Attack on Islamic Center of San Diego

We stand in full solidarity with the congregation, staff, and families of the Islamic Center of San Diego, following the terrorist attack on Monday 18 May 2026, a day that fell in the blessed days of Dhul Hijjah. Three men were murdered at a place of worship, in an act of targeted, hate-driven violence. Our prayers and our hearts are with the San Diego Muslim community.

This attack is the direct product of a political environment in which Muslims have been systematically dehumanised, surveilled, and criminalised for over two decades under the banner of the "war on terror." The same rhetoric that has justified indefinite detention, torture, extrajudicial killing, and the proscription of Muslim organisations has also furnished ideological cover to those who wish to harm Muslims in their homes, their streets, and their places of worship. When states treat Muslim communities as threats to be managed rather than equal citizens, and when mainstream political discourse frames Islam itself as an inherently dangerous ideology, the message received is one that emboldens. The suicide note left by the perpetrators, the hate speech written on their weapons, and the anti-Islamic writings found at the scene are the logical endpoint of a normalised discourse, cultivated and amplified by governments, media institutions, and political figures who have long claimed the language of security while producing conditions of fear. Nowhere is this dehumanisation more visible than in Gaza, where the same political establishment that speaks of Muslim lives as threats to be neutralised watches, and in many cases funds and arms, a genocide carried out in plain sight.

The hypocrisy at the heart of this discourse could not be more brazen. Anti-Muslim street mobilisations led by figures like Tommy Robinson, a serial criminal whose entire political project is built on hatred of Muslims, are afforded the protection of free speech, platformed by mainstream media, and treated as legitimate political expression. Meanwhile, those who speak out against the slaughter of Palestinian civilians are criminalised, sacked, and in some cases prosecuted. It tells us whose suffering counts, whose rage is permissible, and whose lives are considered expendable. That hierarchy has consequences, and we are seeing them.

San Diego has long prided itself on its openness and pluralism, which makes this attack all the more stark, but it should not surprise us. This is part of a pattern of Islamophobic violence stretching across the Western world, from Christchurch to Quebec City, from Finsbury Park to Pittsburgh, fed by state policy as much as by individual hatred. 

We offer our sincerest prayers and condolences to the families of all three men killed: Amin Abdullah, Nadir Awad, Abu El Ezz, and to the wider congregation of the Islamic Center of San Diego. May Allah grant the martyrs the highest stations in Jannah, and may He grant their loved ones peace.