Michigan Senate Race: Sharia's Most Visible American Battleground

El-Sayed's denial can't hide the ultimate goal—the forcible implementation of its edicts.

Michigan's Senate race is only the most visible front of a political project that states, not Washington, D.C., are finally confronting. Shariah is on the march.

Some denials are so flat and so final that they invite the very scrutiny they hope to end. In Meet the Press on October 11, Kristen Welker asked Michigan Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed to "set the record straight about whether you or your family have any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood [MB]." His answer was one word. "No." Then he pivoted, claiming Mike Rogers' "only strategy is to point to me and my name and my faith."

Within days, the record set itself straight.

The Washington Free Beacon surfaced 2012 and 2013 posts by his half-sister, University of Chicago professor Eman Abdelhadi. "My family has long been MB," she wrote. "I have had family jailed for being a part of it." Another post described "my mom" and "her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college."

Here, precision is the whole game. Those posts speak to his family. They do not prove that El-Sayed himself belongs to or works with the Brotherhood. Yet that was never the question Welker asked. She asked about "you or your family," and he said no. His own sister says otherwise.

When NBC's Tom Llamas read him those posts on Nightly News, El-Sayed bristled, according to Fox News. "You want to ask me about what's happening in Egypt in 1970? Are you serious?" He called the posts "hearsay" and said he had never discussed the subject with his mother. His campaign calls the charges "debunked as racist and untrue."

Hearsay. That's a curious word for a first-person statement from your own sibling.

Moreover, this is no ordinary social club. On January 13, 2026, both Treasury and the State Department designated the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood a Specially Designated Global Terrorist for material support to Hamas. Asking a would-be U.S. senator about ties to that organization is not bigotry. It is due diligence.

Over years working counterintelligence matters, I have learned denial is rarely the story. The gap between the denial and the documented record is the story. A subject who answers "no" when the honest answer is "it's nuanced" has told you something important, and it isn't about his family. It's about him.

The record doesn't end with his sister. The Free Beacon reports that in a 2021 post on his Substack, since set to private, El-Sayed wrote of "my friend Mohamed Soltan." Soltan is the son of Salah Soltan, whom the Beacon describes as a senior Brotherhood official. NBC reported that an Egyptian court sentenced the younger Soltan to life on terrorism-related charges, "including belonging to the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood." He was released in 2015 and has written that he is "not a member." That was an Egyptian verdict, not an American finding. Still, the Beacon also reports El-Sayed cited Tariq Ramadan, grandson of Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, as an academic "inspiration."

None of these items alone would convict anyone of anything. But, together, they describe a pattern leading rational observers to a logical conclusion. Voters are entitled to see it. The relational links for El-Sayed are reminiscent of former President Barack Hussein Obama’s close association and friendships with Bill Ayers and “Reverend” Jeremiah Wright Jr. Ayers was a co-founder of the Weather Underground, a domestic terrorist organization prominent during the 1960’s and 70’s. And Wright is a far-left, race-baiting hate monger. Michelle and Barack Obama sat under this man’s tutelage for years. As it has been said, “a man is known by the company he keeps.” Familial relationships are of far more consequence. 

Now, a word on how we fight this, because it matters. At a Michigan rally, President Donald Trump called El-Sayed a "jihadist" who "should not be allowed to serve in our Senate," as Breitbart, Fox, and Townhall reported. Rogers, for his part, told the Washington Examiner, “I’ve never called him a terrorist.” Some on the right will call that weakness. I call it discipline. The strongest case against El-Sayed is the documented one—his denial against his family’s words. You don’t need adjectives when you have exhibits.

But Michigan is only the most visible front.

In Cleveland v. City of Dearborn (No. 2:26-cv-13519), Margot Cleveland, the plaintiff, alleges that this city in the Eastern District of Michigan flew Ramadan-only banners and crescent displays, that its police department sold Ramadan T-shirts, and that it refused equal recognition of Easter and Passover. The city says it serves all residents "fairly and equitably." These are allegations, and a court will decide them. But the Establishment Clause protects Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike, and no city hall gets to pick a favorite.

Building Footholds

Let's be clear about what this is not. This is not about the nominal Muslim family down the street praying, working, and raising its kids. Most of Dearborn's residents, as the plaintiff in City of Dearborn herself says, "get along great." This is about orthodox Islam or Islamism—the political action arm of worldwide Islam that seeks footholds in city halls, campaign treasuries, and the U.S. Senate. The ultimate objective is the instillation of Sharia and the forcible implementation of its edicts. 

In Indiana, Attorney General Todd Rokita opened civil investigations of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and National Students for Justice in Palestine on October 7, under a new state law that can end with the governor designating a "terrorist affiliate" and cutting off state funds, contracts, and tax benefits. CAIR's Edward Ahmed Mitchell called it "a publicity stunt." Other states should be taking notes.

In Texas, Newsmax and the Daily Caller report that Rep. Keith Self, who leads the Sharia-Free Caucus, says the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) inspired teen the FBI arrested for allegedly plotting to assassinate him targeted him because he opposes Sharia. That isn't a culture-war talking point. That's a case file.

And the next generation is softening. A Rasmussen/Our Republic poll found 43 percent of likely voters ages 18 to 24 view Sharia favorably. Read it correctly. That's favorability, not support, and 83 percent of all voters oppose Sharia as a local legal code. But, when four-in-ten young voters look kindly on a legal system that brutalizes women and violently persecutes apostasy, our schools and universities have failed them.

The legacy media complex would rather call every question Islamophobia. The Democratic Party would rather not be asked. But a man like El-Sayed, who wants a vote on war, intelligence, and the U.S. Constitution, must answer a simple question honestly.

"No" was not an honest answer.

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