Will Zohran Mamdani institute Sharia law in New York?

Zohran Mamdani is the mayor-elect of New York City, the largest city in the United States, and will take office on New Year’s Day 2026.

Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, and became a naturalized American citizen in 2018. He is the only child of an academic father and filmmaker mother, both of Indian descent. His middle name, Kwami, honors Kwami Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana. He married animator and illustrator Rama Duwaji in late 2024, and they live in Astoria, Queens.

Mamdani is the first Muslim and first Indian-Ugandan to be elected as the city’s mayor. At only 34 years of age, he also will be the youngest mayor of New York City in a century. He is a member of both the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialist Party.

Perhaps you can see why conservative evangelicals believe the end is near.

According to published reports and video interviews, reactions of New Yorkers to his election have been mixed. One woman, a senior adult in business attire, smiled as she offered: “I’m so pleased; it’s time we have some new blood, and this is the time to try it. I’m really very confident it’s going to be a good term. We’ve had so much of the bad politics for so many reasons, and people are excited about this. … I think that he will do such a good job because he’s so smart and caring.”

An opposite view was expressed by a young woman who appeared to be in her 30s: “I actually think today is a national mourning day. It’s kind of appalling that this is what we’ve come to. … I think this man spreads a lot of hate (and) divide across society. … The hypocrisy, coming from his background, as a person of privilege in Uganda who’s never had to work a day in his life, the hypocrisy is quite grand.”

Politicians at the national level also were quick to respond, not surprisingly along party lines.

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was an early supporter of Mamdani. When asked if she was surprised by the election outcome, she replied: “I have to say that I’m not. I think people across this country are really hungry for public servants who are going to put them first. … As dark as this time is, as challenging as this moment can be, anything is still possible in America.”

At the America Business Forum, after shaking his fist to the audience while “God Bless the USA” thundered from large speakers, President Donald Trump warned: “If you want to see what congressional Democrats wish to do to America, just look at the result of yesterday’s election in New York, where their party installed … (a pause for theatrical effect) a communist … as the mayor of the largest city in the nation.”

Following Trump’s lead, well-known actor and MAGA supporter Jon Voight posted on X: “The mayor that has taken over New York City is a Muslim that’s going to take down the ‘city that never sleeps.’ … This city will turn into a forbidden place of darkness. The blood, sweat and tears that the city was built on will turn into a virtual refugee shelter for the radical Muslim ideology. … You the people of the greatest city, New York, are in danger of losing your city to this communist fool.”

“The blood, sweat and tears that the city was built on will turn into a virtual refugee shelter for the radical Muslim ideology.”

Of course, Voight prescribed Trump as the only salvation for pitiful New Yorkers. “He, and only he, can stop this horror — as this mayor Mamdani will try to destroy New York’s wealth and turn it into a socialist crap city.”

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., however, pushed the Fear Button perhaps most effectively. Within 48 hours of Mamdani’s victory, Mace sent out a mass fundraising letter for her gubernatorial campaign — hundreds of miles away from New York — that targeted Mamdani. Under the caption “Stop Muslim Radicals,” she compared his win to the horrors of the attack on the World Trade Center, claiming that “New Yorkers — the same people directly impacted by 9/11 — voted to elect a man who’s bringing SHARIA LAW to America.”

This charge echoes the cries of birtherism that plagued Barack Obama before and during his presidency, when he was also suspected of being a Muslim and hence bringing Sharia law to America. Trump infamously promoted the birther lie then, and now Laura Loomer — an adviser to Trump — posted on X on June 26: “This is reality for New Yorkers. Sharia law is coming.”

There have been hundreds of internet posts and letters to editors decrying the possibility Mamdani will initiate Muslim law in New York City. Indian Hindu journalist, news anchor and designer Palki Sharma Upadhyay humorously reports that many of these critics misspell the word “Sharia” and instead write of the coming terror of “Shakira Law.”

Her takedown of Mamdani’s critics who couldn’t even manage to use the correct name of what they claimed to fear most is a montage of ridiculous posts about the dangers of “Shakira Law” taking over NYC.

Just the facts

What is Sharia? International scholar and American Muslim Reza Aslan explains Sharia in his book, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam. He writes, “Sharia was developed by the Ulama (Islamic religious leaders) as the basis for the judgment of all actions in Islam as good or bad, to be rewarded or punished.”

Specifically, the Sharia recognizes five categories of behavior:

• Actions that are obligatory, in that their performance is rewarded and their omission punished
• Actions that are meritorious, in that their performance may be rewarded, but their neglect is not punished
• Actions that are neutral and indifferent
• Actions that are considered reprehensible, although not necessarily punished
• Actions that are forbidden and punished

These five categories are designed to demonstrate Islam’s overarching concern with not only forbidding vice, but also actively promoting virtue.

The Sharia is intended to guide personal behavior. As a serious and practicing Muslim, Zohran Mamdani no doubt respects Sharia, but he does not seem to be bound by it.

Nathan J. Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at Georgetown University, asserted: “I’m not aware of anything he has said or done that suggests that he supports imposition of Sharia or even advocates policy positions that are based on Sharia.”

Furthermore, Timothy P. Carney and Sadanand Dhume — representing the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. — say the accusation that Mamdani wants to implement Shariah is bogus.

“This line of attack is a scare tactic aimed at ignorant voters by conflating being a Muslim with supporting Islamism.”

Mamdani “obviously doesn’t believe in Sharia law,” wrote Carney in the Washington Examiner.

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Dhume asked: “Is Zohran Mamdani a radical Islamist? Contrary to what some Republicans have suggested, the answer is clearly no.”

Dhume added that Mamdani’s advocacy of gay rights as well as his support for decriminalizing sex work, along with other stated positions, “are the antithesis of Sharia law as understood by those who seek to impose it. This line of attack is a scare tactic aimed at ignorant voters by conflating being a Muslim with supporting Islamism.”

Irony of misplaced indignation

The fear mongering about Mamdani and Sharia is reminiscent of how opponents of Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy during his campaign in 1960 suggested that if he were elected president, America would be under the thumb of the pope and the Vatican. It also makes one think of Sen. Mitt Romney’s run for the White House in 2012 and the growing anguish that if he were elected, he might promote polygamy and would take instructions about what to do as president from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But these fears about Kennedy proved to be wrong, and had Romney won the presidency, I believe he would have been informed by his faith yet remain committed to our democracy.

It is ironic that Rep. Mace is indignant about the possibility that Mamdani might institute Sharia law since she has not publicly spoken out about the unconstitutionality of posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas — all red states dominated by her Republican colleagues.

Apparently, it is frightening to have a Muslim mayor who might be influenced by Sharia but, at the same time, be silent about requiring Old Testament law to be displayed in every public schoolroom in the state. I call this the irony of misplaced indignation.

Mamdani’s own words

I found Mamdani’s closing speech of his campaign to be significant. He spoke of his uncle’s advice that if he wanted to run for public office, he need not tell anyone he is Muslim. It is only in the shadows of the city where Muslims are safe to be fully themselves, and if they desire to leave those shadows to move into the public arena, they must leave their religious identities behind in the shadows.

“This is the same lesson so many Muslim New Yorkers have been taught over the years.”

This is the same lesson so many Muslim New Yorkers have been taught over the years. The personal attacks of Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa and Eric Adams had demonstrated that Mamdani’s public disclosure of himself as a proud Muslim had consequences. Cuomo laughed and agreed when a radio show host said Mamdani would cheer another 9/11. Adams compared Mamdani to violent extremists and said his movement wants to burn churches and destroy communities. Sliwa claimed from a debate stage that Mamdani supports global jihad.

But, said Mamdani, he does not want to debate those defeated candidates any longer.

Instead, he wanted to speak directly to Muslim New Yorkers — to those who have had to hide their religious identities in order to remain safe after 9/11, to young children who have seen their parents abused and who experience being treated as “the other.” Mamdani told the hard truth: To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity.

But he will not tolerate that any longer, he said. The dream of every Muslim citizen is to be treated the same as every other New Yorker. While Islamophobia is rampant in the city, Muslims have a choice — to stay in the shadows or, together, to move into the light and claim their place as equal members of society.

My perspective

For almost 25 years, my wife and I lived in the largest Muslim country in the world — Indonesia. Our two children were born and grew up there. We lived in Muslim neighborhoods where Muslim families were our next-door neighbors. We had many Muslim friends and acquaintances with whom we shared time and space in Jakarta and Semarang, the two massive cities where we lived over the years.

Most of the Muslims we encountered on Java were hard-working, law-abiding and life-affirming. They were not part of any military or corporate elite; rather, they were people with the same hopes and dreams for their families we felt. Many of them lived at the edges of real poverty while others struggled to climb into the lowest level of Indonesia’s middle class. They were just as aware that their particular life circumstances would always keep them separated from the excesses of the super-wealthy and privileged as are many of the Muslims of New York City.

Loving Indonesia and her people as I do, I am drawn to the words of Zohran Mamdani and his aspirations for the people of his own neighborhoods, schools and mosques.

No mention of Sharia law can be found in Mamdani’s closing remarks. Instead, he shares his aspirations that Muslim citizens of the city might begin to live into the promise that “all are created equal.”

If I were to apply the teachings of Sharia to what I feel about his vision of a new way of doing life in New York, I would have to say treating Muslim neighbors as my equals is obligatory, while it is forbidden to lie about all Muslims, including the mayor-elect.

 

Rob Sellers is professor of theology and missions emeritus at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, Texas. He is a past chair of the board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. He and his wife, Janie, served a quarter century as missionary teachers in Indonesia. They have two children and five grandchildren.

 

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