On Saturday Night, I Witnessed an Act of Celebration I Could Barely Imagine

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Saturday night at the Beacon Theater in New York City started out like any other stop on Ramy Youssef's “Love Beam” tour: phones locked away in Yondr pouches, fans twitching in their seats, and Ramy delivering gentle blasphemies about love in a war-pilled world. I'm a Jersey-born Muslim, same as Youssef, and I was wedged in Row N next to an auntie who looked primed to eye-roll any haram punch line. But even she was cackling; Youssef has a way of disarming every faction in the room—Muslim aunties, ex-Catholic cynics, even the odd finance bro—by toggling from self-deprecation to sudden, sincere tenderness so fast you forget you were ever skeptical. Then, near the end of an already gushy set, Youssef paused and asked the room if he'd left anything out.

One voice from the mezzanine screamed: “ Zohran! ” Youssef grinned, teased the unseen heckler for missing the half-dozen nods he'd already dropped, and finally waved an arm toward the wings: “Put your hands together for Zohran Mamdani!”

The presumptive Democratic nominee for New York City mayor floated onstage still full of confidence after his stunning Tuesday-night primary victory. In that moment, I realized I was watching the handshake of arguably the two most influential Muslims in America. We have Broadway stage no less! It felt like for that brief moment, everything in the hall—the ornate statuettes, the velvet curtains, the legends of countless artists who performed here—suddenly felt like it belonged to us.

The house lights turned on as 2,800 people rose to their feet for endless applause. Mamdani soaked the moment in, then reminded everyone that his win ran not only through progressive strongholds but through districts that swung for Trump in the last election.

Youssef couldn't help himself. He riffed about secret Muslim Trump supporters in the audience, and Mamdani talked about a Yemeni New Yorker named Yahya who'd previously voted for Trump and then had switched to endorsing him. “Shoutout to Yahya!” Mamdani said to big laughs. Youssef also urged him to be wary of islands, and to say no if he were to be inexplicably invited to one as he ascends into the realm of American politics.

Mamdani did manage to quiet the audience down for a few minutes, which he spent reflecting on how amazing it felt to be supported in the city he grew up in, and marveled that these were the same halls where he once saw Hakim and Cheb Khaled , two massive North African superstars. Now, he told us, he was overjoyed to be back at “a moment where it feels like a new city can be born.” Youssef had been breadcrumbing references to Mamdani all night, including jokes about how this victory belonged to everyone in the room. The way Mamdani connected with the thousands there seemed to confirm it.

But Youssef wasn't done. He told the room his faith in humanity was resting on two recent headlines: Zohran winning the primary, and Mahmoud Khalil walking free from ICE detention. And then Youssef welcomed a smiling Khalil, fist raised in the air, strolling out to hugs from both men. Youssef whipped out his own cellphone, which felt like contraband, for a photo nobody else could snap.

Khalil thanked the crowd, then deadpanned that Mamdani was “a man so principled that ICE hasn't arrested [him] yet—but you can tell they are thinking about it. They're still looking for that obscure law from the '50s or something.” The joke landed. Youssef pulled himself and Mamdani away, teasing Khalil to keep going and do five. “Cook!” Youssef said.

Somewhere amid the roars of “Free Palestine” it felt possible, for a minute, that New York had already changed. That chant has cost students their diplomas and workers their jobs. Hearing it bounce around the Beacon felt like a sanctioned rebellion. For as long as I can remember, supporting the wrong politics or saying the wrong thing or wearing the wrong pin could lead to Muslim-Americans losing our jobs, or being unfairly targeted by groups like Canary Mission that have largely succeeded in helping criminalize any sentiment that is empathetic with Palestinians. Three Muslim New Yorkers—a comedian, a candidate, and a recently freed political prisoner—were locked arm in arm at center stage as the theater roared themselves hoarse. This painting lasted only a few minutes, but it felt historic.

Khalil having been freed barely a week ago after 104 days in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention made his presence at a comedy show in a theater feel almost discordant. After ICE agents revoked his status and shipped him extrajudicially to a private facility in rural Louisiana, his name became a rallying point for campus-protest crackdowns nationwide. But in the meantime, he also missed the birth of his first child. US District Judge Michael Farbiarz finally ordered his release on June 20, noting the government had “clearly not met” even the minimum standards for holding him and calling the case “highly, highly unusual.” Khalil walked out vowing to fight for everyone “punished for political speech.”

That night at the theater, Khalil turned to Mamdani and said he was honored to share the stage with him, calling him his brother. “We live in a city where speaking for justice is met with criticism—in my case, jail,” he said, voice halting with emotion. A cry of “We love you!” rose from the balcony and the Beacon thundered again. Khalil steadied himself, then pivoted. “Joy is resistance,” he said. “Laughing is resistance.”

Those words stirred inside me. I glanced at the auntie, who looked as though she could tear up at any moment. Muslim merriment in New York and New Jersey is usually coached to keep a low profile. There are just too many memories of undercover police infiltrators and community and prayer spaces being locked down whenever Muslims have been in the news. As parents, my wife and I wear forced smiles so our kids don't become afflicted with the heaviness that comes with every video clip and headline out of Gaza. Khalil had named that tiny, daily act of defiance.

Youssef felt it too. “That's what I love about this room,” he said, turning to the crowd. “There are Muslims here, there are our Jewish friends here, there's Iranians, there's Indians, there's Pakistanis—there's Vinnie,” he added, nodding at a guy he'd roasted earlier. “For us to laugh together and see what love looks like when we're in the same room—that means everything. I'm so proud of these two.” He opened his arms to the house. “And I love all of you.”

Khalil's plight has also been Mamdani's. The politician made headlines early on in his campaign when he confronted former ICE director Tom Homan in Albany, New York, challenging him by shouting “How many more New Yorkers [will you detain] without charge?” and calling Khalil's arrest “a blatant assault on the First Amendment and a sign of advancing authoritarianism under Trump.” Seeing the two men share a stage, one newly liberated and the other newly ascendant, fused immigrant and Palestinian human rights and the potential for political change in a single, indelible image.

In the midst of all this celebration sat the reality that Mamdani hasn't won City Hall yet. November looms, and the knives are already out. Within 48 hours of Mamdani's primary victory, Donald Trump blasted him on Truth Social as a “future Communist Mayor,” lumping him with “the Squad” and warning New York was “really SCREWED.” Prominent right-wing legislators have circulated a racist AI mock-up of the Statue of Liberty in a burqa, and floated gross deportation fantasies, reminding Muslims of how we haven't yet recovered from post-9/11 Islamophobia, while also accusing a Muslim New Yorker of even being responsible for it by celebrating his victory. With current Mayor Eric Adams running as an independent, and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo contemplating the same, Mamdani still has a race to win this fall.

Any number of political consultants and advisers might tell a front-runner in Mamdani's shoes to play it safe, to avoid anything—or anyone—the right can paint as radical. Instead, Mamdani walked onstage with a man opposition pundits insist is a “terrorist sympathizer.” Usually, candidates would listen to their handlers and consider folks like Khalil too politically toxic to support. It's what we've come to expect. National Democratic leaders, like Hakeem Jeffries, seem to value caution above all else. And that's why this gesture felt surreal and inexplicably impossible, and broadcast a seismic change in politics as usual. Mamdani continues to prove that voters (and not just Democratic ones) favor genuineness over electability.