Zohran Mamdani, the leading candidate in next month’s mayoral election, has frequently dodged questions on whether he supports Hamas.
Last week, during an interview with Fox News, he refused to say if the terrorist group should lay down their arms and relinquish their leadership of Gaza. He claimed not to have opinions “about the future of Hamas and Israel beyond the question of justice and safety.”
However, a review of his associations suggests he and his wife, Rama Duwaji, have supported Muslim “extremists” — some of whom are linked to terrorists.
Imam Siraj Wahhaj
Last week, Mamdani campaigned with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn imam who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and once served as a character witness for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the terrorist who organized it.
Six people died in the World Trade Center bombing when a bomb was planted under the North Tower.
He also called for a “jihad” in New York City, The Post first revealed.
Wahhaj also has a history of making homophobic comments. “This is a disease of this society,” Wahhaj said in a sermon first revealed in 2017, advising followers to “defend against these homosexuals.”
Mamdani, along with City Council Member Yusef Salaam, campaigned with imam Wahhaj a day after the mayoral debate last week.
“Today at Masjid At-Taqwa, I had the pleasure of meeting with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community,” Mamdani wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Wahhaj’s son Siraj was convicted of terrorism in 2024 and two of his daughters, Hujrah and Subhannah, were convicted of kidnapping resulting in death, following an incident at a compound in New Mexico where they hoarded weapons, provided tactical training and “spoke of waging jihad,” per a federal memo.
Mamdani tried to justify his meeting with Wahhaj by claiming mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill De Blasio also met the imam and he had “campaigned alongside Eric Adams.”
However, Bloomberg, who met Wahhaj in 2009, said he regretted the encounter, telling The Post if he knew he was a character witness for Abdel-Rahman he would have declined to shake his hand.
Adams met with Wahhaj in 2015 when he was Brooklyn Borough President, presenting him with an award for civic engagement. His spokesperson denied he had ever campaigned with Wahhaj and urged Mamdani to “join the mayor in condemning Hamas [and] denouncing the phrase ‘globalize the intifada.’”
De Blasio appeared at Wahhaj’s mosque in 2021, but its unclear if the two men met during that meeting.
Mamdani has also posed alongside Rebecca Kadaga, an anti-gay politician in his native Uganda, in July following his upset win in the Democratic mayoral primary.
In 2012, then-Speaker Kadaga infamously said she was passing a draconian law imposing severe penalties against practicing homosexuals as a “Christmas gift” for supporters of the measure.
A spokeswoman for Mamdani did not return a request for comment Monday. Wahhaj did not return a request for comment.
Linda Sarsour
Controversial Muslim activist Linda Sarsour backed Mamdani’s campaign with a $2,100 contribution this month.
MPower Action, the advocacy arm of her group MPower Change, has helped organize the No Kings protests, endorsed Mamdani for mayor, and has helped get out the Muslim vote for him in New York.
Sarsour is a supporter of the campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and has also been accused of antisemitism.
Like Mamdani, she is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Both Mamdani and Sarsour have campaigned for Rasmea Odeh, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Odeh was convicted of bombing a supermarket in Israel in 1969, which left two people dead.
Anwar al-Awlaki
Mamdani questioned the FBI’s tactics over their surveillance of al Qaeda operative and the group’s English-language propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, in a series of X posts in 2015.
Al-Awlaki was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011, seven years after he had moved to the country to join the terrorist group.
“Why no proper interrogation of what it means for @FBI to have conducted extensive surv. into #Awlaki’s private life?” said Mamdani in one of the posts.
Before moving to Yemen, Al-Awlaki presided over a Virginia mosque where three of the 9/11 hijackers worshipped. He was also linked to Umar Farouk Adulmatallab, the so-called “underwear bomber” who tried to blow up a plane above Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.
Al-Awlaki’s online speeches and videos in English inspired the murders of 12 people at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine, in Paris in 2015. Al-Awlaki’s speeches also inspired the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, according to law enforcement.
The Holy Land Five
In 2017, Mamdani praised the directors of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development — known as “the Holy Land Five” — in a rap song called “Salaam,” which the Queens Assemblyman said is about growing up Muslim in New York.
The song, performed under his rap moniker Mr.Cardamon, includes the lyrics: “My love to the Holy Land Five. You better look ’em up.”
In 2008, US authorities successfully prosecuted the now-defunct Texas-based nonprofit for giving more than $12 million to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The family of an American-born yeshiva student sued the Holy Land Foundation as well as a handful of other US-based nonprofits for financing the terrorist attack that left their son, David Boim, dead at a bus stop in Jerusalem in 1996. Boim was the first US victim of Hamas.
“The Boims, having strong roots in Brooklyn, find it inexplicable that New Yorkers would even consider electing a mayor who publicly proclaimed his love for the Holy Land Foundation after their leaders were convicted of providing material support to Hamas, the terror organization that murdered their son,” said Dan Schlessinger, a lawyer for the Boims, in an email to The Post.
Saleh Al-Jafarawi (Mr. FAFO)
Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, mourned Saleh Al-Jararawi, known as Mr. FAFO, a Gaza-based influencer who glorified the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks that left 1,200 Israelis dead.
Duwaji posted four broken heart emojis in an Instagram story with a photo of the Hamas supporter, calling him “Beloved Jafarawi,” on Instagram. The influencer had gained recognition around the world by posting videos from Gaza
Al-Jafarawi was killed by a gunshot to the head by an anti-Hamas militia in southern Gaza City.
Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik
Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik is a former intern for Mamdani’s campaign. She was once caught on camera berating a Muslim police officer during a pro-Palestinian demonstration earlier this year.
Malik worked in Mamdani’s campaign during the summer of 2024 and also headed up Students for Justice in Palestine at the City College of New York.
In a video posted to social media, Malik characterizes her activism as jihad. “How gangster are you?… How committed am I to this?… What am I willing to sacrifice for this noble cause?” she asked in one video. She also claims to be at peace with the fallout, claiming: “If you get suspended, if you get doxed… it will never, ever be in vain.”
Among some of the photos shared on her LinkedIn page are anti-Israel posters that read “no tax break for genocide” and “funding illegal settlements isn’t charity.”
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