Mamdani claims he never supported 'global jihad' but he praised jihad supporters and sympathizers

Democratic mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani has indignantly declared that he has never supported “global jihad” — but the self-described democratic socialist has praised Muslim radicals who themselves were provably jihad supporters or defenders.

In Wednesday’s mayoral debate against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, Mamdani declared that he was being accused of being a jihad supporter because of his Muslim faith. In fact, he has a history of meeting with and praising high-profile, often well-funded, highly controversial Islamic figures, including radical imam Siraj Wahhaj and controversial Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour. 

He has himself sent his "love" to Muslim-Americans who were convicted of supporting Hamas.

“I think there is room for disagreement on many positions and many policies, but I want to correct the record. I have never, not once, spoken in support of global jihad,” Mamdani said on stage this week. “That is not something that I have said, and that continues to be ascribed to me, and frankly I think much of it has to do with the fact that I am the first Muslim candidate to be on the precipice of winning this election.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who is reportedly considering challenging Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, has repeatedly argued that Mamdani is indeed himself a jihadist.

“I call Zohran Mamdani a jihadist because he is,” Stefanik said on social media this month. “Zohran Mamdani is a raging antisemite. Mamdani is the definition of a jihadist as he supports Hamas terrorists which he did as recently as yesterday when he refused to call for Hamas terrorists to put down their arms — the same Hamas terrorist group that slaughtered civilians including New Yorkers on October 7, 2023.”

The mayoral candidate did not respond to a request from Just the News for comment.

Mamdani's refusal to condemn hateful slogans, challenges to Israel's existence

Hundreds of Jewish rabbis signed a letter this week “to declare that we cannot remain silent in the face of rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization throughout our nation” and lamented that “public figures like New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani refuse to condemn violent slogans, deny Israel’s legitimacy, and accuse the Jewish state of genocide.”

Just the News previously reported on how Mamdani’s years-long rise to prominence was assisted by Sarsour, whose views on Israel have stirred years of controversy and accusations of anti-Semitism.

Mamdani’s own past rap lyrics also praised “the Holy Land Five” — convicted by the Justice Department for supporting the terrorist group Hamas. Mamdani has also repeatedly accused Israel of committing a genocide, tweeting out the allegation dozens of times. Mamdani began accusing Israel of a genocide two weeks after the Hamas terrorist attacks in October 2023.

Mamdani has also tweeted repeatedly about supporting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement, and also said in 2020 it was the “framework” and "lens" of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan which “kind of in many ways drew me into socialism.”

Mamdani and imam Siraj Wahhaj

Mamdani spoke at Wahhaj's Brooklyn mosque last Friday and praised him on X as “one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century.” Wahhaj has been the center of controversy throughout his career, according to InfluenceWatch.

Wahhaj has a long history of incendiary commentary and appeared as a character witness on behalf of Egyptian Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman – commonly known as the “Blind Sheikh” – who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1995 for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other plots to bomb major NYC landmarks.

“The same imam met with Mayor Bloomberg, met with Mayor de Blasio, campaigned alongside Eric Adams, and the only time it became an issue of national attention was when I met with him,” Mamdani, himself a Muslim, said to reporters over the weekend. “That’s because of the fact of my faith and because I’m on the precipice of winning this election.”

Mayor Eric Adams and former Mayor Bill de Blasio indeed appear to have largely avoided criticism for meeting with Wahhaj, although Adams's mayoral office disputed that Adams had ever campaigned with Wahhaj.

However, in 2009, when Michael Bloomberg was mayor, his decision to meet with Wahhaj did, in fact, result in negative national attention, including stories by the Associated Press and Fox News, as well as articles written by local news outlets such as the New York Post and the New York Daily News.

Mamdani gets the Imam's blessing

Back in June, Wahhaj recommended that his followers vote for Mamdani, saying, “Allah has blessed us. We have a very, very good candidate. His name is Zohran Mamdani.” Wahhaj and Mamdani also praised each other during remarks last Friday at the Brooklyn mosque.

Wahhaj told Mamdani that “I love you more than you can ever imagine. Don’t ever stop doing what you’re doing. … I told some people I’m gonna try to change the law in America so you can run for president.”

Mamdani then took the microphone, saying, “It is such an honor to be here with you, imam. To be here at Masjid Al-Taqwa. And to be here the day after the first debate in the general election.”

Mamdani added: “Look at the history of this masjid. That is the history we are speaking of – of believing in a future that those around could not yet see. … We know there is more because we see glimpses of that city. We see it in this masjid. We see it in this imam.”

The chain: From Mandani to Wahhaj to the Blind Sheik

Then-U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White and then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy had sent a February 1995 letter to the defense team providing a list of “unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators” in the case against Omar Abdel-Rahman, better known as "the Blind Sheikh." Wahhaj was on the potential list.

Wahhaj was a character witness for the Blind Sheikh in the World Trade Center bombing trial in July 1995, according to court transcripts. Wahhaj said of the Blind Sheikh that “I respect him” and admitted that Rahman had spoken at Wahhaj’s mosque. Wahhaj added: “He is a well known scholar, he is a respected scholar [...] “He memorized the entire Koran, 114 chapters. That is why I respect him. He has memorized the many statements of Prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him. And he is bold, as a strong preacher of Islam. So he is respected that way.” Wahhaj suggested in 1993 that the World Trade Center bombing may have been carried out by Israel’s Mossad rather than Islamic terrorists.

McCarthy later noted that “Rahman and 11 others were ultimately convicted of seditious conspiracy and other charges after a nine-month trial that ended in October 1995.”

Wahhaj also said in 1991 that “wherever you came from, you came to America, you came for one reason and one reason only, to establish Allah's deen [way of life], as a servant of Allah.” "As long as you remember, that if you get involved in politics, you have to be very careful, that your niyyah [intention] is for Allah,” Wahhaj said. “You don't get in politics because it's the American thing to do. You get involved in politics because politics can be a weapon to use in the cause of Islam."

Wahhaj said in 1995: "You wanna defend this country? You know what this country is? It's a garbage can. It's filthy — filthy and sick."

“I pray one day Allah will bless us to raise an army and I’m serious about this. We were very close, recently,” Wahhaj said in the early 2000s. “We had made intention to raise an army of 10,000 men in New York City. Muslim men to go fight in the way of subhanahu wa ta’ala [may Allah be praised and exalted]. And this is serious.”

Wahhaj added: “Are you ready? Some are not going to like it. Some Muslim’s heart going to be weak, and they’re not ready for what I’m going to say. And they may publicize it in the Times, you may see it tomorrow in the newspaper. But I’m telling you what I’m saying that we ought to do. We ought to declare jihad.”

Mamdani's mentor Sarsour called for “jihad” against Trump and more

During a 2017 speech before the Islamic Society of North America, Linda Sarsour reportedly referred to Wahhaj as "my favorite person in this room.”

She also said in a 2017 speech reported by Time, that it was important to wage “jihad” against the Trump White House. She soon backpedaled on the meaning of the word "jihad" by claiming that critics were taking her words out of context as she emphasized her commitment to nonviolence. 

Sarsour infamously posted a tweet in 2011 which downplayed the concerns about the radical Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt, saying, “Yo the Muslim Brotherhood knows how to parrrttaaay! So much for radical islamists taking over!” She tweeted in 2012 that "nothing is creepier than Zionism.” 

Zionism is generally defined as the belief that the Jewish people should be allowed to have a national home in the biblical land of Israel. Sarsour tweeted in 2015 that a photograph of a child apparently preparing to throw rocks at Israeli police was “the definition of courage.”

Sarsour also said in a 2018 speech that “I am an unapologetic pro-BDS, one-state solution supporting, resistance supporter here in the U.S.” A so-called “one-state solution” would likely result in the ending of the Jewish character of the nation of Israel.

As for “BDS,” then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in 2020 that “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism” and so “the United States is, therefore, committed to countering the Global BDS Campaign as a manifestation of anti-Semitism.” 

Mamdani the rapper's greatest jihadist hits

Before formally entering the political scene, Mamdani tried his hand at a rap music career, including a number of songs that praised known terrorists or their enablers.

He released a heavily auto-tuned electronic rap track titled “Salaam” in March 2017 which remains on his SoundCloud page. The song was first unearthed by social media poster Canary Mission, among others who have pointed out that Mamdani sang about the Holy Land Five — with praise — and that Mamdani sent his "love" to them.

Mamdani tweeted in March 2017 that the song was “about being Muslim in America today.”

“No ban, no wall, build it up, we’ll make it fall” his lyrics say in a clear reference to Trump’s immigration restrictions placed on a number of Muslim-majority countries in his first term and to Trump’s vow to build a wall along the U.S. southern border. The lyrics continue, “Me llamo [my name is] Zohran // My love to the Holy Land Five // You better look ‘em up.”

When one does indeed "look it up" as Mamdani suggests, it turns out the Justice Department announced an indictment in 2004 against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) and seven of its senior leaders “for providing and conspiring to provide material support to Hamas." In 2001, the U.S. government listed HLF as Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT). Five of the Holy Land Foundation’s leaders — later referred to as "The Holy Land Five" — were convicted in 2008, and sentenced to decades in prison in 2009.

The Democratic mayoral nominee’s own statement the day after the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks by Hamas made no mention of the terrorist group and included condemnation of Israel only. He lamented "Netanyahu's declaration of war" — but there was no condemnation of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks which had murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians attending a music festival as well as hundreds in kibbutzim near the Gaza border. Dozens of hostages had been taken just the day before, many of whom were then raped and murdered. 

Accused of sanitizing the phrase "Globalize the Intifada" by reference to Arabic translation

“Peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid,” Mamdani said of Israel the day after the terrorist attacks.

Mamdani also did his best to explain away his use of the phrase “globalizing the intifada” back in June. “To me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights,” Mamdani said on The Bulwark podcast this summer. 

“And I think what’s difficult also is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic, because it’s a word that means struggle,” Mamdani said, and added that “as a Muslim man who grew up post-9/11, I’m all too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning.”

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum criticized Mamdani’s remarks. "Exploiting the Museum and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to sanitize 'globalize the intifada' is outrageous and especially offensive to survivors," the museum wrote in an X post. "Since 1987 Jews have been attacked and murdered under its banner. All leaders must condemn its use and the abuse of history."

Mamdani refused to condemn the phrase on Meet the Press, saying he did not want to "police speech." He later told an influential group of business leaders he would “discourage” the use of the phrase, according to The New York Times.

Mamdani has also repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide, tweeting out the allegation dozens of times. Mamdani began accusing Israel of genocide two weeks after the Hamas terrorist attacks in October 2023. Mamdani also told former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan in December 2024 that “as mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu.”

The Democratic mayoral hopeful was asked on Fox News earlier this month if Hamas should lay down its arms and give up control of Gaza, and he dodged the question, saying, "I don't really have opinions about the future of Hamas and Israel beyond the question of justice and safety, and the fact that anything has to abide by international law,” Mamdani said.

Doing something of an about-face at a NYC mayoral debate earlier this month, Mamdani soon said that, “of course I believe that they should lay down their arms.”

Mamdani suggests FBI drove Anwar al-Awlaki to join al-Qaeda

Mamdani has also furthered an unproven conspiracy theory that American-Yemeni cleric and al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki had been led to join al-Qaeda thanks to actions by the FBI.

Mamdani sent out multiple tweets about a New York Times article, seeming to critique the FBI and suggesting that the bureau bore responsibility for Awlaki joining al-Qaeda. “Why no proper interrogation of what it means for @FBI to have conducted extensive surv. [surveillance] into #Awlaki's private life?” Mamdani asked, adding, “How could #Awlaki have ever trusted @FBI to not release surveillance esp. [especially] if he continued to critique state?”

Awlaki was linked to multiple terrorist attacks, including the mass shooting terrorist attack by U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who shot and killed 13 members of the U.S. Army at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009. Hasan had communicated with Awlaki prior to the attack. Awlaki was targeted and killed by the U.S. in a drone strike in Yemen ordered by President Barack Obama in 2011.

Mamdani tweeted in 2015 about the “fascinating article … on #AnwarAwlaki” published by The New York Times, but he added that “I take issue w/ [with] a couple things.” The Times article detailed how multiple 9/11 hijackers had attended services at a mosque where Awlaki preached, and that the FBI began to surveil Awlaki after 9/11. The FBI surveillance revealed that Awlaki, while preaching piety to his followers, regularly paid escorts to have sex with him.

The piece said that a declassified document from the 9/11 Commission records showed that “the manager of an escort service called Awlaki to warn him that he had been interviewed by Wade Ammerman, an FBI agent, who had asked about the imam’s visits to prostitutes” and that “it was clear from Ammerman’s questions that the FBI knew everything.”

The New York-based Quran Academy for Young Scholars notes that Imams are not required to be celibate if they marry, but in most Islamic communities, Imams are expected to act as a role model for the wider community.

The Times article continued: “Awlaki’s panic, his sudden agitation about the course of his life, does not appear to have been triggered by American hostility to Muslims. Rather, he seems to have realized that his own un-­Islamic behavior had put his career success and family comity at risk. If the bureau charged him, or leaked the files, he might instantly lose the moral authority he brought to public arguments over the war in Afghanistan or the dubious roundup of Muslim men. If the FBI chose instead to threaten exposure to coerce his cooperation, that might be even worse. Within a few days, he was gone, and he would never live in the United States again.”

The piece posited an "alternate history” which fueled the unproven theory about Awlaki as an FBI plant: “What if the FBI, recognizing Awlaki’s influence and value as a mediator with the Muslim community, had assured him that there was no plan to use the prostitution evidence to charge or embarrass him? What if he had resumed his life in Washington and continued to grow into an important public figure? Might he have become a responsible leader, a voice in the debates over the wars in Muslim countries, the wisdom of drone strikes, the fate of Guantánamo? Might he never have joined Al Qaeda? The contemporary history of terrorism, not to mention his playlist on YouTube, could have unspooled quite differently.”

Mamdani also asked: “Why no further discussion of how #Awlaki's knowledge of surv. eventually led him to #alqaeda? Or what that says about efficacy of surv.?”

Mamdani's crowd justifies 9/11 attacks

The future mayoral nominee met with popular far-left online Turkish streamer Hasan Piker during the campaign, joining his podcast. Piker had said in 2019 that "America deserved 9/11." Mamdani refused in May of that year to criticize Piker’s comments, with Mamdani insisting that his own “words speak for themselves.” 

Forced into a corner under the public eye of a NYC mayoral debate earlier this month, Mamdani eventually said that “I find the comments that Hasan made on 9/11 to be objectionable and reprehensible.”

Mamdani wished his social media followers a “Happy 4th” on Independence Day in 2021, 2023, and 2024 in tweets accompanied by a picture from a music video of the two lead singers of the controversial rap group called The Diplomats (also known as Dipset), who were famous — and infamous — for some of their pro-terrorism-tinged lyrics.

Mamdani, a longtime rap aficionado who took a largely unsuccessful stab at being a rapper himself, has tweeted “Happy 4th” exactly four times — sharing the picture of the pro-terrorist Dipset rap group on the Fourth of July in 2021, 2023, and 2024 — and then, only after becoming the Democratic nominee, sent out a much more anodyne, standard-fare, politician-style tweet in 2025 wishing his followers “Happy 4th” featuring pictures from a Democratic Club BBQ held in Queens.

The Harlem-based rap group’s own lyrics from the 2003 album that Mamdani repeatedly promoted describe the hip-hop collective as the “Dipset Taliban”, “Harlem’s own Taliban”, and “Harlem’s Al-Qaeda” and described the group’s songs as “9/11 music” — while one of the group’s main singers compared himself favorably to Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and declared in a song that “I worship the prophet” Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the 19 terrorist hijackers on 9/11 and who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed by the al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, after Atta and his fellow hijackers crashed planes into the Twin Towers in New York City, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, following a revolt by the passengers on American Flight 93. Historian James Reston said "the revolt of the passengers on Flight 93 resulting in the plane hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists crashing in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, is rightly celebrated as one of the greatest heroic events in American history." That episode is etched in American memory with the words "OK, Let's Roll" as the passengers stormed the cockpit.

The attacks were carried out by the terrorists as bin Laden and al-Qaeda were shielded in Afghanistan by the Taliban, who, after two decades of war following the attack, took over Afghanistan again in 2021 following a chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal and evacuation.

The Dipset photo that Mamdani was long fond of sharing came from the music video for the group’s “Dipset Anthem” song, from the group’s highly-successful Diplomatic Immunity album released in March 2003. The group’s main members at the time were Cam'ron, Juelz Santana, Jim Jones, and Freekey Zekey. 

Praises 9/11 "great" killer Atta for "his courage behind the wheel of the plane"

One of the album’s songs, I Love You, originally featured lyrics saying: "I worship the prophet / The great Mohamed Omar Atta / For his courage behind the wheel of the plane / Reminds me when I was dealin' the 'caine [cocaine]."

Dipset's Santana defended the original lyrics in an August 2002 interview with the New Musical Express, where he again praised Atta and implied that the U.S. was to blame for the 9/11 attacks. "I feel my Diplomats are my team and I'm going to do whatever it takes for them, for my people, the same way as he [Atta] did for his people,” Santana said. “Not that I support him or what he did, but in order for him to do that, it had to take courage and love for what he believed in. A lot of New York people don't have that. Maybe if they did, something like that wouldn't happen."

Santana insisted that "I never said I worshiped him, I said I worshiped his courage. It had nothing to do with 9/11 or me supporting them because I know people in the towers too. If you really listen to the song, it was talking about that and the whole situation. No matter what anybody says, that was courage right there. … I've looked in the dictionary and I've defined the word courage."

Santana then suggested that in any event, 9/11 may have been justified. "Why did that happen? Why did that happen on September 11, that is my question. If that had never happened, I would have never been able to sing that. It's because United States have been going over there trespassing, stealing their stuff... now they make it seem like they came over here and bombed us for nothing,” the rapper said.

Cuomo on the attack

Conservative radio show host Sid Rosenberg had Cuomo on as a guest on Thursday, and said "Any given morning there is a crisis [in NYC]. People’s lives are at stake. God forbid, another 9/11—can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?" Cuomo said.

"Yeah, I could. He'd be cheering," Rosenberg quipped.

Cuomo paused and laughed before saying: "That's another problem."

Mamdani soon responded with condemnation, blaming Cuomo's perspective as rooted in Islamophobia: “This is disgusting,” the democratic socialist said. “This is Andrew Cuomo’s final moments in public life, and he’s choosing to spend them making racist attacks on the person who would be the first Muslim to lead this city.”

Mamdani remains the clear front-runner in the race, according to RealClearPolling, despite the pointed attacks on him by Cuomo and others. New York City residents begin early voting on Saturday, with Election Day on Nov. 4.