Muslims are blasting Zohran Mamdani’s association with controversial Imam Siraj Wahhaj, warning that legitimizing the former terror suspect could fuel radical extremism.
“I am particularly concerned to see mosques used as political rallying platforms in the free and democratic United States,” said Dalia Ziada, a Muslim scholar and fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.
“By embracing Wahhaj, Zohran Mamdani is sidelining moderate Muslims and normalizing an extremist ideology that once inspired terror on American soil and still fuels radicalization within segments of the Muslim community today,” she told Fox News.
The dire concern comes after Mamdani, 34, posted a photo of himself visiting with Wahhaj, 75 — a man federal prosecutors once considered an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the fatal 1993 World Trade Center bombing and who once even called on Muslims to infiltrate American democracy for use as a “weapon” of Islamic causes.
Despite those allegations and Wahhaj’s past comments, Mamdani — New York City’s leading mayoral candidate and a lefty Democratic Socialist — called the prominent imam “one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century” after meeting with him Friday.
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