WGBH: ’25 years after Sept. 11 attacks, Muslims are still navigating the backlash’

Here is yet another in the series I predicted of 9/11 articles with the theme “Muslims struck U.S., Muslims hardest hit.” This one portrays the Islamic Society of Boston as full of noble victims putting up with irrational and hateful “Islamophobia.” WGBH’s Sam Turken doesn’t see fit to mention that the Islamic Society of Boston was founded by al-Qaeda financier Abrurrahman Alamoudi and had the Hitler-admiring Jew-hater Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi on its Board. Nor does he note that it has recommended (in accord with Qur’an 4:34) that men beat their wives, or that convicted jihadis Tarek Mehanna and Aafia Siddiqui went there, as well as the Boston Marathon jihad bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

“25 years after Sept. 11 attacks, Muslims are still navigating the backlash,” by Sam Turken, WGBH, September 7, 2026:

It’s midday on a Friday at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury, the largest mosque in New England.

More than a thousand men, women and children of all different ethnic backgrounds stream in. Some head to the mosque’s cafe, where they catch up with each other over chai tea and baklava. Then, people gather in the carpeted prayer hall, take off their shoes and sit down for the Friday Jum’ah service.

On this day, the imam leading the service devotes his sermon to the power of emotion, and harnessing it to help society even when times are tough.

“The strong person is not the one who overpowers others. But the strong are only those who control themselves when they are angry,” he said.

Compare this ordinary scene from a place of worship with the way Muslims say their community has been portrayed and treated since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Great. But what about the Qur’an’s violent passages, and 49,000 jihad attacks done around the world in accord with them since 9/11? What about all the threats of imminent takeover?

Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, preached on Feb. 2, 2024 that “America has grown old. It is old. It is on the verge of retirement. It is about to be admitted into a nursing home.” He predicted that “Islam will enter every home in every continent without exception, including every home in America.”

This is a more common view than most non-Muslims realize. A Muslim speaker told a large crowd in New York City at a rally in February 2026: “Oh, don’t scare them, brothers! Relax! They’re over here on purpose to be like, ‘Oh my God!’ Who’s seen those videos where they’re like, ‘Oh my God, the Muslims are taking over New York City!’ Seen those? You seen those? Let them know that we are taking over New York City! Takbir!” The crowd responded with enthusiastic screams of “Allahu akbar.”

This also recalled a video that surfaced back in December 2025, in which a young Somali Muslim in the U.S. holds a large photo of President Donald Trump and says: “My biggest fear in life is that this man may never witness our full takeover. Yes, he may never wi— witness that. He already witnessed our partial takeover, our little success, in America…. So. He’s old and sick, I know, he may not witness our full takeover. But I promise you that his sons will witness.”

On May 27, 2026 at the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia, the imam Esam Omeish said: “The best thing we can do to America is help guide it with the guidance of Islam, and help guide it with the ability to rid itself of these illnesses that our Prophet Muhammad has described and has given us the prescription for.”

The extremists responsible for 9/11 invoked Islam to justify their actions, putting ordinary Muslims in the United States on the defensive about their faith and contributing to a surge in Islamophobic prejudice and discrimination in the months that followed.

Where are the classes in mosques teaching Muslims to reject the “extremist” version of Islam? Where are the massive Muslim organizations fighting against jihad violence?

Since then, the anti-Muslim backlash has continued in waves, involving hate crimes, government surveillance and travel bans. Now, 25 years after 9/11, many Muslims still feel like pariahs even though they’ve worked tirelessly to strengthen relations with their neighbors, become more politically engaged and push back against perceptions of Islam shaped by the extremists who carried out the attacks.

“You have people who do not understand Islam, who hate Islam,” said Sayem Khan, a Cambridge architect. “There’s people out there — evil out there — that’s really just looking to wipe us out.”…

What about all the jihad attacks in the U.S. since 9/11? Are non-Muslims allowed to be concerned about Muslims who are just looking to wipe us out, or is such concern ipso facto “Islamophobic”?

Rashid Ashraf, a member of the board of trustees at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, recalls people questioning if he was a terrorist. Someone asked him why Muslims haven’t apologized for 9/11….

This is a reductio ad absurdum attempt to reduce all opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression to stupid people mistaking innocent people for guilty ones. The concerns about Islam’s teaching and the actions of all too many Muslims remain unaddressed.

Amatul-Wadud, now executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, remembers running for Congress years ago. She wanted her campaign to focus on issues like healthcare policy and the cost of daycare. Instead, she faced threats of violence and false accusations that she wanted to enact Islamic Sharia law. She felt the need to explain to people that she was more than a Muslim woman wearing a hijab….

Nothing about the Hamas links of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Muslim community leaders say women who wear hijab often experience an especially high rate of harassment because their Islamic faith is more visible in public….

We hear that asserted all the time, but there are never any specific incidents described. Why not? Here are some incidents: An eleven-year-old girl in Toronto made international headlines with her claim that a man had followed her and cut her hijab with scissors. After an investigation, police concluded that the attack never happened. Likewise, Yasmin Seweid, a Muslim teen, claimed in December 2016 that Trump supporters on a New York subway tore off her hijab and no one in the packed subway car helped her. She, too, gained international media attention, and she, too, made up the whole thing. Shortly before that, a hijab-wearing Muslim student at San Diego State University also falsely claimed that she was assaulted by Trump supporters.

In July 2017, a Muslim in Britain falsely claimed that a man had pulled off her hijab in a “race hate attack.” In November 2016, a University of Michigan Muslim student claimed she was “accosted by a white man who told her to remove her hijab or he would set her ablaze with a cigarette lighter.” She also fabricated the whole event. And there are many others of this kind, but WGBH, of course, has taken no notice.