El-Sayed's Pitch to Islamists Is in the Open

Last year, many of you and I were appalled that Democrats would come out in droves to vote for Jay Jones to become the Attorney General of Virginia. It seemed inconceivable that people of good will could cast a vote for a guy who openly argued that one of his colleagues should be killed and his kids should die a horrible death in front of their mother. 

But there it was. They did, and he is the Attorney General, who can't even spell. 

Looking back, the worry we had about Democrats being driven mad by hate was quaint in comparison to where things stand today. Democrats chose a man with a Nazi tattoo to be their candidate, only dropping him after multiple credible accusations of rape and sexual assault, and they are poised to elect an actual Islamist with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood to the U.S. Senate. 

El-Sayed’s political visits to nonprofit Muslim centers with extremist rhetoric could trigger investigation, tax consequences, expert https://t.co/OLZ5xjsqgM

— Just the News (@JustTheNews) October 30, 2026

Just The News dropped an investigation last night into El-Sayed's ties to extremist mosques, and if anything, it underplays just how important mobilizing radical Muslims has been for his political rise. It is indisputable that El-Sayed would be looking for another cushy health bureaucrat job right now if his Islamist supporters hadn't turned out for him. 

An Iranian-born Shia imam, Mohammad Ali Elahi, stood in the pulpit of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, in June 2026. In the preceding days, during the period of mourning leading up to Ashura, another speaker at the mosque had been giving lectures rife with antisemitic tropes and critical of American policy in the Middle East. Those lectures, like the Ashura observance itself, focused on an eternal battle between good and evil. Following one of those lectures, Elahi, standing at his pulpit, explained to his congregants how to fight that battle—by voting for Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic primary.

At that mosque service, Elahi told his followers that voting for Abdul El-Sayed is a religious duty—wajib, as obligatory as prayer, one of Islam’s five pillars. Then, Elahi, a cleric with a documented history of defending theocracy in Iran, invited El-Sayed to campaign from that same pulpit, praised him as the man needed to “stop Trump” and “this war against Iran,” and compared the ballot to a weapon. In doing so, Elahi shamelessly flouted a federal law that prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations, including tax-exempt mosques, from intervening in elections. A U.S. district judge in Texas had reaffirmed the restriction months earlier.

After all, El-Sayed got crushed in Detroit, which should be a death sentence for a Democrat, but he was (barely) carried across the finish line in the primary by record turnout in heavily Islamic areas such as Dearborn and Hamtramck. And that turnout was driven by Islamist Imams who told their followers that voting for El-Sayed was a religious duty. 

“I have to get on the ballot to be able to get your vote, inshallah [God willing]. So my team is here in the back. You’ll see us on the outside [...] If you’re a registered voter in the state of Michigan, we need your signature to get on the ballot, so I ask that you’ll give us a signature,” El-Sayed told the congregation. “Please don’t leave here without doing that.”

Later in the same Ramadan livestream, a leader reads the closing supplication in Arabic, which called for God to take “revenge” upon the Zionists and to foil their plans. It is not clear whether El-Sayed was still in attendance when this closing prayer was sung.

“O our Lord, the Zionists have spread corruption in the land. Your forbearance has deceived them, so show them Your power, O Compeller. They killed our brothers and sisters, so take the worst revenge upon them,” the leader sang, according to the video.  

“Lie in wait for them, our Lord. Raise no banner for them in the lands of the Muslims [...] and foil their plans in every time and place,” he continued. 

Just The News' reporting focused on the legal questions about religious leaders using their tax-exempt pulpits to tell their flocks how to vote, and while the point is well made, it is also moot. Democrats get away with using churches to campaign every election, and since the people violating the law are not white or Republican, the government looks the other way. Imagine prosecuting a Southern black minister for getting the vote out for Democrats. 

Not gonna happen. Just as going after the illegal political activity of Muslim Imams is a pipe dream. 

But that doesn't mean we should drop the subject, because what's electorally relevant is who these people are, and they are very scary indeed. 

Abdul El-Sayed has campaigned three times this year with a Michigan-based cleric, Mohammad Ali Elahi of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, who served as an Iranian Navy propaganda apparatchik in the 1980s and as a high-ranking official at Iran’s Martyrs Foundation, which is now sanctioned by the U.S. government for funneling money to Hezbollah.

— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) October 6, 2026

El-Sayed knows he's pitching to Islamists, and he's pretty open about it when he can be. He appears with Iranian sympathizers (and even former Iranian officials). He dances around when confronted on the issue and makes half-hearted denials while pivoting to accusations of racism and bigotry whenever pushed. 

Abdul El-Sayed ignores thousands of Americans murdered by the Iranian regime and thinks the Ayatollah should still be alive. Q: Do you renounce the people who held vigils for Khamenei? EL-SAYED: “What I will tell you is…we have turned ourselves into the world’s policemen.” https://t.co/nB29mCO54p

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 23, 2026

But he never actually distances himself from the Islamists, and he won't. He can't, both because he is one of them, or at least allied with them, and because they could provide the margin of victory.  

And most Democrats seem just fine with that. 

The Michigan based Imam calling America “wretched” and glorifying Khamenei is an Iranian Radical Islamist trained by the Islamic Regime. He moved to Dearborn in 1991 to run the Islamic Center of America and later established the Islamic House of Wisdom. How did an Iranian with clear Regimist ties receive a visa to enter the U.S.?

— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) March 2, 2026

Most, but not all. As I wrote yesterday, a subset of Democrats has broken with the pack, and we'll have to see whether this small but passionate group really holds the key to the race. 

Jason Turkish, fiancé of U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, explains why he's voting for Republican Mike Rogers in the U.S. Senate race over Abdul El-Sayed, who defeated Stevens in the Democratic primary. 🔗 More from @nannburke: https://t.co/zkdwsjfWfi https://t.co/s4ZO7WG8zS

— The Detroit News (@detroitnews) October 29, 2026

Whatever the outcome, Democrats who prattle on about "Islamophobia" whenever Abdul El-Sayed's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood or supporters of Hamas and Iran come up are either deceiving themselves or trying to deceive us. El-Sayed mumbles a lot about peace, love, and understanding, and then trots off to another event where the Imam prays for Jews to die horrible deaths, followed by a prayer for Allah to strike down the Great Satan. 

Arguing about whether it is legal for Imams to preach from the pulpit about a religious duty to vote for a candidate is pointless; it happens all the time, and it will never be prosecuted against anyone other than a conservative Christian. 

Instead, we should focus on the more important fact that the people who are doing so are radical Jihadis, and El-Sayed has been actively courting them, just as he has been palling around with revolutionaries calling for capitalist blood to run in the streets. 

A lot of upper-class Democrats thrill to such language. It's what Tom Wolfe called "Radical Chic," where luxury beliefs are a fashion accessory. 

But there is nothing chic about Islamists bullying women in the streets, an increase in sexual assaults, and the occasional terrorist attack. 

Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats desperately try to stop it.  

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