Photo: DETROIT, MICHIGAN - AUGUST 05: Michigan Democratic Senate primary winner Abdul El-Sayed arrives with his wife, Sarah Jukaku, to a press conference in front of the Spirit of Detroit statue on August 05, 2026 in Detroit, Michigan. Sayed called on Michiganders to unite against Mike Rodgers as well as challenging him to multiple debates. (Photo by Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
A shocking resurfaced video shows Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed openly advocating for Sharia law in the United States – just the latest alarming link between El-Sayed and radical Islamic extremism.
In remarks to the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in October 2022, El-Sayed described a 2010 Sooner State ban on Sharia law as part of a “history of racism,” as first reported by The Washington Free Beacon.
Notably, Governors Greg Abbott (R-TX) and Ron DeSantis (R-FL) designated CAIR as a foreign terrorist organization in late 2025. The group has ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups. According to The New York Post, El-Sayed has accepted at least $115,000 from individuals who work for or have leadership roles in CAIR.
“You can’t understand a Sharia ban without understanding the Trail of Tears,” El-Sayed said at the event. “I don’t have to tell you that the same exact forces that drove native peoples from their land two centuries ago, destroyed Black Wall Street a century ago, bombed a building decades ago, and tried to ban Sharia law not a decade ago, that those forces are alive and well today.”
As AMAC Newsline has previously reported, Sharia law is a comprehensive religious legal system derived from Islamic scripture. In multiple Islamic-majority countries, it governs criminal justice, family law, property rights, and everyday conduct. It is totally antithetical to the U.S. Constitution and American conceptions of individual rights, including religious liberty.
Sharia law explicitly sanctions child marriage, forced veiling, restrictions on women’s movement and employment, and brutal corporal punishments, including public flogging, stoning, and amputation. Women who are raped are often subsequently murdered by their own family members in so-called “honor killings” under the banner of Sharia law. Religious minorities and political dissidents routinely face discrimination or persecution. Basic due process protections Americans take for granted simply do not exist where Sharia law rules.
In 2010, an Oklahoma ballot measure prohibited judges from considering Islamic and international law in their rulings. Although a federal appeals court ultimately ruled the Oklahoma ballot measure unconstitutional, seven other states have likewise banned courts from considering foreign or religious laws, including Sharia law.
Nonetheless, the spread of Sharia law remains a present threat in American society. Residents in states like Texas have raised concerns over planned “all-Islamic” compounds that could be governed by Sharia law instead of the U.S. Constitution. Earlier this year, AMAC members helped spearhead a successful effort to include a resolution supporting a ban on Sharia law as an official part of the Texas Republican Party platform.
The resurfaced CAIR speech is just the latest evidence of El-Sayed’s disturbing ties to radical Islam.
In since-deleted social media posts, El-Sayed also compared the war on terror to slavery, arguing that the Muslim American community was a victim of the post-9/11 era. He stated that the Department of Homeland Security was established primarily to target Muslims, and that the American response after 9/11 was about “tribalistic grievance.”
Even during his Senate campaign, El-Sayed attracted controversy over comments stressing the importance of having empathy for terrorists and expressing sadness at the death of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
El-Sayed’s close relationship with radical left-wing influencer Hasan Piker has drawn additional scrutiny. El-Sayed held several campaign events with Piker, who has said that America “deserved 9/11” and called on his followers to kill Republican members of Congress and murder their landlords “in the streets.”
Terrorism experts have also raised concerns about El-Sayed’s ties to Islamic extremist groups. During a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Muslim Brotherhood threats in the U.S. earlier this month, Center for Security Policy counterterrorism analyst Kyle Shideler told members of the panel that El-Sayed’s father-in-law allegedly has connections to Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups.
El-Sayed defeated Rep. Haley Stevens for the Democrat nomination in the Michigan Senate race on August 4. He will take on former Rep. Mike Rogers in the general election, which could well decide control of the Senate. The race is expected to be one of the closest in the country, with Rogers holding just a 0.3-point advantage in the latest RealClearPolitics average.
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