The San Diego Islamic Center is typically a bustling crossroads, with kids in school, the faithful coming to pray and others simply taking part in cultural activity.
But these days, the site is busy for another, much darker reason. The community is mourning. An ever-growing pile of bouquets of lilies, daisies and sunflowers and notes sits at the base of a large palm tree outside the mosque gates.
Raqib Hameed Naik, the executive director of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate, a nonprofit that tracks online extremism, said anti-Muslim sentiment has reached a fever pitch in roughly the last year and has been pushed bymore than 80 Republican elected officials online who have “used their platforms to promote dangerous narratives” and helped bolster coordinated campaigns by right-wing social media influencers propagating conspiracy theories.
“There’s this broader climate of hate targeting Muslims,” Naik said. “This shooting in San Diego is a clear manifestation of that.”
An online smear campaign last month engulfed another Southern California mosque.
In a post on X, a social media influencer who frequently spreads anti-Muslim conspiracy theories claimed that plans by the Islamic Society of Orange County to expand would create a “parallel” society and “Sharia enclave” where U.S. laws do not apply, in service of the “Islamization” of Orange County.
Mosque leaders said the brazen online screed had led to a surge of hateful rhetoric and threats of violence against the facility and its congregants. In response, the Garden Grove Police Department increased patrols in the area.