3 Killed at San Diego Mosque As Anti-Muslim Hate Surges Nationwide
The killing on Monday of three people at San Diego’s largest mosque highlighted the rise in Islamophobia that has spread across the United States over the last few years.
There was no specific threat made against the Islamic Center of San Diego, but police officials found evidence that the suspects — two teenage boys — had engaged in “generalized hate rhetoric,” San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said.
The two boys later turned the gun on themselves. Among those killed was a mosque security guard named Amin Abdullah, who police said “played a pivotal role” in keeping the attack from getting “much worse,” Wahl said.
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Hatred towards Muslims has a growing problem dating back decades, surging in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
But the ongoing war in Gaza and attack on Iran earlier this year has led to the rise in anti-Muslim hate. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy groups in the U.S., said it received 8,683 civil rights complaints last year — the most the group has recorded since 1996, according to its most recent report.
“Government actions and official rhetoric treated Muslims — and people who speak up for Palestinian human rights — as suspicious and outside the circle of protected religious and civic life,” the council wrote in the 2025 report.
At the time, the group blamed the rise in what it called “viewpoint discrimination” as a result of protests and more arrests by police.
“Vigorous public debate, a hallmark of healthy democracy, was replaced by crackdowns on people expressing politically-disfavored viewpoints in 2024. Speaking out against Israel’s policies of apartheid, occupation and genocide came with a price,” said CAIR Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor. “For the first time in our report’s nearly 30-year history, complaints reported to us were often the result of viewpoint discrimination rather than religious identity.”
Political rhetoric hasn’t helped. Trump administration officials and some members of Congress have framed the war in Iran, for example, in overtly religious terms, while drawing on Christian nationalist narratives. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth described Iran as driven by “prophetic Islamic delusions.”
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a watchdog group, has reported receiving complaints that military commanders told service members the war with Iran was “all part of God’s divine plan” and suggested it would “cause Armageddon.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, in referring to Iran, said “we’re the Great Satan in their analogy and their misguided religion.”
Muslim civil rights groups have condemned such language as dangerous and inflammatory. For example, To assess the scale of Islamophobic discourse online, the Center for the Study of Organized Hate analyzed posts on X (formerly Twitter) using a comprehensive query designed to capture language associated with dehumanization, incitement, and exclusionary rhetoric targeting Muslims.
The dataset includes original posts, quote posts, and replies containing Islamophobic content from January 1 through March 5, 2026. The data reveals a sharp spike beginning on Feb. 28, the day the U.S.-Israel war on Iran began.
Between Feb. 28 and March 5, a total of 25,348 Islamophobic posts targeting Muslims were recorded on X.
The Islamic Center of San Diego’s website says its mission is to not only serve the Muslim population, but also to “work with the larger community to serve the less fortunate, to educate, and to better our nation.” Five daily prayers are held there, and the mosque works with other organizations and people of all faiths on social causes.
“No one should ever fear for their safety while attending prayers or studying at an elementary school,” said CAIR-San Diego Executive Director Tazheen Nizam. “We are working to learn more about this incident and we encourage everyone to keep this community in your prayers.”
During a news conference on Monday only hours after the deadly shooting, Taha Hassane, an imam at the Islamic Center, said, “It is extremely outrageous to target a place of worship. People come to the Islamic center to pray, to celebrate, to learn, not only Muslims, but we have people from all walks of life.”
Clemente Lisi serves as executive editor at Religion Unplugged.