For decades, Muslims in America were perceived as outsiders. But after half a century of steady immigration, a significant portion of the Muslim community is now American-born or American-raised. The rise of public figures like Zohran Mamdani and Mehmet Oz has elevated Muslims into the popular consciousness like never before.
As an immigrant mother of American-born children who fled to the United States from repression in the Islamic world, I have observed how different models of assimilation shape Muslim citizens. Many have embraced the American dream and moved from the margins to the mainstream through hard work, cultural mixing, and patriotic gratitude. Yet today, a toxic alternative encourages some Muslim Americans to embrace identity politics and a victimhood mindset. Adopting that grievance tendency risks undermining, if not reversing, the many positive strides Muslims have made in adapting themselves to American life.
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These two diverging paths are revealed in a new poll of 750 Muslim Americans my organization commissioned to coincide with the United States’s 250th anniversary. Many of the results are heartening. Ninety-five percent of those polled express pride in America, and 85 percent believe in the American dream. That’s a stark contrast with polls of the broader American population that show a precipitous decline in patriotism.
That enthusiasm, however, is tempered, among the 47 percent of Muslims who admit stronger ties to a foreign country. Despite living in North America, many still feel strongly linked to a home nation.
More concerning signs are evident when discussing international affairs. Thirty-three percent of respondents side with the Iranian regime, while only 32 percent support the United States in their ongoing standoff. (Notably, Sunnis more than Shi’a backed the ayatollahs.) Thirty-five percent even express sadness that Ali Khamenei was killed.
Sixty-six percent hold a favorable view of the Muslim Brotherhood, certain chapters of which were recently designated as foreign terrorist organizations. Thirty-five percent support Hamas. Forty-seven percent believe Jews are too frequently portrayed as victims, and 17 percent admit unfavorable attitudes toward Jews.
Other immigrant groups, of course, have had extremism problems, too. A vocal minority of Irish Americans supported the terroristic Irish Republican Army (IRA). Parts of the Italian American community worked with La Cosa Nostra. Some German Americans fought for the Nazis in World War II.
The difference with Muslims is that the Israel–Palestine conflict has become a defining aspect of their identity, though it directly affects only a tiny portion of the community. No one assumed that all Catholics supported the IRA. By contrast, the Palestinian cause attracts millions of Muslim Americans who have nothing to do with the conflict, but who have been told by clerics, community leaders, and professors to think of it as a religious duty.
Poll respondents recognize that foreign influence has a negative hold on the Muslim community. Sixty percent say that global Sunni-Shi’a tensions affect relationships among Muslims in the United States. Forty-four percent say that Muslim organizations are excessively focused on Palestine.
This foreign fixation is bad for Muslim Americans. Many Muslim organizations rely on emotional appeals related to foreign crises to solicit donations and justify relevance. U.S. political leaders tend to engage with Muslims primarily around foreign conflicts, not domestic issues.
The result is a strange situation where over half (53 percent) of Muslims voted for Kamala Harris yet align with Republicans on hot-button social issues. Seventy-four percent support school choice; 68 percent back parental notification policies; 67 percent want explicit material restricted in schools; 65 percent support hiring more border-patrol agents; and 58 percent prioritize reducing crime over reducing incarceration.
Republicans so far have failed to capitalize on these natural openings, while progressives instrumentalize anti-Israel organizing to unite an otherwise-fragile coalition for electoral gain. Their intersectionality framework requires victim status to join an alliance of oppressed groups. Identifying as an aggrieved victim of the system becomes an easy pathway to acceptance, inverting the traditional assimilation model.
A crucial step to break this perverse dynamic is for conservatives to make room for patriotic Muslims at the table. Absent that move, the result is widespread alienation and turning one small minority against another. Read this way, the poll results illustrate the degrading impact of identity politics on Muslim assimilation into the United States.
I want the next generation of Muslim Americans to avoid the trap of victimhood set by manipulators who exploit ordinary people’s emotions for political gain. Impressionable young Muslims are at risk of being radicalized by identity politics instead of becoming contributors to the American melting pot in healthy and patriotic ways.
American society can reward victimhood and grievances (pushed by figures like Mamdani and Ilhan Omar) or it can elevate contribution, achievement, and gratitude (championed by Oz and Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan). American society currently offers two opposed models of assimilation, and many Muslims are confused about which one to adopt.
The right choice is clear: Muslims should embrace America as a land of opportunity and shed grievance politics and resentment. Similarly, mainstream American civic leaders, including conservatives, should encourage patriotic Muslims who reject identity politics and genuinely celebrate the American dream. Such healthy assimilation offers an uplifting path for Muslim-American flourishing and American renewal.