They Created a Muslim Enclave in Upstate N.Y. Then Came the Online Conspiracies.

By Rick Rojas
Jan. 28, 2019

HANCOCK, N.Y. — Deep in the dense woods near the Catskill Mountains, a settlement was started decades ago by Muslim families, many of them African-Americans from New York City, who were seeking to distance themselves from neighborhoods they saw as dangerous and laden with corrosive influences. Holy Islamberg was intended to be a refuge, a serene environment to pray and bring up children.

In the years since, the enclave’s residents have forged relationships with state and local law enforcement, and made connections with their non-Muslim neighbors from nearby towns. They work alongside each other in medical clinics and offices. Their children are teammates in youth football and basketball games.

But residents of Islamberg have found that there is no such thing as a safe haven in the internet age.

Conspiracy theorists and anti-Muslim groups have sketched a false portrayal of the community as a hidden-away den of Islamic extremism. Last week, the police in Greece, N.Y., roughly 200 miles away, arrested four young people who are accused of amassing a stockpile of firearms and homemade bombs with plans to target the community.

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The threatened violence reflects how Islamberg has become fodder for a pernicious part of the internet, one steeped in virulent hate and misinformation spread by websites like 4chan and Infowars, alongside baseless theories like Pizzagate and QAnon.

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