Marva Gianini was 10 years old growing up in Brooklyn on September 11, 2001.
In the aftermath of the al-Qaeda terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 people and destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, she recalls the onset of intense surveillance and the ensuing fear in the Muslim and Arab community. And even as a young girl, she remembers thinking that people, some of whom had been targeted, needed a way to make their voices heard.
Now she heads the organization that provides that representation—the Arab American Association of New York—and she is at the center of something that might have seemed unthinkable to her and others 25 years ago: She is part of the transition team for New York City's first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who will be sworn in on Jan. 1.
Why did we write this
Muslims in Bay Ridge, New York, remember the days of suspicion and fear that followed the September 11 terrorist attacks. They could not have foreseen the day that would come: the election of a Muslim as mayor of New York.
Mr Mamdani received nearly 51 percent of the vote in the mayoral election, which saw the highest turnout since 1969, winning across a wide range of demographic groups and communities across the city. In Bay Ridge, a neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn known for its largest Arab community in New York and a significant Muslim population, Mr. Mamdani won majority votes, although the western part voted mostly for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Over the decades, the Bay Ridge area has transformed from a former hotspot of European immigrants to a place now informally known as “Little Palestine” or “Little Yemen”, especially in the area of 5th Avenue between 67th and 75th streets. There, storefront signs are often written in Arabic rather than English; recordings of the Koran broadcast on television and radio in local stores; and the call to prayer, or Azan, is issued from the local mosque.
In Mr. Mamdani, many New Yorkers see a candidate ready to tackle the city's affordability crisis, even as some question whether he can deliver on his campaign promises. For many of the city's Muslims, his victory also prompted reflection on their community's journey from political marginalization to one of their own becoming New York's top elected official.
“The story of Muslim New Yorkers and Arab New Yorkers is not a story of linear progress,” Ms. Gianini says. “There's a lot of complexity here. This is a community that has to constantly fight to feel safe, supported and visible.”
Mr. Mamdani, vowing to be a mayor for all New Yorkers, made a direct promise to Muslims in his victory speech, declaring that the city's more than 1 million Muslims would now know that they belonged “not only in the five boroughs of this city, but in the halls of power.”
“The most… brightest moment”
After 9/11, the New York Police Department's covert anti-terrorism program targeted Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent in Bay Ridge and other New York City communities. Police targeted the Arab American Association of New York, as well as mosques, student groups and businesses.
A 2013 lawsuit accused the NYPD of violating civil rights by surveilling Muslims without cause. The settlement led to major reforms within the department, including a ban on investigations based on race, religion or ethnicity; and strengthening enforcement of rules that protect against discriminatory and unjustified surveillance.
Asad Dandia, one of the plaintiffs, discovered that the charity he co-founded had been infiltrated by an NYPD informant. He says that this incident pushed him to organize social activities.
“This was perhaps the most visible and significant moment in our history where we actually stood up against the discrimination and injustice perpetrated by the city government,” Mr. Dandia says.
This momentum continued. In 2013, organizers created the Muslim Democratic Club of New York to mobilize voters. Mr. Mamdani's top lawyer on his transition team helped found the group. Four years later, Mr. Mamdani served as communications director for Khader El-Yateem, a Palestinian-American Lutheran pastor who was running for Bay Ridge City Council. Despite the loss of El-Yateem, the campaign helped galvanize local residents, and Mr. Mamdani's political career is rooted in the work he did in Bay Ridge.
Culturally, the community's history continues to evolve. Just three years ago, a woman named Basma arrived here from Algeria, who asked that only her first name be used for privacy reasons.
“I heard people speaking Arabic, and there was a store playing Algerian music, and I walked and cried and laughed at the same time,” she says. “It's all the same [as Algeria] “food, language, gossip.”
“At least hear us”
Amir Ali, a Yemeni business owner in Bay Ridge, says he is glad Mr. Mamdani represents Muslims in public life.
“It's very important for me to have a good understanding of Islam, different from what the media shows,” Mr. Ali says. “That's what we care about. It shows the American Muslim the way we want him to be.”
But what matters most to Mr. Ali and others interviewed for this article is the issue Mr. Mamdani has focused his campaign on: affordability. A vote In early 2025, it found that nearly two-thirds of New Yorkers say meeting basic needs is becoming increasingly difficult, and nearly half of respondents are considering leaving the city. Mr. Ali has personal experience with rising costs: He says the monthly rent for his store has risen by about $2,000 over the past few years.
“Many voted for [Mr. Mamdani]”And not just Muslims, not just Middle Easterners, because all these people really struggle with accessibility,” Mr. Ali says. “They need someone to at least – even if they're not going to fix it – look at it and at least hear us.”
Mamdani's agenda, a democratic socialist, includes things like opening city-owned grocery stores and freezing rents. His political opponents took advantage of this. “Yes, he says he's a socialist,” said Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, whose district includes most of Bay Ridge. “But guess what, my friends, this is politics straight out of Karl Marx’s communist playbook.”
Mr Mamdani also faces headwinds among other constituencies in the city, which has the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. Some of his public statements related to the Gaza war have been criticized by Jewish organizations and leaders, including when he apparently refused to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a phrase they believe justifies violence against Jews. Mr Mamdani said he did not use such language. During the October debate, he said he recognized Israel's right to exist, but did not “recognize the right of any state to exist with a system of hierarchy based on race or religion.”
Still, about a third of Jewish New Yorkers voted for Mr. Mamdani, and he said he would be a mayor “who protects Jewish New Yorkers.” Meanwhile, his pro-Palestinian stance has earned the support of many New Yorkers, where 44% of registered voters were more sympathetic to the Palestinians and 26% were more sympathetic to Israel, according to the Poll by New York Times and University of Siena.
Ms. Gianini, a Palestinian-American, said it was once unimaginable to her that elected officials in a country that works so closely with Israel would publicly express support for the Palestinians. Mr. Dandia, a New York City history guide who sits on Mr. Mamdani's informal advisory group, says the mayor-elect's stance has changed the minds of many voters who felt politically invisible on the issue.
Zarina Grewal, an assistant professor of religious studies at Yale University, said the post-9/11 period was a time of political transformation for Muslims in New York and led to a successful mass movement.
She says Muslims have been the “canary in the coal mine” on issues such as affordability.
“It was social welfare issues like poverty, surveillance, racism, unequal access, discrimination in schools and health care that really forced Muslims in New York to come together despite their political differences, work in tandem with each other and see results,” Ms. Grewal says.
