In the closing week before early voting begins in the New York City mayoral election, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is doubling down on a line of attack trying to tie the race’s front-runner, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, to figures who said they opposed homosexuality.
The latest attempt came on Saturday, with Mr. Cuomo convening a news conference in the Bronx to criticize Mr. Mamdani after he posted a picture of a meeting he recently held with a well-known imam in Brooklyn.
The imam, Siraj Wahhaj, who leads Masjid at-Taqwa in Bedford-Stuyvesant, endorsed Mr. Mamdani in the Democratic primary,. Mr. Mamdani, after their meeting, said the imam was “one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century.”
The meeting was the subject of a New York Post article on Saturday that highlighted the imam’s opposition to homosexuality and his characterization as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
He was never charged in the case, and The Times reported that the list Mr. Wahhaj appeared on was criticized by some former terrorism prosecutors as being overly broad.
Mr. Cuomo mostly centered his attack on Imam Wahhaj’s stance on homosexuality.
“For Zohran to think that he should be mayor of New York, the capital of acceptance and tolerance and diversity, the city and the state where the gay rights movement was birthed, the place that made history in passing same-sex marriage, the disconnect is so disturbing,” Mr. Cuomo said Saturday.
Mr. Mamdani has been a steadfast supporter of protecting the rights of gay and lesbian New Yorkers, including in the Assembly, and the issue of protecting those rights has rarely been raised during the campaign until recently. Earlier this month, Mr. Cuomo also criticized Mr. Mamdani for a photo he took with a Ugandan elected official who has previously backed laws that discriminate against gay people.
Dora Pekec, a spokeswoman for Mr. Mamdani, said that Mr. Cuomo seemed more interested in “talking about what people Zohran has taken photos with than explaining what he actually plans to do as mayor for the L.G.B.T.Q. community.”
“What we’re seeing from Andrew Cuomo isn’t concern — it’s the desperation of someone who’s run out of ideas and mistakes cynicism for strategy,” she added.
In his attacks on Mr. Mamdani, Mr. Cuomo has tried to draw attention to how, as governor, he pushed for and signed the law that legalized gay marriage in New York. Yet Mr. Cuomo has also been criticized for associating with people who oppose homosexuality like the Rev. Rubén Diaz Sr., who previously served on the City Council and has made homophobic comments opposing gay marriage. As governor, Mr. Cuomo criticized Mr. Díaz, but then earlier this month accepted his endorsement and appeared at a campaign event alongside him.
Mr. Cuomo on Saturday called attention to statements that Imam Wahhaj made where he cited the Prophet Muhammad in suggesting that if two gay men are found together, they should be killed. A recording of his remarks shows that the imam quickly implored followers not to physically attack gay people. “You don’t have that right,” he can be heard saying.
It’s not clear when or where the recording, which was previously posted to YouTube but then deleted, occurred. The imam declined to comment for this article.
Imam Wahhaj, who was the first Muslim to give the invocation before the House of Representatives, has also been a critic of efforts to stir up Islamophobia in the aftermath of terrorist attacks. Raised a baptist, Mr. Wahhaj joined the Nation of Islam after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He later left and became an orthodox Muslim and has said before that Islamic teachings offer no justification for attacks against innocent people.
“I’ve made a commitment to God and myself: I will do everything I can to eliminate these sicknesses,” he said less than a month after the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, defending Islam but condemning the attack.
Mr. Cuomo did not explicitly criticize Mr. Mamdani’s faith, but the assemblyman has faced Islamophobic attacks from a range of conservative political figures, including Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, a Republican ally of President Trump’s, who recently called him a “jihadist.”
Mr. Mamdani is a longtime critic of Israel’s government and has characterized the state’s actions in Gaza as a genocide. He has changed his position and now says that he would discourage the use of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which some view as a call for violence against Jews. He has also condemned the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The importance of the Muslim community in New York City politics has grown, as seen by Mr. Mamdani’s ability to draw new Muslim voters into a diverse primary coalition that included young people, people of color, and first-time and infrequent voters.
Mr. Mamdani has sought to highlight what he sees as Mr. Cuomo’s history of ignoring Muslim voters, calling attention to his inability to recall when he had last visited a mosque as governor. Mr. Cuomo appeared last month at a mosque, the first time he had done so during this campaign.
“Not only has Cuomo not engaged Muslims, but he’s now seeing it as advantageous to build off a fear of Islam, and now he’s using Islamophobia in his campaign,” said Imam Khalid Latif, the executive director of The Islamic Center of New York City and a friend and supporter of Mr. Mamdani’s.
Benjamin Oreskes is a reporter covering New York State politics and government for The Times.
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