From Hijra to City Hall: Islam, Migration, and the Rise of Mamdani

By Raymond Ibrahim, Feb 20, 2026 *

Twenty-five years after Muslim terrorists killed 2,800 people in New York City on September 11, 2001, a self-identified Muslim has, for the first time in that city’s history, become mayor.

What is the significance of this, and what does it really tell us?

On January 1, 2026, Zohran Mamdani — 35 years old, born in Uganda to Indian parents, Shia Muslim, former housing counselor and rapper (“Young Cardamom”), self-described democratic socialist — was sworn in as mayor of New York City. He has been described by many, including the President of the United States, as a “100% Communist Lunatic.”

Others accuse him of being a closet Muslim radical working to subvert New York to Islam. Their concerns are not unwarranted (not least since Shia Islam is notorious for internalizing taqiyya, a doctrine that promotes dissembling).

Fueled by the Left: Canada’s Churches on Fire

Raymond Ibrahim, original publication:  Oct 5, 2025.

The Stream

In mid-September, two churches in Canada were hit by Islamic extremists. On September 16, Our Lady of the Snows in Colville Lake, Northwest Territories — the community’s only church — was torched to the ground. Just days earlier, vandals had smashed windows and damaged property at Saint Peter and Saint Paul Coptic Orthodox Church in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, while also defacing a nearby convent with graffiti and broken glass. Locals called the attacks “heartbreaking” and “a really big loss to the community.”

Such attacks are common; one of the more notable ones occurred on June 9, 2024, when Toronto’s historic St. Anne’s Anglican Church and its priceless artwork were set ablaze and reduced to ashes. The pastor, Rev. Don Beyers, said his congregation was “greatly devastated”:

I’m crushed, I feel for my people. You can’t imagine what this is like for a church community to come on Sunday morning to find that everything you worked so hard for and done so much for [is] gone in the matter of an hour.