Dilshad Ali had never felt the fear.
Not when Donald Trump proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States, a plan his own running mate called “offensive and unconstitutional.”
Not when Trump suggested monitoring mosques and said he thinks “Islam hates us,” attributing anti-American enmity to a faith of 1.6 billion people.
Not even when Islamophobic incidents spiked to their highest levels since the 9/11 attacks.
Islamerica
In some ways, Ali, a 40-year-old mother of three, had been buffered from the long and brutal 2016 presidential campaign.
She trods familiar ground in her Virginia home. She drops her children off at school, where the teachers know her and she knows them. She shops at the same grocery store, where the people smile at her and she smiles back, her face framed by a hijab.
At her polling station on Tuesday, she was greeted warmly by neighbors, even the ones whose cars bore pro-Trump stickers.
As the editor of the Muslim section of Patheos, a website specializing in spirituality, Ali had edited plenty of stories about other Muslims’ distress. She knew their fears intimately. But she had never herself felt the stomach-churning anxiety.
Until Wednesday morning.
“I woke up today and I finally felt it. It felt personal, like the election was a vote against me.”
As a tumultuous Tuesday ticked toward a worry-producing Wednesday, scores of Muslim imams and activists, soccer moms and scholars, commiserated over their concern and uncertainty, even as they pledged to hold fast to their faith and build stronger coalitions with fellow minorities.
More than 7 in 10 Muslims had said they would vote for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, according to an October survey by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Just 4% had said they would vote for Trump, and perhaps as few expected him to win.
Some said his election felt like a betrayal, as if half the country had turned on them.
“Our worst nightmare materialized last night,” said Wardah Khalid, a writer and foreign policy analyst.
“A man that built his platform on bigotry, misogyny, and the vilification of Muslims and minorities won the highest office in the land.”
‘Open season’ on Muslims
“Shock. Complete and utter shock,” said Yasir Qadhi, a well-known Muslim scholar in Memphis, Tennessee. He, like many others, said he had expected Clinton to win the presidency.
“And all of us are genuinely worried. I fear for the safety of my wife in hijab; of my children in the streets; of minorities everywhere struggling to understand what happened.”
Sahar Aziz, a professor at the Texas A&M University School of Law, said Trump’s election represents a regression to a less tolerant and inclusive America.
“The general mood I am seeing among Muslims is concern that a Trump presidency will be open season on them. Some Muslims worry their children may experience bullying at school because Trump’s victory validated the mainstreaming of Islamophobia. Some women are afraid to wear their headscarves in public in case this invites physical or verbal assault.”
Amirah Waite, a 19-year-old American-Indonesian college student who lives in Hawaii, said Wednesday she was “so terrified that I can’t stop shaking … stuck in a country that hates me.”
The secret costs of Islamophobia
Other Muslims said they fear Trump will install anti-Muslim activists, whose work he has promoted, in powerful roles at the Justice Department and other agencies.
“We could go back to that post-9/11, witch hunt-type environment,” said Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, a scholar and co-founder of Zaytuna College, the country’s first accredited Muslim college.
In California, Abdullah bin Hamid Ali said he and other African-American Muslims are somewhat less unsettled than their immigrant co-religionists. They have seen enough of American history to sense that elections often hinge on turning out white voters, sometimes through fear and demonization of “others.”
“While I can’t say I’m ‘happy’ with the results (I wasn’t rooting for Clinton, either) I am somewhat hopeful that Trump’s election will force people to come closer and be much nicer to one another,” said Abdullah, a professor at Zaytuna.
Omid Safi, director of Duke University’s Islamic Center, likewise said he hopes Trump’s election will foster a sense of solidarity among the marginalized, including Muslims and Hispanics, African-Americans and