Mamdani Campaigns With Imam Tied to 1993 WTC Bombing and Radical Jihad Rhetoric
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is facing backlash after proudly appearing arm-in-arm with a controversial imam long linked to terrorism, anti-American extremism, and homophobic rhetoric.
In a photo posted online just a day after the first mayoral debate, Mamdani was seen smiling alongside Imam Siraj Wahhaj outside the Masjid At-Taqwa mosque in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Also present was Councilman Yusef Salaam (D-Manhattan), a member of the exonerated Central Park 5.
“Today at Masjid At-Taqwa, I had the pleasure of meeting with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders,” Mamdani wrote on X. “A beautiful Jummah.”
But Wahhaj’s record paints a far different picture.
The 75-year-old imam was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six and injured over a thousand. Prosecutors linked him to the terror network behind the attack and noted his ties to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the “blind sheikh” who masterminded the plot. Wahhaj even testified in Rahman’s defense, calling him a “respected scholar.”
Wahhaj has also been quoted in foreign intelligence assessments preaching radical messages, including a sermon in which he said:
“I pray one day Allah will bless us to raise an army… We were very close, recently. We had made intention to raise an army of 10,000 men in New York City.”
That “army,” he said, would “march through the city of New York” and wage jihad.
His inflammatory rhetoric hasn’t been limited to violent aspirations. Wahhaj has also declared that homosexuality is “a disease of this society,” citing Islamic texts to call for the death penalty for gay men. “The one who does it and the one to whom it is done to — kill them both,” he once said in a sermon.
While Wahhaj advised his followers not to commit acts of violence, he encouraged them to “make [LGBTQ people] feel uncomfortable” and push them to convert to Islam.
In 2018, Wahhaj’s family made headlines again when three of his children were arrested in New Mexico for running a makeshift terrorist training camp where they were allegedly teaching minors combat tactics. Eleven malnourished children were rescued. The imam’s son, Siraj Wahhaj Jr., was reportedly training teenagers to conduct school shootings and wage jihad against non-believers. The children’s conditions were described as “Third World” and “subhuman.”
Though the elder Wahhaj claimed he was the one who alerted police to his son’s activities, prosecutors later argued his ideological influence was central to the radicalization of the group. Several members were sentenced to life in prison.
Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa blasted Mamdani’s alliance with Wahhaj as “disqualifying.”
“New York needs a mayor who protects its citizens from terrorism — not one who poses for photos with its sympathizers,” Sliwa said.
Mamdani’s office did not respond to requests for comment. Wahhaj could not be immediately reached.