What George W. Bush got right after 9/11

I was angry as I stood behind President George W. Bush at a mosque on September 17, 2001. Only six days earlier, al-Qaida had attacked our nation. I had seen the smoke rising from the Pentagon as I traveled to the Capitol Hill headquarters of the Muslim civil rights organization I co-founded, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. I did not know then how many people had perished, but I knew countless families would be grieving that day. I was as sad as I was furious.

The attacks on Washington, D.C., and New York City ultimately killed more than 2,900 people, including eight young children on board the hijacked planes. They also sparked a wave of hate that would take the lives of more innocent people, including Balbir Singh Sodhi, a man of the Sikh faith, who was murdered on Sept. 15, 2001, in Arizona by a bigot who thought any person of color with a beard and a turban was to blame for al-Qaida’s crimes.

Bush, speaking at Washington’s historic Islamic Center on the same day of Sodi’s murder, reminded our nation that “America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens” and praised our “incredibly valuable contribution to our country.” 

Twenty-five years later, American Muslims are more visible in public life than ever before. In January, Zohran Mamdani was inaugurated as the first Muslim mayor of the very city that was ground zero for al-Qaida’s attacks. Seven months later, a plurality of Democratic primary voters in Michigan chose Dr. Abdul El-Sayed as the party’s nominee for Senate. Our positive contributions are increasingly recognized in media, medicine, sports, entertainment and politics. 

CAIR has documented 228 American Muslim elected officials and judges now serving in public office across 26 states. 43% of those officials are Muslim women, a higher rate than Congress, which is less than 30% female.

But this growing visibility has created a new backlash. Nearly 70 Republican members of the House of Representatives — representing roughly 16% of the chamber — recently formed an anti-Muslim hate group known as the Sharia-Free America Caucus. Its members, who together represent 25 states, have called for criminalizing the practice of Islam, banning Muslims from coming to America and even the “destruction” of “mainstream Muslims.” 

In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have spent the last year attacking almost every aspect of Muslim life, from mosques to Muslim private schools to family days at a waterpark; they have even targeted Muslim institutions like CAIR. Even the Muslim practice of washing feet before prayer has triggered a state investigation, which is both curious and convenient. Abbott must have forgotten the Bible depicts prophets including Jesus and Moses washing the feet of their disciples before prayer, and many Christian fundamentalist denominations, including Pentecostals, continue to observe the practice in their own congregations.

When Mamdani was elected, anti-Muslim politicians breathlessly and baselessly declared that the city had somehow fallen under the sway of “sharia law.” An online petition is now calling for Mamdani to be uninvited to the commemoration services at Ground Zero. Since his primary win in August, El-Sayed has been essentially called a terrorist by Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who told Salon’s Jason Kyle Howard that El-Sayed was “basically a cheerleader for 9/11.”

President Donald Trump, who infamously called for banning Muslim immigrants during his first presidential campaign and has attempted to restrict immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, recently declared that Muslim elected officials are “jihadists.” He regularly shares anti-Muslim extremist content on social media.

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The cost of this hate is not abstract. By the end of July, CAIR documented a 183% increase in incidents where mosques were targeted over the same three month period in 2025. This came even as three heroic Muslim men gave their lives in May while defending some 240 children at the Islamic Center of San Diego from anti-Muslim extremists.

The politicians and hate groups manufacturing this new wave of hate must understand that they are only emboldening American Muslims to stand up even more vocally for justice here and abroad. CAIR and other Muslim organizations are actively defending American Muslims whose rights to religious freedom and free speech have been threatened, winning battles in both courtrooms and classrooms. 

Polls show that most Americans now share the American Muslim community’s longstanding opposition to the waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars on the Israeli government’s human rights abuses against the Palestinian people. In both Texas and Oklahoma, where the very existence of Muslims seems to offend many lawmakers, mosques continue to provide neighbors of every faith free health clinics and food pantries, services that become even more important as the federal government slashes relief programs and more Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

Although I disagree with many of the steps Bush took in the years after 9/11, Republican politicians and others fomenting hate against American Muslims today could benefit from remembering the words he spoke on that tragic September evening at a Washington mosque. “Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America,” he said. “They represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior.”

Indeed, the most fundamental American value is freedom: the freedom to think how we want, to pray how we want, to speak freely. 

Look outside and you will see that the American flag continues to fly over New York, Texas, Michigan and other states with significant Muslim populations. By the blessing of God, American Muslims will continue working to ensure that the democracy the American flag represents serves everyone.