Hashtag Hate: How Islamophobia Went After Zohran Mamdani

A fear, prejudice and hatred of Muslims or non-Muslim individuals that leads to provocation, hostility and intolerance by means of threatening, harassment, abuse, incitement and intimidation of Muslims and non Muslims, both in the online and offline world. Motivated by institutional, ideological, political and religious hostility that transcends into structural and cultural racism which targets the symbols and markers of being a Muslim.

This working definition, as given by Professor Imran Awan and Dr. Irene Zempi, UK-based criminologists, is officially adopted by the United Nations to define Islamophobia. The phenomenon of anti-Muslim hatred has become a global one, from the streets and lanes of India to social media platforms that unfurl massive amounts of hate even against the New York City mayor. Independent experts with the UN cautioned in 2024 that Islamophobia has been rising to “alarming levels” across the world.

With social media emerging as fertile ground for spreading divisive narratives and inciting action through hate, it has become a potent trigger for communal hatred and even riots. The resulting atmosphere of polarization is deepened further by online campaigns that brand individuals and communities as “terrorists” or “jihadis.” The label spares no one — not even the Mayor of New York City. Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old Democratic Socialist who recently clinched the mandate to lead America’s most prominent metropolis, has now become the newest target of this hate campaign.

Various study reports by independent think tanks have analysed the growing wave of hatred directed at Mamdani’s Muslim identity. The Centre for the Study of Organised Hate (CSOH), an independent Washington DC–based think tank, in its latest report titled “Islamophobia and the New York City Mayoral Election: An Analysis of Islamophobic and Xenophobic Narratives on X Targeting Zohran Mamdani,” found that “much of the discourse focused on Mamdani’s political ideology—labelled as a form of communist infiltration—which often intersected with Islamophobic narratives to demonize him as a suspected ‘infiltrator.’”

That sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it?

The Metrics of Hate

The analysis identified a total of 35,522 original posts authored by 17,752 unique accounts containing Islamophobic, xenophobic, or  exclusionary language on X (formerly Twitter). Out of all these accounts, 6,868 — or about 39%— were verified blue-badge users. These accounts created 16,039 posts, making up around 45%of all the Islamophobic content recorded during the study period.

The report notes that anti-Muslim sentiment had become a defining feature of the New York general elections. It went to the extent that Mamdani was compelled to hold a press conference to address the rampant Islamophobia. Between June 24 and October 31, the original Islamophobic and xenophobic posts identified by CSOH collectively amassed an estimated reach of 1.5 billion, garnering 7.37 million likes and 2.01 million reposts. 

A majority of the posts revolved around labels such as “extremist”, “terror sympathizer”, “jihadi”, “Islamist”, “radical Muslim” and “terrorist,” revealing how these tropes cast his Muslim identity as inherently tied to terrorism, echoing over two decades of post-9/11 narratives that relate Muslim political participation with national security threats. This category accounted for 25,514 original posts, representing approximately 72% of all Islamophobic content.

The dataset also included posts promoting conspiracy theories of ‘Islamization’. They claimed that electing a Muslim politician would lead to the imposition of ‘sharia law’ or the establishment of an Islamic theocracy in New York City. This narrative functions as a fear based political weapon, the report says. Posts in this category included edited images and memes portraying New York City as falling under ‘Islamic rule’.

Other categories included posts calling for Mamdani’s deportation, and questioning his patriotism and loyalty to the US. He was portrayed as an outsider, whose political participation inherently threatened American values. The phrase “New York has fallen” notably appeared in multiple posts. ‘Assertions that a Muslim elected official should be expelled or stripped of citizenship framed political participation as conditional and limited to certain religious and ethnic groups’, the report observed. He was described using terms like “enemy within”, “anti-American”, and “traitor” in many of the posts.

The report further noted that, over the four-month observation period, Islamophobic content showed a consistent upward trajectory. In October, the volume of Islamophobic discourse spiked sharply to 15,123 posts, making up 43% of the total dataset. This marks an increase of over 450%  compared to September, indicating a significant and sustained escalation. The late-stage surge points to a renewed, and possibly coordinated effort to amplify Islamophobic narratives as the mayoral campaign entered its final phase, according to the report.

The Warning Ahead

“To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity, but indignity does not make us distinct. There are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does,”, Mamdani said in a speech outside a mosque in the Bronx, days prior to the election. The statement came a day after his principal opponent in the Mayoral race, Andrew Cuomo laughed when a radio host said that Mamdani ‘would be cheering’ if another September 11 attack occurred. 

Mamdani has defended his Muslim identity on several occasions, even addressing the wider atmosphere of fear faced by Muslims in India. He has been an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of a “mass slaughter of Muslims” during the 2002 Gujarat riots and even describing him as a “war criminal.”

As the report goes, ‘online hate and dehumanization also have the potential to manifest as offline violence, in the form of harassment and threats targeting Muslim Americans’. The massive onslaught of hate and divisive narratives online that Mamdani’s win triggered calls for effective methods to counter the possibility of this ‘offline violence’.

The report points to an immediate and chilling warning of what such unchecked hostility could unleash.