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FOR MANY MUSLIM WOMEN, THE RACISM AND SUSPICION AFTER 9/11 STILL
HASN’T LIFTED  
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Mariel Padilla
September 10, 2026
The 19th
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_ Muslim women have spent 25 years navigating the effects of 9/11 —
and a growing perception that their faith and visibility pose a
cultural threat. _

, (Photo by Felton Davis / CC BY 2.0)

 

Twenty-five years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,
many Muslim Americans are still perceived in ways shaped by 9/11 and
continue to face discrimination, bigotry and suspicion. Muslim women,
many of whom wear a visible identifier of their faith, often find
themselves targets for what they represent, both past and present.

“It’s very clear from the data and interviews with Muslims that
the terrorist attacks fundamentally changed the trajectory of the
Muslim American community in some pretty big ways,” said Besheer
Mohamed, a senior researcher at Pew Research Center with extensive
experience studying Muslim American communities. 

But in data collected in the spring of 2026
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Pew found that women were more likely than men to say they had
experienced discrimination in the past year. Respondents said they had
been treated with suspicion, been singled out at airport security or
by other law enforcement, called offensive names or physically
attacked, Mohamed said.

Views on Islam are more negative now than they were in 2002, according
to Pew data. The 19th spoke to experts about the long impact of 9/11
and the growth of the Muslim American community as Islamophobic
rhetoric intensifies in politics. 

THE HIJAB SEEN AS A THREAT AND A TARGET

Sahar Aziz remembers exactly where she was when the attacks happened:
She was a first-year law student at the University of Texas. Like
millions of other Americans, she followed the news that day, when
nearly 3,000 people were killed in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania
after 19 Islamic extremists hijacked four commercial airplanes in a
coordinated attack. 

For the next several years, Aziz said, she and other Muslim colleagues
were called “terrorist lawyers,” and she felt like public enemy
number one as the United States launched the global war on terror and
created the Transportation Security Administration and the Department
of Homeland Security. 

Now, Aziz is a law professor at Rutgers Law School in New Jersey who
often writes about the ways in which Muslim American women are caught
in an intersection of biases. According to Pew, nearly half of Muslim
women said that on any given day there was something distinctive about
their appearance, voice or clothing that could be associated with
being Muslim. Of these women, the vast majority said they wore a
hijab, a traditional headscarf used as an expression of modesty.

The attacks on September 11 “triggered wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
and the rise of ISIS — and at these points, the hijab was certainly
associated with terrorism,” Aziz said. “These women were seen as
sympathizing with terrorism at the very least, and at the very worst
being co-conspirators.” 

But now, Aziz said the hijab has transformed into something else: a
cultural threat. 

“There is a social contract that nearly every immigrant, especially
from outside Europe, has had to adhere to upon moving here,” Aziz
said. “It’s the contract of assimilation into Anglo-Saxon
Protestant European norms and religion, and that entails changing how
you dress, how you talk, how you live — to not be seen as
threatening.” 

In 2026, Pew surveyed Americans on their views of Muslim Americans,
and 42 percent said Muslim Americans have a negative impact on the
country. When asked to explain their reasoning, answers included:
“Remember the twin towers?” and “Fear of another 9/11 terrorist
attack.”

“It appears that 25 years of multiple generations being told
repeatedly, either through visuals or through explicit rhetoric, that
some Muslims are terrorists, are anti-American, are misogynistic —
that triggered a hysteria rather than an embrace,” Aziz said. 

About six months after the attacks, 25 percent of U.S. adults said the
Islamic religion was more likely than other religions to encourage
violence. In 11 subsequent polls, that figure never went lower than 38
percent. In the last decade, however, it rose to about 50 percent. The
Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights
organization in the country, reported a record-high number of
discrimination complaints filed by Muslims in 2025. 

“When you have racism against a particular group so deeply
entrenched, the default position is guilt by association, presumption
of guilt or collective guilt,” Aziz said. “Then individuals have
to prove their innocence with their neighbors, their schools and
communities.” 

THE 9/11 GENERATION 

When the 9/11 attacks occurred, Jasmin Zine’s sons were still in
school in Canada. She saw how immediately her sons had to begin
navigating new stereotypes and misconceptions around terrorism,
jihadism and violence. Her older son’s name, Osama, quickly became
demonized due to its association with Osama bin Laden, the leader of
the militant terrorist organization that orchestrated the attacks. 

Zine, a sociology professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario,
said her family’s experience prompted her to write a book, “Under
Siege: Islamophobia and the 9/11 Generation.” She interviewed around
130 Muslim youth and people who worked with youth in the community,
including religious leaders. She largely interviewed people between
the ages of 18 and 25 who were in middle school at the time of the
attacks. 

“I was interested in examining the impact of the aftermath of 9/11,
which was an escalation point for Islamophobia and anti-Muslim
racism,” Zine said. “I was especially interested in how it was
impacting the millennial generation of Muslim youth who were growing
up under the specter of this global war on terror.” 

Overnight, these children went from unobtrusive citizens to being seen
as potential threats. She asked them questions about their sense of
identity and belonging, what it felt like to be targeted by security
regimes and agencies, and if they were ever singled out for scrutiny
on the basis of their religious identity. 

“What I found is that 9/11 certainly disrupted a lot of their
adolescence, and it’s also made them more self-surveilling,” Zine
said. “They internalized the fact that they were being watched and
that they were under suspicion.” 

Most of the millennials she talked to did not explicitly say that 9/11
impacted them. But with follow-up questioning, it became clear that
they were aware of the stereotypes that existed that cast Muslims as
folk devils. Students from one Muslim student association told her
they opted not to play paintball or certain video games in public
spaces “just in case people thought they were violent or planning an
attack.” 

Millennial Muslim women told Zine that they were subject to more
harassment when they wore headscarves. One hijab-wearing young woman
told Zine that she didn’t feel like she could be in public while in
a bad mood, because she felt a pressure to positively represent all
Muslims. 

“She had to bottle up her feelings to remain pleasant because she
was visibly Muslim,” Zine said. “She didn’t have the luxury of
being an individual.” 

SOLUTIONS AND SILVER LININGS

The Muslim American population has risen substantially in the past
two-and-a-half decades. There are about 5.5 million Muslims now,
compared with 2.4 million in 2007, the first year Pew estimated the
size of the population. The number of mosques rose from 1,200 to 2,800
between 2000 and 2020, according to the Faith Communities Today
project. 

More than 20 years after she was called a “terrorist lawyer,” Aziz
said it was “refreshing” to see growth in the National Association
of Muslim Lawyers and the creation of the American Muslim Bar
Association. She’s also noticed a rise of Muslim influencers, young
musicians and artists. But Aziz said she wants to see more positive
representation that humanizes Muslim Americans in mainstream culture,
films and shows. 

“We need to expose the American public to the diversity of Muslim
experiences, the ordinariness of Muslim Americans,” Aziz said.
“They are just like any other group of people who live in the United
States. They are funny, sad, ambitious and normal.” 

Aziz also said there should be an update in the education system to
incorporate more modules and curricula depicting Muslim Americans
outside of the national security lens. 

“We’re talking about 1 to 2 percent of the population,” Aziz
said. “It’s a very small number and is more likely to go
unnoticed. And yet, they receive an outsized amount of negative
attention by politicians."

Views on Islam are more partisan than ever before, according to Pew.
Republicans are more likely to say that Islam encourages violence, and
GOP politicians continue to disseminate Islamophobic ads
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rhetoric and policy. In March, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, co-founder of
the Sharia-Free America Caucus, posted “No more Muslims” on social
media. In August, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina posted, “Every
single Muslim holding public office in America is a trojan horse, and
a threat to both national security and our republic.” 

Since 2001, there has been a notable rise in Muslim American
participation in politics, with Muslim candidates winning multiple
primary contests. All of them — besides Dr. Mehmet Oz, who ran for
the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022 — have been Democrats.
Voters in Michigan recently chose Dr. Abdul El-Sayed as their
Democratic nominee
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for U.S. Senate. And in New York, Zohran Mamdani was inaugurated as
the city’s first Muslim mayor early this year. 

In 2001, there were no Muslim members of Congress. Now, there are
five: André Carson, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Lateefah Simon and
Aisha Wahab. Omar and Tlaib made history in 2019 as the first Muslim
women sworn into the U.S. Congress. Their tenures have not been smooth
– Omar in particular has faced challenges from both House colleagues
and the White House — but they have continued to earn their
constituents’ votes.

Aziz pointed to other civil rights movements, such as Black Lives
Matter, that highlight how long-term progress is often met with
short-term backlash. She is optimistic that progress will win out in
the end as the Muslim population continues to grow.

“In many ways, this backlash against Muslims is itself an admission
of progress,” Aziz said. “We’re at a shifting point where more
Muslims have parents who were born and raised in America, and now they
are beginning or on the verge of becoming leaders. They are going to
expect equality in a much more meaningful way.”

 

_I’m MARIEL PADILLA. I’m a general assignment reporter at The
19th, where I’ve been since July 2020, just before the organization
launched. I’ve written about all kinds of things, from the nursing
shortage to child marriage laws to family-building concerns within the
military community. I love falling down history rabbit holes, making
spreadsheets and writing long explainers that nobody asked for (but
people usually show interest in). _

 

_The 19th is an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender,
politics, policy and power. We’re named for The 19th Amendment – a
watershed moment in our democracy that was meant to make voting a
right regardless of sex. In reality, it gave White women the right to
vote, while women of color remained disenfranchised for another four
decades. We acknowledge that fact in our logo with an asterisk, and
dedicate our reporting to the women and LGBTQ+ people still fighting
to be seen and heard in our democracy._

 

* Islamophobia
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* Muslim women
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* Hajib
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* 9/11
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