NYC Mayoral Candidate under Criticism for Meeting with Extremist Imam

NYC may­oral can­di­date Zohran Mam­dani is being chal­lenged over his asso­ci­a­tion with Imam Sir­aj Wah­haj, a fig­ure linked to the 1993 World Trade Cen­ter bomb­ing. On Octo­ber 17, 2025, The Times of India report­ed that Mam­dani appeared in a pho­to smil­ing and stand­ing hand-in-hand with Wah­haj, who has a his­to­ry of extrem­ist rhetoric. The arti­cle begins:

Left-wing New York City may­oral can­di­date Zohran Mam­dani is seen smil­ing, stand­ing hand-in-hand with an Imam, Sir­aj Wah­haj, 75, who has his­tor­i­cal ties as an unin­dict­ed co-con­spir­a­tor in the 1993 World Trade Cen­ter bomb­ing and known for inflam­ma­to­ry anti-LGBTQ remarks. Coun­cil­man Yusef Salaam (D‑Manhattan), a mem­ber of the Cen­tral Park 5 elect­ed in Novem­ber 2023, was also present in the image. “Today at Masjid At-Taqwa, I had the plea­sure of meet­ing with imam Sir­aj Wah­haj, one of the nation’s fore­most Mus­lim lead­ers and a pil­lar of the Bed-Stuy com­mu­ni­ty for near­ly half a cen­tu­ry,” Mam­dani wrote on X about the Fri­day encounter. “A beau­ti­ful Jummah,” he added, refer­ring to the week­ly prayer. Wah­haj has pub­licly defend­ed the plot­ters of the attack against the FBI and CIA, label­ing them as the “real ter­ror­ists,” New York Post report­ed. Though Wah­haj has denied any ter­ror­ist affil­i­a­tions, he has a his­to­ry of extrem­ist rhetoric.

Read more: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/nyc-mayoral-candidate-zohran-mamdani-smiles-and-stands-hand-in-hand-with-imam-tied-to-wtc-bombing-who-is-siraj-wahhaj/articleshow/124686139.cms

Key Points

• Zohran Mam­dani posed smil­ing with Imam Sir­aj Wah­haj, who was named an unin­dict­ed co-con­spir­a­tor in the 1993 WTC bomb­ing that killed six people.

• Wah­haj has pub­licly defend­ed the attack­ers and labeled the FBI and CIA as “the real ter­ror­ists,” accord­ing to the New York Post.

• Mam­dani described Wah­haj as “one of the nation’s fore­most Mus­lim lead­ers and a pil­lar of the Bed-Stuy com­mu­ni­ty,” fol­low­ing their meet­ing at Masjid At-Taqwa.

• Sur­vivors of the 1993 bomb­ing and law enforce­ment fig­ures have con­demned the asso­ci­a­tion, call­ing it deeply insen­si­tive and disqualifying.

From Anti-Gay Activism and Muslim Brotherhood Ties to Congressional Prayer: Wahhaj’s Controversial Rise in American Islam

Sir­aj Wah­haj is among the most promi­nent cler­ics with ties to Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the US. Over the past decades, he has held var­i­ous posi­tions in sev­er­al impor­tant orga­ni­za­tions of the GMB, includ­ing the Islam­ic Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca (ISNA), the Amer­i­can Mus­lim Coun­cil, and the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR).

Wah­haj found­ed Masjid at-Taqwa in Brook­lyn in 1981 after leav­ing the Nation of Islam to prac­tice Sun­ni Islam, con­vert­ing the space from an aban­doned depart­ment store and estab­lish­ing it as a com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter that gained recog­ni­tion for anti-drug patrols in 1988. He tes­ti­fied as a char­ac­ter wit­ness for Omar Abdel-Rah­man, the “Blind Sheikh” con­vict­ed of con­spir­a­cy charges relat­ed to planned bomb­ings of New York landmarks.

Wah­haj has pub­licly stat­ed that homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is “a dis­ease of this soci­ety” and has called for mak­ing gay peo­ple “feel uncom­fort­able,” while acknowl­edg­ing Islam­ic law’s posi­tion on exe­cut­ing homo­sex­u­als but cau­tion­ing Amer­i­can Mus­lims against vig­i­lante vio­lence. Despite these con­tro­ver­sial posi­tions and ter­ror­ism con­nec­tions, Wah­haj became the first Mus­lim to deliv­er an open­ing prayer for the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in 1991.

In 2022, Turkey’s Pres­i­den­cy of Reli­gious Affairs pre­sent­ed Wah­haj with its Inter­na­tion­al Benev­o­lence Award at a cer­e­mo­ny attend­ed by Pres­i­dent Erdoğan, rec­og­niz­ing his work at Masjid at-Taqwa. Wah­haj has praised Erdoğan as the leader of all Mus­lims in the Mus­lim world dur­ing speech­es at Turk­ish-Amer­i­can Nation­al Steer­ing Com­mit­tee (TASC) events.

Exter­nal references:

• Ter­ror in Alaba­ma and the fam­i­ly con­nec­tion to the 1993 World Trade Cen­ter bombing
• Islamist Homo­pho­bia in the West: From Rhetoric to Violence
• Zohran Mamdani’s imam ally Sir­aj Wah­haj has his­to­ry of vile anti-gay views: ‘Dis­ease of this society’

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.