Michigan Democratic Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed spent the weekend addressing an Islamic convention in Detroit whose program featured 9/11 conspiracy theorists, a Holocaust denier, and clerics railing that America is going down and that members of Congress who backed an antisemitism measure are guilty of treason.
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The event, organized by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), unfolded just days before the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and placed El-Sayed on stage alongside some of the most controversial figures in American Islamist circles, according to The Washington Free Beacon. His appearance, despite public warnings and calls to withdraw, highlights a growing willingness among Democratic candidates to court activist networks that are openly hostile to the United States, Israel, and basic bipartisan norms on antisemitism.
Day two of ISNAs annual gathering opened with a video montage featuring clips from various speakers, including imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. I am ashamed of what America has become, Wahhaj says in the undated footage, before adding, Look at the newspaper every day, how America is going down.
The montage also included a segment of El-Sayed describing his post-9/11 experience as a kid with a funny name and an olive complexion, casting himself as a victim of American suspicion in the wake of Islamist terror. It closed with a graphic showing the widely circulated image of El-Sayed fist-bumping Hasan Piker, the left-wing influencer who infamously declared that America deserved 9/11.
Minutes after that video, El-Sayed took the stage and delivered a conventional campaign stump speech centered on inflation, cost-of-living concerns, and his personal story as a Muslim in the United States. Muslim Americans, they want to tell us that we don't belong. They want to tell us that this country's not ours, that because of our names or how we pray that we are somehow less than, said El-Sayed, framing criticism of Islamist extremism as an attack on Muslim identity itself.
His remarks were followed by appearances from Zaid Shakir, a prominent New Jersey cleric with a long record of radical statements, and Cenk Uygur, the progressive host of The Young Turks. Their presence, alongside El-Sayed, underscored the increasingly tight alignment between the Democratic Partys activist left and figures who traffic in anti-American and antisemitic narratives.
Shakir, who has previously claimed that Zionist forces were behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, used his speech to denounce the U.S. government for its support of Israel and for backing Jews worldwide. He singled out Congresss adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliances definition of anti-Semitism, a bipartisan step intended to clarify when anti-Israel rhetoric crosses into bigotry.
When the United States Congress passes laws on behalf of a genocidal, rapacious, nefarious foreign country to deny us the freedom of speech that is a domestic enemy of the Constitution of the United States, Shakir declared. And as such, they are guilty of treason.
El-Sayed chose to attend the convention despite mounting criticism over ISNAs platforming of 9/11 truthers and Holocaust deniers. Abdul stop platforming 9/11 and Holocaust deniers and withdraw from this conference immediately, Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers urged on Friday, citing earlier Washington Free Beacon reporting on the event and its speakers.
Among those speakers was Yasir Qadhi, a Texas-based imam who appeared on several panels and has previously described the Holocaust as a hoax. That kind of rhetoric, once relegated to the fringes, is now being normalized in forums where Democratic candidates feel comfortable seeking support and legitimacy.
Both Uygur and Shakir have publicly embraced conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks, in which 2,977 Americans were murdered by al Qaeda terrorists. I no longer believe [sic] official 9/11 story, Uygur said in February, openly rejecting the established record of the worst terrorist attack on American soil.
Uygur has also promoted the dancing Israelis myth, an antisemitic conspiracy theory alleging that five Israeli spies filmed and celebrated the attacks. I didn't know we arrested Israeli spies who were here to 'document the event,' wrote Uygur, amplifying a narrative long used to shift blame from Islamist terrorists to Jews and Israel.
Shakir, for his part, has called for an examination of what he described as glaring weaknesses and inconsistencies in the official 9/11 account. He has urged followers to study the writings of David Ray Griffin, a leading 9/11 conspiracy theorist who has argued that the United States itself orchestrated the attacks, and has claimed that Washington used 9/11 to launch a war on Islam.
In a discussion marking the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Shakir went further, describing himself as extremely anti-American and advocating that Muslims employ guerrilla warfare to achieve their political aims. In a 1992 treatise, he asserted that every major Muslim political gain in modern times was achieved through extrasystemic political actionexplicitly including guerrilla warfare.
He cited the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the armed struggle that brought the Taliban to power in Afghanistan as models of such gains. A copy of Shakirs pamphlet was later discovered in the apartment of a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the New York Times reported in 2006, further tying his ideas to violent extremism.
For a major-party Senate candidate to share a stage with figures who praise guerrilla tactics, question the reality of the Holocaust, and cast Congress as guilty of treason for opposing antisemitism raises serious questions about judgment and values. At a moment when Americans are preparing to mark a quarter-century since 9/11, El-Sayeds decision to legitimize a conference steeped in anti-American and anti-Israel agitation will likely resonate far beyond Michigan, sharpening the contrast between those who still view the United States as worth defending and those who are content to stand beside those who say America is going down.
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