Muslims in New York are stepping out of the shadows
When the sun set over Church Avenue in Brooklyn, Shafiul Azam touched his head down on the soft green carpet of the new mosque in the neighborhood.
A digital panel in the corner of the room indicated the five prayer times of the day, as a young Imam from Bangladesh led the sunset service for a group of men. Until recently, they had congregated in the basement of a private house. Masjid Baitus Salam is more modest than the many churches and a synagogue nearby. But it offers a permanent prayer space for the growing Muslim population of the area in East Flatbush known as Little Caribbean. In a two-story townhouse and framed by family homes, the mosque features separate rooms for women, washing amenities and a place to store supplies for a bi-weekly food pantry.
“This neighborhood is very good, it’s not racist,” said Azam, 44, who is an IT professional and the secretary of the mosque. “We didn’t face any trouble. It’s a very big blessing and luck.”
After years of being targeted, Muslim New Yorkers are stepping out of the shadows. Quite literally, like Azam and what he calls his brothers from Bangladesh, who bought the East Flatbush house and moved their prayer place up from the underground. But also politically, as developments in other districts show. Shahana Hanif from nearby Kensington joined the New York City Council as the first Muslim woman last year. Yusef Salaam, who relied on his Muslim faith during years of wrongful incarceration in the case of the Central Park Five, won the City Council primary race in Harlem this July.
In August, the Adams administration introduced a new rule that allows Muslim to amplify their call to prayer city-wide on Fridays and during Ramadan, formalizing the previous ad hoc practices that had depended on local arrangements and permits. The development reflects the growing political power of Muslims in the city, said Katherine Merriman, 37, who directs the Islamic study program at the University of Detroit Mercy and leads Muslim history tours of New York City.
New York has long had an Islamic presence that spans from Muslims who were enslaved during colonial times to the emergence of a more visible community at the end of the 19th century. However, Islam was mostly treated “as a threat or exotic delight,” Merriman said. This still applied when African-Americans started reclaiming Islam as a part of their identity and immigration from Muslim majority regions increased after 1965. Now, after years of islamophobia during the so-called war on terror, it has started to change.
“A big shift happened when Muslims stopped being defensive,” Merriman said. “These young people who grew up during 9/11 are no longer young people. They are much more assertive.”
Asad Dandia, 30, experienced the targeting of Muslim New Yorkers after 9/11 first-hand. He was one of the plaintiffs in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the NYPD for a spying program on Muslim organizations. Dandia’s neighborhood help group was infiltrated by an officer in 2012.
“It was a dark time,” said Dandia, co-founder of Muslims Giving Back. “I would not wish that on my worst enemy. You didn’t know if the guy praying next to you was a government agent.”
When the lawsuit was settled in 2017, it changed the city’s policies. New York introduced more civilian oversight of the police to prevent discrimination. Around the same time, as the Trump-presidency began, a younger generation of Muslims threw themselves into politics. In February this year, the first Muslim-American became NYC’s independent civilian representative to the committee that Dandia’s lawsuit helped strengthen.
In East Flatbush, the opening of the new mosque has not triggered any notable reaction. “I have not heard any complaints or compliments for that matter,” Rodrick F. Daley, chairman of the district’s community board said in an email. In light of the war in Israel and Gaza, the board’s “hearts go out to all the innocent victims,” he wrote. “We also believe that every individual needs to be respected and valued as long as they have not created a detriment to our community.”
