Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee seeking to become the first Muslim US Senator, visited at least five Michigan Islamic centers in 2024–2026. These included the Islamic Center of Detroit (where he addressed a Ramadan gathering and collected ballot signatures), the Islamic Organization of North America in Warren (campaign booth for donations and volunteers), the American Moslem Society in Dearborn, and facilities in Dearborn Heights such as the Islamic Institute of America and Islamic House of Wisdom.
Recorded statements at these venues include:
- A January 2025 scholar at the Islamic Center of Detroit describing the US as the “House of Satan” and claiming the Constitution rests on Islamic ideology rather than Judeo-Christian tradition.
- March 2024 and 2026 prayers calling for the “worst revenge” on Zionists, urging God to “count them one by one and kill them all, scattering them, and leave not one of them,” and similar calls for annihilation.
- A 2013 speaker at the Warren center calling for the “final annihilation of Jews,” their extermination, and Israel becoming “their greater graveyard.”
- Prayers at the American Moslem Society to “live upon jihad and die upon martyrdom,” and at other centers for vengeance against “criminal Zionists” and neutralizing or destroying disbelievers.
While campaigning, El-Sayed criticized US support for Israel as money wasted on “war, genocide, [and] apartheid” and urged supporters to sign his ballot petitions on moral and faith grounds. He has denied personal ties to designated terror groups. Separate reporting notes his biological mother previously worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency (later linked to terror financing) and family social-media references to Muslim Brotherhood activism in Egypt; he remains in contact with her.
This occurs against a documented pattern in parts of Michigan’s Muslim communities. The Middle East Forum’s “Michigan’s Islamist Pulpits” compilation identified 928 statements from 36 institutions featuring similar language—calls for jihad, praise for mujahideen, hostility toward the US as the “Great Satan,” and eliminationist rhetoric toward Jews or Zionists.
Twelve of those institutions received roughly $47 million in public funds (primarily USDA school-meal programs, plus some Homeland Security and other grants). Dearborn and surrounding areas have also seen post-2023 protests with “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” chants (condemned by local officials), vehicles displaying Hamas flags, a Hezbollah-inspired synagogue attack by a Dearborn Heights resident, and an ISIS-linked plot involving Dearborn residents planning attacks and expressing intent to kill Jews.
These recorded statements and the candidate’s active courting of support at the venues illustrate ongoing challenges with extreme Islamist rhetoric in tax-exempt religious settings that also receive public money and host political activity. Officials and voters face questions about accountability for such speech, enforcement of nonprofit rules, and integration of communities where dualistic “us vs. the House of Satan” framing appears in sermons.