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| DATE | 2026-04-20 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] NY Times at Work rewriting Muslim Fanastism in
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Muslim Southerners Face a Fresh Wave of Hateful Political Rhetoric
Emily Cochrane
9–11 minutes
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A young Muslim woman in a flowing hijab and dress stands for a portrait.
Some Muslim voters were once drawn to Republican positions on family
values and individual liberty, but as Southern politicians stoke
anti-Islamic sentiment, many feel threatened.
Amal Altareb, a Yemeni American, moved to Memphis in 2012, one of many
Muslim Americans drawn to the South by economic opportunity, family and
friends.Credit...Brad J. Vest for The New York Times
Muslim Southerners Face a Fresh Wave of Hateful Political Rhetoric
Some Muslim voters were once drawn to Republican positions on family
values and individual liberty, but as Southern politicians stoke
anti-Islamic sentiment, many feel threatened.
Amal Altareb, a Yemeni American, moved to Memphis in 2012, one of many
Muslim Americans drawn to the South by economic opportunity, family and
friends.Credit...Brad J. Vest for The New York Times
Listen · 7:18 min
April 19, 2026
The young student in an emerald-green hijab spoke first, tumbling
through the speech she had carefully practiced with her teacher. Her
classmates followed, repeatedly explaining to state lawmakers in
Tennessee why they felt a series of bills, many aimed at countering what
Republicans see as the rising influence of Islam, was unjust.
Don’t require Tennessee to use the biblical term “Judea and Samaria” to
refer to the occupied West Bank, they pleaded. Acknowledge both the
Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and the violence that the Israeli
military inflicted on Palestinians. Reject a bill that would require
driver’s license exams be administered in English.
Image
A man and two women are dwarfed by the expansive size of the interior of
an Islamic center.
Fares Elkhayyat; his wife, Anna Lim; and Amal Altareb at the Memphis
Islamic Center.Credit...Brad J. Vest for The New York Times
The day of lobbying this month in the State Capitol in Nashville,
coordinated by the American Muslim Advisory Council, attracted more than
100 Muslim students and community leaders. They were hoping to counter a
wave of anti-Muslim hostility not seen since the surge in hate after the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The rhetoric ticked up months ago, as
some conservative politicians, deprived of chaos at the U.S.-Mexican
border that had been a mainstay of Republican attacks during the Biden
administration, shifted back to an old standby.
But with the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, that anti-Muslim rhetoric has
crescendoed in the South. From the Carolinas to Florida to Texas,
anti-Muslim sentiment has permeated state legislatures and political
campaigns. Shariah — a term for traditional Islamic rules — has become a
catchall for criticisms of Muslim culture and insinuations that those
beliefs are incompatible with American society.
“Muslims are trying to Islamify Tennessee,” Representative Andy Ogles, a
Tennessee Republican facing a surprisingly spirited Democratic
challenge, wrote on social media this month, in one of dozens of such
posts. “They want conquest.”
Despite representing most of Nashville’s Kurdish and Muslim residents,
Mr. Ogles has said his Muslim constituents do not belong in the United
States. He and another Republican House candidate in Tennessee, State
Representative Johnny Garrett, have criticized student-led efforts in
Nashville to accommodate and observe Ramadan, the holy month of fasting.
Representatives Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Chip Roy of Texas and Randy
Fine of Florida, all Republicans, have made fiercely anti-Muslim
comments.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times; Kenny Holston/The New
York Times
Representative Chip Roy, a Republican candidate for Texas attorney
general, recently posted on social media, “No more Muslims.” Senator
Tommy Tuberville, the Republican favored to become Alabama’s next
governor, has issued a steady stream of anti-Muslim statements,
including one referring to his state’s Muslim schools as “Islamic
Indoctrination Centers.”
Representative Randy Fine’s comment that “the choice between dogs and
Muslims is not a difficult one” prompted calls for the Florida
Republican’s resignation. Representatives Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman,
both Republicans running for governor in South Carolina, have also vowed
to ban “Sharia,” joining dozens of House Republicans.
“It seems like there is now a shift — that the rhetoric used is OK, it’s
not a fringe idea,” said Abdulkareem Omer, 29, a North Carolina-based
immigration lawyer, who described a persistent fear among many of his
clients who came to the United States as refugees.
The number of Muslim Americans in the South has grown over the last two
decades, with many drawn to economic opportunity and family and friends
who were already there. Many scoff at the demands that they leave after
spending their formative years in the United States and embracing the
constitutional freedoms that allow them to practice their faith.
The first mosque in northwestern Mississippi recently broke ground after
rounds of litigation. Islamic schools have sought to participate in
Southern states’ expansive programs that offer vouchers for
private-school tuition. And in Nashville, voters in recent years have
elected both a Muslim councilwoman and a Muslim school board member.
Image
Mo Sabri, wearing a cowboy hat, holds a guitar with the Nashville
skyline behind him.
“People have gotten to get to know the reality of Muslims, and that
we’re just as American,” said Mo Sabri, a Muslim country music artist
from East Tennessee.Credit...Houston Cofield for The New York Times
For some Muslims, the number of Christian, Jewish or atheist residents
reaching out to learn about Muslim traditions offers hope that they can
counter stereotypes or distortions. In some communities, they have
become welcomed neighbors, as they have built food pantries and invested
in community infrastructure.
Community involvement “shows my humanity, and it reaches people who
might only have been reached through art and through music,” said Mo
Sabri, a Muslim country music artist from East Tennessee.
Mr. Sabri’s debut performance with the Nashville Symphony, long planned
for May, will be a first for a Muslim country artist, and has taken on
deeper personal significance after Mr. Ogles’s comments, he said.
“People have gotten to get to know the reality of Muslims,” he said,
“and that we’re just as American.”
The growing presence of Muslims in public life has given some Republican
politicians an opening to stoke fears about Islam, as Christian
nationalism takes hold in parts of the South. Some imams and other
community leaders remain wary about publicly opposing the comments,
worried that drawing attention to them will worsen the backlash.
There is a bitter exhaustion among some Muslim Southerners, who feel the
need to explain and justify their faith, even if they were born in the
United States or have become naturalized citizens.
“Will this be my life of anxiety?” asked Amal Altareb, a Yemeni American
who moved to Memphis in 2012 and now works with organizations of other
faiths. The optimistic part of her wonders “if some of these people are
movable,” she said. Her pessimistic side fears that a targeted agenda
will persist.
Some Muslim voters said they had initially sided with the Republican
Party and its policy positions, including longstanding support for
traditional family values and limits on government involvement in
individual lives. But the anti-Muslim rhetoric has pushed some away in
recent years.
“I don’t have a real political home,” said Hani Nofal, 33, a former
submarine officer, who returned to Nashville to live with his family
after leaving the Navy in 2025. He has still tried to make inroads with
conservatives in the city and state government.
“It’s just this balancing act of trying to convince someone of the
humanity of a certain group of people, using yourself as an example”
without straining credibility, he said.
Image
A bearded, dark-haired man stands next to his bespectacled wife in a hijab.
“Nobody in my community is radical,” Mr. Elkhayyat said. He and his
wife, Ms. Lim, recently lobbied on behalf of the Muslim American
community at the Tennessee State Capitol. Credit...Brad J. Vest for The
New York Times
At the State Capitol, Fares Elkhayyat and his wife, Anna Lim, said they
had made the three-hour drive to lobby on behalf of the Muslim American
community for the first time. They held folders with notes about the
legislation. Kaffiyeh scarves looped around their shoulders.
Mr. Elkhayyat, who is Palestinian American, and Ms. Lim, who converted
to Islam two years ago, said the aspersions hurled at Islamic principles
led them to dive deeper into the Quran. A deeper understanding of the
Muslim holy book strengthened their faith.
Mr. Elkhayyat, 27, is now better equipped to counter some of the
anti-Muslim rhetoric, he said.
“We know when politicians do this kind of stuff, it is a scapegoating
technique,” he said. “Nobody in my community is radical.”
As for the legislation that they had come to lobby against, at least two
of the measures passed. The driver’s license bill remains under
consideration.
Emily Cochrane is a national reporter for The Times covering the
American South, based in Nashville.
--
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