9/11 at 25: How the attacks changed life for Muslims, Sikhs and south Asians

AS THE US and the world mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the day nearly 3,000 people were killed is also remembered by people of Muslim, Sikh, south Asian and Middle Eastern origin as the beginning of years of suspicion, discrimination and a changed relationship with their adopted homelands.

The 2001 attacks in New York transformed how not just America, but the rest of the world saw security and terrorism, reshaped immigration and surveillance policies and sent the US into wars that lasted for years. The daily lives of communities in and beyond the US that had no connection to the attacks changed and, in some cases, people became targets simply because of how they looked, dressed or spoke.

Race hate crimes increased in the UK and US as authorities stepped up surveillance that disproportionately targeted minority groups.

“Muslims mourned alongside everyone else, including for members of their own communities who were among the dead on 9/11. Yet the attacks also cast a long shadow over almost two billion people who bore no responsibility for them,” said Imam Dr Qari Asim, senior imam at Makkah Mosque Leeds and co-chair of UK Muslim Network.

“A generation later, Muslims in Britain and across the world are still living with the consequences: suspicion, anti-Muslim hostility, discrimination, war and the persistent expectation that they must answer for crimes committed in the name of a faith those crimes profoundly betrayed,” he added.

Four days after the twin towers in New York were hit, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh immigrant from India, was shot dead outside the petrol station he owned in Mesa, Arizona.

His killer, who believed Sodhi was Muslim or Arab, targeted him because of his beard and turban. Sodhi was not connected to the attacks, but his murder became one of the earliest and most enduring symbols of the backlash against minorities that followed 9/11.

For south Asians, the experience was particularly complex.

Muslims became the focus of new government surveillance and security measures, and hostility often extended to people who were simply perceived to be Muslim or Middle Eastern.

Indian Americans, including Hindus, Sikhs and Christians, could find themselves viewed through the same racial lens.

Research into south Asian communities after 9/11 found that Muslims and non-Muslim south Asians were often treated as part of the same “brown” group.

The experience helped shape how many south Asians understood race, identity and their place in the US, UK and beyond.

Studies showed how the 9/11 attacks reshaped attitudes towards Muslims in Britain, influencing security policy, media coverage and public debate.

The attacks led to the US-led “global war on terror”, with Britain joining the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 and Iraq 17 months later.

Research by Brown University’s Costs of War project estimates that at least 4.5 million people died directly or indirectly in post-9/11 war zones between 2001 and 2023.

But the impact on British Muslims developed differently, according to Dr HA Hellyer, a geopolitics and security analyst.

He said 9/11 initially had a limited direct effect on attitudes towards Muslims in Britain. The major shift came after the July 7, 2005, London bombings, which killed 52 people and injured more than 770.

“9/11 was significant, but I would argue far less significant than 7/7,” Hellyer told the Religion Media Centre, a UK-based organisation working to increase cohesion. Before the London attacks, he said, concerns about Muslims were largely focused on events overseas.

“This changed post-7/7,” he said, leading to more aggressive discussion about Muslims in Britain and the wider West.

This change was also reflected in counter-terrorism policy. The Prevent programme, introduced as part of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy, became a prominent domestic programme aimed at preventing radicalisation. However, it faced criticism from some Muslim communities over surveillance and its effect on trust.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, more than 200 UK firefighters took part in a memorial stair climb at Atlanta Braves Stadium last Saturday (5), joining more than 1,200 firefighters from around the world. Each participant climbed 110 floors, the equivalent height of the former World Trade Centre towers, while wearing firefighting equipment.

The event was held in memory of the 343 New York City firefighters who died while responding to the attacks in 2001. Before the climb, firefighters attended a service and carried photographs of those who lost their lives.

Among those taking part was Bristol Airport firefighter Lexi Grant, 27, who travelled to the US for the challenge. She carried the name and photograph of one of the 343 firefighters and completed the climb in full protective equipment.

The September 11 Memorial and Museum stands on the site of the former World Trade Centre in New York, where the twin towers were destroyed in the 2001 attacks Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Grant’s crew manager, Antony Nash, said firefighters in Britain and New York had developed a “special relationship” since the attacks. A team of eight Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service firefighters also travelled to Atlanta for the memorial event. More than £17,000 had been raised by UK firefighters, with funds going to The Terry Farrell Firefighters Fund, The Fire Fighters Charity and The Blue Light Card Foundation.

The British connection to the anniversary has also been reflected at the highest level. During their state visit to the US in April, King Charles and Queen Camilla visited the September 11 Memorial in New York, meeting families of victims and first responders before laying white roses at the memorial.

In an address to the US Congress, the King described September 11 as “a defining moment for America” and said the shock and pain were felt “around the whole world”.

An army of educators is working to fill gaps in knowledge. Alongside field trips, Indian American teacher Rupa Mehta is part of OOPA’s World of Words, a digital series that uses videos to help young children build vocabulary and social literacy while learning about 9/11.

In a module called Remembering September 11th, Mehta, who plays the character OOPA, explains words such as “anniversary”, “emergency”, “hero”, “memory” and “service” to children as young as five. The module was created with the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and includes five clips featuring people affected by the attacks, including an 11-year-old girl whose grandfather responded to the attack on the Pentagon.

Mehta said she was inspired after seeing a young girl speak about how September 11 was not taught at her school.

“She just felt like her family’s legacy, the contribution, the sacrifice wasn’t acknowledged,” Mehta said. “And it was in that moment... I thought that we could lend a hand and be a powerful potential partner.”

But teaching the history of 9/11 also means confronting what followed, particularly for Muslim communities in New York. The community has also grown in visibility since 9/11, with more than 100 mosques added across the city and a new mosque set to become the largest in the state. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who took his oath of office on a Quran, has emerged as a prominent Muslim political figure, even as Islamophobia persists. His rise has drawn criticism, including calls from some relatives of 9/11 victims for him to skip this year’s memorial, while other families have defended him.

Asad Dandia was eight when he watched the attacks on television at his Pakistani immigrant parents’ home. Years later, as a 19-year-old college student, he discovered that a man he had befriended through a mutual aid charity was an NYPD informant monitoring him and his community.

“It was heartbreaking, but it was also terrifying,” Dandia said. “My relationship with the world around me shifted underneath my feet.”

The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and were followed by increased Islamophobia, including public assaults, harassment and government surveillance of Muslim communities.

Mohammed Razvi, who founded a New York non-profit to support Muslims after 9/11, recalled that some people in his neighbourhood fired gunshots because they believed Muslims were responsible.

Today, Dandia, now a historian who leads walking tours of New York’s Muslim communities, said the city has changed. He points to growing Muslim institutions and political representation.

“I am not responsible for what happened,” he said. “I don’t deserve to be targeted for what happened, and I am as much of a New Yorker as anybody else.”

Jayesh Rathod, a Georgetown Law professor, said the idea of an outside threat linked to people’s appearance or country of origin helped shape America’s immigration and security system.

“The idea that there’s this outside threat in the form of people who look like this or from particular countries” helped fuel the securitisation of immigration and wider society, he said.

In the case of Sikh Americans, the memory is particularly painful because the community suffered violence even though Sikhism has no connection to alQaeda or the attacks.

The Sikh Coalition, marking the 25th anniversary this year, said its commemoration includes not only those killed on September 11 and the first responders who later became ill, but also people from Sikh and other communities who were harmed or killed by hate violence in the years that followed.

That wider understanding of 9/11 has become increasingly important as the original event moves further into history.