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Muslim groups expressed pain, grief, and anger over rampant Islamophobia after a shooting at a San Diego mosque on Monday that killed three people. Two teenage suspects were also found dead after apparently shooting themselves, according to police.
Authorities are investigating the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego as a hate crime and said the shooters engaged in “hate rhetoric,” without providing further details.
The shooting came as Muslims around the world entered one of the holiest times of the year ahead of Eid al-Adha on May 27.
“We have never experienced a tragedy like this before,” Imam Taha Hassane, director of the center, said during a press conference on Monday. “It is extremely outrageous to target a place of worship.”
Hassane said people attend the Islamic Center to pray, celebrate, and learn. A group of non-Muslims had just visited that morning to learn about the mosque, he said. The Islamic Center also has a school for Arabic, Islamic studies, and Quran classes for people ages 5 and up. No children were hurt in the shooting, officials said.
Community members identified the three victims as “beloved” security guard Amin Abdullah, who played a “heroic” and “pivotal role” in saving lives, according to police; Mansour Kaziha, who ran the mosque store for decades and was known as Abu El Ezz; and Nader Awad, who came running to help from his home across the street.
Mosque administrators said in an Instagram post that Abdullah exchanged gunfire with the two attackers as they came rushing toward the mosque in full armor and multiple guns. Awad and Kaziha, they said, were shot dead while calling police and attempting to help.
As police and the local community worked to pin down details, civil rights and anti-hate advocacy groups pointed to a climate of unchecked anti-Muslim hate leading up to the shooting.
“The deadly attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego did not happen in a vacuum. It is the outcome of years of fearmongering, scapegoating, and dehumanization targeting an entire religious community,” Raqib Naik, executive director of the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), told Prism in an emailed statement. “For more than a year, Republican elected officials have run a sustained and coordinated campaign portraying Muslim Americans as a threat to the country, pushing conspiracy theories about ‘Sharia law,’ ‘Islamification,’ and ‘invasion,’ while describing Islam and Muslims as ‘demons,’ a ‘death cult,’ a ‘cancer,’ and a ‘plague.’”
The Washington, D.C.-based think tank released a report last month that documented a 1,450% surge in anti-Muslim social media posts by Republican elected officials from February 2025 to March 2026. The campaign of hate appeared to originate with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s amplification of a conspiracy theory relating to American Muslims implementing Sharia law, a set of moral and religious guidance, the report found.
“When those in power use their position and platforms to normalize fear and hate toward a community, that hatred often manifests in violence,” Naik said.
The San Diego shooting followed a May 13 congressional hearing held by Republicans titled “Sharia-Free America: Why Political Islam and Sharia Law are Incompatible with the U.S. Constitution.” Muslim groups argued that this rhetoric stoked hate against their communities, as there is no evidence that Sharia is being implemented or overriding existing laws anywhere in the country. Dozens of lawmakers also came together to form a “Sharia Free America Caucus,” including Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., who took heat earlier this year for saying he preferred dogs to Muslims and that all “mainstream Muslims” should be destroyed.
“Hate against American Muslims is completely out of control,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a press release, calling on politicians to cease their offensive comments. “Time and time again, we have seen that hate speech like this can lead to hate crimes.”
The group referenced the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019 and Quebec City, Canada, in 2017, where the attackers had expressed hate for Muslims, whom they perceived as invading their countries.
“A deadly attack on an American mosque was as predictable as it is unacceptable,” CAIR said. “Anti-Muslim hatred is one of the last acceptable forms of bigotry in American society, and it is long past time for the tolerance of this hate to end.”
Anti-Muslim hate has accelerated in the U.S. since the start of the genocide in Gaza, according to data collected by groups such as CAIR and CSOH.
High-profile incidents of violence have included the murder of Wadee Alfayoumi, the 6-year-old Palestinian boy stabbed 26 times by his neighbor in Plainfield, Illinois; the Texas stabbing of a 23-year-old Palestinian American man; and the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Palestinian girl, also in Texas. Two Israeli tourists were also shot last February by a Jewish man in Florida who reportedly told police he thought they were Palestinian. Three Palestinian college students, two of whom were wearing keffiyehs, were shot in Vermont in 2023; authorities have not revealed a motive for the shooting despite calls for it to be prosecuted as a hate crime.
CAIR received 8,683 discrimination complaints nationwide in 2025, the highest in its history since 1996, according to the group’s latest annual civil rights 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 in 2025,” the report stated.
CSOH, meanwhile, found that content targeting Muslims spiked on social media since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began in February.
“Social media platforms have repeatedly failed to address the spread of extremist anti-Muslim rhetoric online, allowing dangerous narratives to circulate, radicalize, and inspire violence,” Naik told Prism.
Update, May 19, 2026: This story was updated to include the names of the victims and new details about the shooting.
Editorial Team:
Lara Witt, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor
Sahar Fatima is the News Editor at Prism. She is a journalist with more than a decade of experience in news, features, and digital best practices, and previously worked at The Boston Globe and Toronto Star.
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