In a controversial comparison, Abdul El-Sayed, a left-wing contender in Michigan's Democratic primary for the open Senate seat, likened Oklahoma's Sharia law ban to the Trail of Tears.
"You can't understand a Sharia ban without understanding the Trail of Tears," El-Sayed remarked to the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in October 2022. "You cannot understand the challenges we face today without understanding white supremacy."
As reported by The Washington Free Beacon, El-Sayed's comments, previously unreported, pertained to a 2010 Oklahoma ballot measure that barred judges from considering Islamic and international law in their rulings. He characterized the initiative as part of a broader "history of racism" in Oklahoma and the nation, drawing parallels between Sharia law bans and the forces behind the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1921 Tulsa massacre.
"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," he asserted. Sharia, the Islamic religious law, underpins the governance in countries like Iran and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban's enforcement of Sharia law prohibits girls from attending school beyond age 12 and mandates women to cover their faces and bodies in public. Iran's laws are similarly oppressive, as evidenced by the 2022 incident where morality police beat 22-year-old Mahsa Amini to death for not fully covering her hair, sparking nationwide protests.
Although a federal appeals court eventually deemed the Oklahoma ballot measure unconstitutional, seven other states have enacted bans on courts considering foreign or religious laws, including Sharia. Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama introduced legislation in October to "prohibit the application of Sharia Law in the United States."
El-Sayed's remarks surface amid revelations of other historical comparisons he has drawn, notably between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the war on terror. In deleted posts on X and a 2021 op-ed, El-Sayed contended that both events were "perpetrated ignorantly" and fueled by "tribalistic grievance," as reported by The Washington Free Beacon.
He described the war on terror as an "echo of the worst of our historythe decimation of Native Americans, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Jim Crow segregation, Japanese interment [sic]."
It remains uncertain whether CAIR, whose leader Nihad Awad expressed approval of Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, compensated El-Sayed for his 2022 speech. A June financial disclosure report indicated that the candidate received at least $5,000 for a speech to CAIR-Oklahoma within the previous two years. El-Sayed has also addressed other pro-terror groups besides CAIR, which Governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida designated as a foreign terrorist organization in late 2025.
In May of the previous year, El-Sayed participated in an Islamist convention featuring speakers who advocated for the destruction of Israel, lauded Hamas leaders, and expressed "euphoria" over the October 7 attack. In September, he spoke at another anti-Israel conference alongside Hamas sympathizers.
The far-left candidate headlined an October fundraiser hosted by an Arab-American PAC whose leader called for Israeli Jews to be sent "back to Poland."
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