Socialist New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani visited a controversial Brooklyn mosque to pray while on the campaign trail — just months after the imam had called for the destruction of Israel.
Mamdani posted a picture of himself speaking at the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, alongside firebrand cleric Sheikh Muhammad Al-Barr, on his social media in January.
“It was a privilege to join Jummah prayers at the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge today,” the socialist nominee said in the post on X dated January 17.
Zohran Mamdani visited a controversial Brooklyn mosque on the mayoral campaign trail. X / @ZohranKMamdani
Imam Muhammad Al-Barr gave a fiery sermon at his Bay Ridge mosque months before Mamdani’s visit calling for the annihilation of Israel.
Mamdani’s visit came just five months after Al-Barr called on Allah in a fiery sermon at his Bay Ridge mosque to “liberate Palestine from the occupiers and the plunderers.”
“Oh Allah, annihilate those who occupied their lands, and those who betrayed and deserted them, and those who spilled their blood,” the cleric said in Arabic in an August service at the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge’s Masjid ibn Umair.
Al-Barr, whose last name is also spelled “Elbar,” also said that “the mujahideen [Hamas fighters] in Gaza are achieving more than our Arab armies could in 1967 and 1973,” a reference to the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, respectively.
Also in August, the pro-Palestinian activist group Al-Awda New York held a vigil in Bay Ridge, which has been dubbed “Little Palestine,” to honor “Beloved Martyrs,” including the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh who had been assassinated in Tehran, the Middle East Media Research Institiute (MEMRI) reported.
The vigil also paid tribute to Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr, who masterminded the 1983 attack on a US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut which killed 241 US service members.
Shukr was killed in an Israeli airstrike on July 30 last year.
Palestinian supporters rally outside the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge in Brooklyn on February 26, 2025. NEW YORK POSTA man wearing a keffiyeh to cover his face denounced America and said that they would do anything to “dismantle” Israel.
“From within the belly of the beast we salute and honor the axis of resistance… We welcome whatever path it takes to dismantle the Zionists’ state,” the unidentified agitator said.
He went on to pray that the souls of the “honorable and beloved martyrs and freedom fighters Ismail Haniyeh and Fuad Shukr rest in peace.”
