Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York City mayor is being celebrated by many as a new political height for Muslims, even as the 34-year-old’s astounding rise is shadowed by a persistent, if unsurprising, increase in Islamophobic attacks, against him and other Muslim politicians.

A day later in Germany, meanwhile, the government announced a ban on a group called Muslim Interaktiv for allegedly “threatening constitutional order.” The action followed government raids on the premises of other groups authorities referred to as purveyors of “modern TikTok Islamism.”

The fate of Muslims in two leading Western democracies could not seem to be more different, with one country appearing to welcome more political integration for Muslims and the other restricting what is acceptable. But a deeper look reveals that Muslim “success” stories in the U.S. are often a matter of interpretation, obscuring ongoing and significant challenges. Meanwhile, the negative narrative in Germany misses profound, albeit uneven, progress.