Cover Photo from Yuki Iwamura / AP

Azeem Khan

Since the heyday of European colonialism, Muslim reformists have argued for integration into the modern world and acceptance of the hegemonic order. In a similar vein, Muslims in the West are told to celebrate their successes and milestones: the first Muslim mayor, the first Muslim congresswoman, the first Muslim state legislator. Each victory is hailed as a step forward for “representation” and a sign of their arrival in the political mainstream. It’s even hailed as an example of Western pluralism’s beauty. But as a live-streamed genocide unfolds in Gaza, facilitated and funded by the very empire in which we seek a seat, we must pause and ask: representation for what? A seat at which table?

The recent election of a figure like Zohran Mamdani offers a poignant case study. Mamdani identifies as a democratic socialist and a Muslim and won the Mayoral election of New York City under the banner of the Democratic Party. While he has been critical of the violence in Gaza, even calling it a genocide, he has also condemned Palestinian resistance as the work of “war criminals” and reaffirmed Israel’s “right to exist”, a state founded on the ongoing ethnic cleansing and apartheid of Muslims. In addition, his political home remains the same party that houses the architects of this very horror, from Biden to Schumer to Bernie Sanders, who has been a key ally of Mamdani’s and had his image rehabilitated following his role in the genocide.

This election is more than just a political dilemma. It is the central theological question for Muslims in the West: what does it mean to be Muslim? Is it an accident of birth, a cultural identity, or a commitment to the lineage of Revolutionary Prophethood that unequivocally stands with the oppressed? The prophetic tradition is not a manual for spiritual self-care; it is a blueprint for revolutionary struggle.

The Prophetic Tradition

Did Prophet Muhammad (SAW) seek a compromise with the Quraysh? The Meccan elite offered him prestige, wealth, and a place in their power structure if he would moderate his message. His response was definitive: even if they placed the sun in his right hand and the moon in his left, he would not relent. He rejected imperial co-option outright, declaring the oneness of God and condemning the injustice of their system. He did not reform Mecca from within; he built a new societal model in Medina to challenge it, and ultimately returned to liberate it.

Did Musa (AS) condemn the enslaved Hebrews for their “violence” while affirming Pharaoh’s divine right to rule? Raised in the lap of luxury with direct access to power, he could have advocated for policy reforms—for diversity quotas in the Egyptian administration, for a more humane infanticide policy. Instead, his message was one of total and uncompromising confrontation: “Let my people go.” He recognized the system itself was unreformable, founded on zulm (oppression). He sided completely and without apology with the resistance of the oppressed.

Did Isa (AS) say, “I shall tone down my message, please don’t crucify me?” He did not moderate his critique of the hypocritical religious elites and the collaborating scribes. He did not seek a compromise with Roman imperialism. He delivered a message so radical in its love and its demand for justice that the empire had no choice but to try and nail it to a cross.

Did Hussain (AS) compromise with Yazid to make Kufa more affordable? The caliphate offered him safety, wealth, and influence in exchange for his allegiance to a corrupt ruler. He could have worked within the system. Instead, he chose to fight in the desert of Karbala, knowing it meant his death and the death of his family, to expose the regime’s illegitimacy for all of history. He taught us that some systems are so oppressive and illegitimate that participation is not an option and death is preferable to surrender.

The model of our prophets is one of uncompromising confrontation with illegitimate power. They did not seek a seat at the table of Firaun; they sought to flip the table over.

The Limits of Power Without Principle

This prophetic model is not merely about opposition; it is about enforcing justice when one holds power. Consider the immediate successor to the Prophet: Abu Bakr (RA). When tribes that had accepted Islam refused to pay Zakat, renouncing a pillar of the faith and the economic justice it enshrined, he did not negotiate their “right” to dissent. He declared war upon them. His stance was clear: to hold power is to bear the responsibility to enforce the community’s foundational principles, to ensure that the state apparatus serves justice, not compromise.

In this light, what does it mean for a Muslim mayor to inherit a police force – an apparatus currently brutalizing anti-genocide protestors – and not only fail to dismantle it, but to keep the Zionist commissioner like Tisch to lead it willingly? This is the antithesis of Abu Bakr’s lesson. It is the difference between wielding power to enact principle and accepting power that requires the surrender of principle. It is managing the machinery of oppression, not challenging it.

Who Are the “Powerless” Today?

In this prophetic framework, the “powerless” are not American constituents benefiting from marginally better healthcare or tenant protection laws. These are worthy reforms, but they are local skirmishes within the empire’s domestic policy.

The true “powerless” in the global struggle are the victims of this same empire’s foreign policy: the people of Gaza being annihilated with U.S. bombs; the people of Yemen being starved by a U.S.-backed blockade; the people of Congo dying for the minerals in our phones. To secure a local win for an American tenant while endorsing the logic that justifies the annihilation of a Palestinian family is to misunderstand where the prophetic tradition places its allegiance fundamentally. It is to fundamentally misunderstand what it means to be a Muslim.

The Politics of the Courtier, Not the Prophet

This is not a call for purity, but for clarity. The Democratic Party is the modern-day vehicle of the American empire. It manages its brutal projects with a more polite facade, but its commitment to Zionist settler-colonialism and global hegemony is bipartisan. To lend it our votes, our membership, and our identity as Muslims is to create an unresolvable theological contradiction.

By calling Palestinian resistance “criminal” and affirming the “right to exist” of a settler colonial state, a politician like Mamdani is not merely working within the system. He is performing its most crucial function: legitimizing it. He provides a “Muslim” face to the doctrine that the oppressor’s existence is non-negotiable, while the resistance of the
oppression is a crime.

This is the opposite of prophetic politics. It is the politics of the palace courtier who, fearing exile from the halls of power, echoes the language of the king.

The Choice Before Us

Can one be a vessel for change while being a junior partner in the party of the oppressor? The prophetic answer is a resounding no.

The goal is not to get a better deal from the empire but to build the power that can challenge empire itself. This requires revolutionary optimism; the faith, rooted in history, that the will of the people can overcome the most powerful empires, just as Prophet Musa overthrew Firaun and Prophet Muhammad (SAW) defeated the Quraysh. They did this not by winning local or even national seats of power, but by speaking unvarnished truth to power and building movements entirely outside the oppressive system.

Celebrating Muslim representation without a critical analysis of the power structures being represented is a betrayal of our legacy. The real victory is not a Muslim face in a high place, but a Muslim conscience that refuses to be a party to genocide and imperialism, no matter the cost.

The question before us is not whether we can get more Muslims into the Democratic Party. The question is whether we dare to build a politics worthy of the names Prophet Musa, Prophet Muhammad, and Imam Hussain. A politics that, like them, stands entirely outside the palace walls and demands its downfall.

The legacy of our prophets is not one of balanced statements and affirmed rights for tyrannical states. It is a legacy of liberation. Anything less is not politics; it is a betrayal of our faith.

Azeem Khan is a Historian of South Asia and can be reached at azeemkhan1489@gmail.com