The Morning I Became a Suspect: 25 Years After 9/11

By Maha Elgenaidi, Executive Director (Bio), ING (Intercultural Networks Group)

September 10, 2026

This Friday marks 25 years since the attacks of September 11th, a day I will never forget. A few minutes before 6 a.m. Pacific time, a friend in another state called and told me to turn on the television. The first plane had struck the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. Eastern time. I turned on the news to see what had happened, and less than 20 minutes later, I watched the second plane hit the South Tower. My friend was a filmmaker who had been working on a project about the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and its aftermath on American attitudes toward Islam and Muslims. Neither of us could have imagined that morning how much larger that story was about to become.

In that moment, I was simply a horrified American watching my country under attack, while at the same time knowing what it meant for me as a Muslim. Within hours, I would become a suspect, a spokesperson, and an explainer of a faith practiced peacefully by nearly two billion people around the world. Before I could process what I had just witnessed, let alone grieve alongside all Americans for the thousands who died that day, both those in the towers and those who ran in to save them, I was rushing to the office. By the time I arrived, media calls and requests for speakers had already begun.

They did not slow down for three months. The hardest calls came from fellow Muslim women who asked whether they should remove their hijab out of fear of hate crimes. At one point, the pace and pressure landed me in the hospital with what the doctors described as acute stress. I remember snapping, for no reason at all, at the nurses who were trying to help me. They understood once my husband explained what I did for a living and what the previous three months had looked like. I share this not for sympathy, but because it captures what those months were like for so many Muslim Americans. We grieved as Americans, and at the same time, we were asked to answer for a crime committed in the name of our faith by people who had betrayed it.

The work itself was not new. We had been doing it since the first Gulf War and the 1993 bombing, building affiliate chapters in roughly a dozen states by the time of 9/11. What changed that September was the intensity of the demand. That year and in the years that followed, we were presenting to more than 1,000 groups annually in the Bay Area alone, with hundreds more across the country through our affiliates. Most of those presentations were about Islam and Muslims: answering the questions people were afraid to ask and confronting the hostility toward Muslims that had become part of daily life. Every one of those presentations was the same act repeated: standing in a room full of strangers, many of them frightened or angry, and choosing to answer fear with facts and hostility with patience. Again and again, we watched the temperature in the room fall as people met a Muslim, often for the first time, and discovered a neighbor rather than a threat.

A quarter century later, I wish I could say that work had run its course. The evidence says otherwise. In March 2002, six months after the attacks, 25 percent of Americans said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence. In 2026, that figure stands at 51 percent, more than double. Pew Research Center concludes that “by some measures, public attitudes toward Islam have become more negative than they were immediately after the 9/11 attacks.” The same report finds that 43 percent of Americans believe Muslims are less patriotic than other Americans, and 42 percent say Muslim Americans have a negative impact on the country.

What these numbers tell me is that fear does not fade on its own. It is renewed with every headline, every act of violence by a handful who claim to speak for us, and every election season in which Muslims become a convenient target. It grows fastest in spaces where no one is speaking. Understanding is different. It does not happen by itself. It has to be built deliberately, one conversation at a time, by people willing to sit across from each other and listen. These findings underscore the urgent need for thoughtful, effective public education about Islam and Muslims, and for approaches that build understanding rather than deepen division.

What You Can Do Now

Twenty-five years ago, we did not have the luxury of choosing this work. It chose us. Today we choose it, because the alternative is to let the numbers keep rising. Here is how you can be part of it.

• If you lead a school, workplace, congregation, or civic group, invite us to present. We offer presentations and seminars on Muslims and their faith and facilitated discussions on Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry and how we can work together to build bridges across diversity. One hour in a room with people can change how they see their neighbors.
• If you are part of a Muslim community, contact us for practical training on effective approaches and tools for educating Americans about Islam and Muslims in interfaith settings and public institutions. We will explore strategies for engaging diverse audiences, addressing misconceptions, navigating difficult questions, and fostering greater understanding across differences. Write to [email protected] to get started.
• And if you are simply one person who wants to help, you can attend a presentation, bring a friend, share this piece, or ask your own community to host us. Understanding is built one conversation at a time, and yours counts.