A rumor that circulated online in late November and early December 2025 claimed a video showed Muslims participating in a Fajr (dawn) prayer at 5 a.m. in the middle of a one-way street in Brooklyn, New York, with the audible voice of an imam guiding the congregants.
For example, on Nov. 30, an X user posted (archived) the video, captioned, "At 5am in Brooklyn, NY, Muslims perform the first of 5 prayers for the day, called the Fajr," receiving well over 5 million views. The user also included an alleged quote claiming followers of Islam are "trying to assert their religious dominance over you, claim your country and turn it into Sharia law" — referencing Shariah, Islamic law that governs Muslims' personal conduct and legal matters.
Other users posted similar captions with the video, or a screenshot from the clip, on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and X (archived). Different users claimed someone recorded the video not in New York but instead in Toronto, posted about the congregants "blocking traffic" and alleged the clip depicted "Muslim immigrants." A Snopes reader also emailed us to ask about the clip.
In short, the video was real but users shared captions featuring misleading and unfounded information, which we detail below:
Video location and misleading information
The clip truly showed Muslims gathering for prayers in Brooklyn and did not feature any signs of artificial-intelligence manipulation or other video fakery. Snopes' comprehensive search of Google Street View for nearly every Islamic center and mosque in the borough found a match: the Masjid Omar, also known as the Islamic Center of Brighton Beach, at 232 Neptune Ave. in the Brighton Beach neighborhood.
The oldest online posting of the clip Snopes could find, located with a reverse-image search, was a TikTok post (archived) at 3:12 p.m. Eastern time Nov. 21, 2025. The TikTok user who shared the video, using the handle @montclairwatches, told us in a private message he recorded the clip "after lunch" on Nov. 21.
The TikTok user did not record the video
Online searches for reporting about similar public Muslim prayers found past gatherings in Times Square, Washington Square Park and Bedford-Stuyvesant, for example.
Snopes contacted the Masjid Omar by email and phone to ask about the video and will update this story if we receive further information.
Unfounded details and National Guard shooting
Users' other claims — alleging the Muslims peacefully praying in the video were "trying to assert their religious dominance over you, claim your country and turn it into Sharia law" — were unfounded.
Some users responding to the aforementioned posts mentioned Islamophobia, either in a positive or negative light. An article (archived) hosted by the National Library of Medicine website, published near the end of U.S. President Barack Obama's administration, defined the term as follows: "Islamophobia is conceptualized as social stigma toward Islam and Muslims, dislike of Muslims as a political force, and a distinct construct referring to anti-Muslim stereotypes, racism, or xenophobia."
Users shared the video and claim in the days following the Nov. 26 shooting of two National Guard troops near the White House. An Afghan national faced first-degree murder and assault charges in the death of Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and wounding of Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. The Associated Press, citing a police report filed in court, reported that another National Guard member heard gunshots and saw Beckstrom and Wolfe fall to the ground as the suspect fired a gun and screamed, "Allahu Akbar!"
For further reading, we previously investigated an AI-generated video that users falsely claimed authentically showed a woman wearing a hijab in a school classroom instructing white British children to bow and say "Allahu Akbar."