Mamdani’s 'aunt' from his Islamophobia speech wasn’t his aunt after all

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani was forced to admit that the “aunt” from his recent speech on Islamophobia — whom he claimed was too fearful to wear her hijab on the subways after 9/11 — was in fact his first cousin once removed and is no longer alive.

“I was speaking about my aunt. I was speaking about Zehra fuhi, my father’s cousin, who passed away a few years ago,” Mamdani told reporters on Monday.

The term "fuhi" – also transliterated as phuuphii – means paternal aunt in the language of Urdu.

Mamdani, the Democratic Party nominee, also hit back at critics, saying, "And for the takeaway from my more than 10-minute address about Islamophobia in this race and in this city to be the question of my aunt tells you everything about [general election challenger] Andrew Cuomo and his inability to reckon with a crisis of his own making."

The statement about the "aunt" by front-running Mamdani, a Muslim and democratic socialist, came during a lengthy speech outside an Islamic cultural center last week, where he attempted to frame the criticisms of his anti-Israel stances and of his associations with and praise for pro-jihadist Muslims as being rooted in hatred for his faith and in Islamophobia.

"I want to speak to the memory of my aunt who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab," Mamdani had told a crowd last Thursday as he appeared to fight back tears.

Mamdani has also 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.

On Sept. 11, 2001, four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States occurred. Nearly 3,00 people on U.S. soil died as a result of the attack.