The future of Queens is where you feel safe.

Rana Abdelhamid has filed to run for Assembly District 36, the western Queens district currently represented by New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, according to state Board of Elections records.

Abdelhamid, who is Egyptian American, is deeply involved with the Middle Eastern and North African community in Astoria and helped lead a successful push to get the state to collect more accurate demographic data on MENA communities, members of which state records previously classified as racially white.

At the Malikah Safety Center in Astoria, Queens, Muslim women are learning more than just self-defense. 

"After 9/11, I experienced a hate-based attack and started to think about my skills as a martial artist, not just as a sport but also as a survival tool," Rana Abdelhamid said. 

"We've seen such Islamophobic rhetoric"

A black belt in karate, Abdelhamid started training a group of seven Muslim women and girls in the basement of a community center. Now, thousands have passed through the doors of Malikah Safety Center, her grassroots hub based in Astoria's Little Egypt.

ASTORIA, Queens (PIX11) — In Astoria, Queens, one woman is changing lives through the power of self-defense because of her own story.  

Rana Abdelhamid, the founder of Malikah, has dedicated her life to helping more than 20,000 people, especially women and girls, learn how to protect themselves, build confidence, and heal from trauma.

Abdelhamid, who was once attacked as a teenager for wearing a hijab, turned that painful experience into a mission.

Abdelhamid’s work received a major boost when she was named a winner of the David Prize, an award that gives one million dollars each year to five extraordinary New Yorkers making a difference in their communities.

Malikah founder Rana Abdelhamid, Assembly Members Jessica González-Rojas and Zohran Mamdani, and State Sen. Mike Gianaris at Tuesday’s event celebrating passage of the MENA Bill. Photo: Mike Gianaris Flickr.

Jan. 9, 2025 By Shane O’Brien

State Sen. Mike Gianaris and Assembly Members Jessica González-Rojas and Zohran Mamdani joined members of the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) coalition Tuesday to celebrate a new law requiring New York State documents to separate MENA New Yorkers from the white category.

The legislation, introduced by Gianaris and González-Rojas and signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Dec. 20, aims to give MENA communities a stronger voice in state-collected data.

Community advocates, such as Mohamed Attia and Rana Abdelhamid, are actively working to mobilize the Egyptian-American community to vote in the mayoral election. Their goal has been to inform the community about their rights and how they can impact decisions about their future.

“We do a lot of civic engagement and education, like voter registration. We’ve done a debate watch party just to let people in our community understand the candidates,” Abdelhamid, speaking on behalf of Malikah Safety Center, a mutual aid organization that also teaches self-defense, said. The center translated a debate into Arabic.

Like most New Yorkers, my life changed forever on Sept. 11, 2001. I was at school in Astoria, where students began to get picked up by their parents, teachers looked frantic and we were all just confused kids until an older student told us to look through the bathroom window. All I could see was smoke.

But just as I was grieving this devastating attack on my city, the pride I had in so much of who I was – the people I loved, the way I prayed, the foods I ate, the clothes I wore, the languages I spoke – was replaced by shame as my community was villainized by politicians who capitalized on fear and distrust to further policing and militarization. 

A longtime nonprofit leader from Astoria officially launched her campaign to succeed Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Assembly this week, a move that turns the contest for his open seat into a rare, all-Democratic Socialists of America member showdown.

Rana Abdelhamid, a DSA member and former candidate for Congress, kicked off her campaign for Assembly District 36 on Tuesday, vowing to implement Mamdani’s affordability agenda in Albany if elected.

Abdelhamid, who runs the women’s self-defense and social services nonprofit Malikah, said her campaign was centered around the same affordability issues that launched Mamdani to City Hall.

Rana Abdelhamid, a prominent community organizer in western Queens who currently serves as executive director of anti-violence nonprofit Malikah, officially launched her campaign to succeed Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in Assembly District 36 with an event in Astoria Tuesday afternoon.

Abdelhamid, joined by a number of community leaders, spoke to dozens of supporters at a Nov. 25 campaign launch event at Zyara at 25-53 Steinway St., pledging to fight for affordable housing protections, universal childcare, immigrant protections and community safety programs if she is elected to Albany.

Abdelhamid founded Malikah to help teach self-defense to individuals from minority communities and said Tuesday that she learned of other issues facing the community through conversations with participants at self-defense classes around the neighborhood.

“I learned that safety is not just physical,” Abdelhamid said Tuesday. “Safety is political. Safety is economic. Safety is being able to know that you know where to go and that someone is going to have your back.”