Last week, the 34-year-old Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, the New York state assemblyman who is the runaway favourite to become mayor of New York City in next month’s election, posted pictures of himself at Masjid At Taqwa mosque in Brooklyn, New York with its imam, Siraj Wahhaj, who he described as one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders.

Wahhaj has said: “I will never, ever tell people, ‘Don’t be violent, that is not the Islamic way.’ The violence has to be selected.”

He has been extremely clear that he is working for Islam to destroy America.

“You don’t get involved in politics because it’s the American thing to do,” he said. “You get involved in politics because politics are a weapon to use in the cause of Islam. Wherever you came from, you came to America. And you came for one reason — for one reason only — to establish Allah’s deen [‘law’ or ‘way of life’ in Arabic].” And he predicted: “Democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing, and the only thing that will remain will be Islam.”

Mamdani’s brazen gesture in visiting this mosque was intended to normalise Islamist extremism in America and show that it is in the ascendant because no one is even trying to stop it.

-- Melanie Phillips