dandia experienced a police informant posing as a friend to infiltrate his family home, part of a now-disgraced surveillance effort purportedly seeking to detect extremism.

Today, though, the 33-year-old historian finds a New York transformed: one with its first Muslim mayor, public prayers in Times Square and new mosques rising throughout the city.

"Twenty-five years after 9/11, we mourn and we grieve what happened, and at the same time, we recognise that I am not responsible for what happened, " he informed AFP.

"I don't deserve to be targeted for what happened, and I am as much of a New Yorker as anybody else in that respect, " remarked Dandia, who leads walking tours centred on the city's Muslim communities.

Islamophobia surged in the United States after the 2001 attacks in which militants hijacked airliners and flew them into Manhattan's World Trade Centre and the Pentagon outside Washington. A fourth plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field after a passenger revolt.

Muslims documented climbed public assaults and harassment, and some halted wearing visual markers such as hijabs in a bid to conceal their religion.

Meanwhile, US authorities monitored Muslims by requiring thousands of men and boys to register with the administration, leading to numerous being deported from the country.

"We had gunshots fired in our neighbourhood by individuals who felt that we were responsible, " he continued.

Razvi remarked he kicked off introducing himself as "Mo" after 9/11 to avoid the stigma he encountered when saying "Mohammad".

"Muslims trying to live the American dream were being blamed for something they had nothing to do with or even control, " he remarked.

In New York, police began surveilling hundreds of Muslims as part of their counterterrorism strategy, often targeting individuals without evidence of wrongdoing.

When a young Bangladeshi man joined a mutual aid charity he had began, dandia experienced this as a 19-year-old college student.

For context, the pair grew close: sharing meals, playing sports and even sleeping at Dandia's home. But seven months afterwards, the man disclosed that he was an NYPD informant sent to monitor Dandia and his community.

"It was heartbreaking, but it was also terrifying, " he recalled. "My relationship with the world around me shifted underneath my feet."

After his ordeal, Dandia and rights groups won a landmark legal settlement that restricted the NYPD from launching similar surveillance programmes and established a watchdog to monitor the force.

For Gadier Abbas, an attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the NYPD programme was the prime example of the "anti-Muslim hysteria" that followed 9/11. But today, Abbas remarked, "there is a lot of hope".

"You see American Muslims in every single walk of life, almost at every single level, and that's a testament to the vibrancy of the community."

New York will shortly boast the largest mosque in the state – one of more than 100 went on since 2001 in New York – while Muslims are a rising cultural and political force.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who took his oath of office on the Holy Quran, has become the new face of American leftist politics.

Still, Islamophobia persists in the city where around nine per cent of the population is Muslim.

In March, a far-right influencer organised a "Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City" rally outside the mayor's residence.

Meanwhile, a conservative senator has remarked Mamdani should be sent to Guantanamo Bay, the US detention camp best known for holding 9/11 suspects.

While other families have defended the mayor, some relatives of September 11 victims have pressed Mamdani – an avid supporter of Palestinian rights – to skip this year's 9/11 memorial.

Dandia acknowledged Islamophobia had not disappeared, but he was optimistic regarding how far New York's Muslim community has come.

"I've seen the growth of our institutional power, but also the recognition by other New Yorkers who are not Muslim, that we are all part of this city together, " he remarked.

"I think that's really valuable since, you know, Rome was not built overnight, and it was not built by one person or one group of residents. It was built by the community."

Taken together, the developments around new York' s Muslims reclaim their city 25 years after 9/11 attacks point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.