For years, a network of Michigan Islamic centers has received tens of millions of dollars in federal funding while hosting sermons and lectures that openly denounce America and call for violence against Jews.
According to Just The News, the disturbing pattern was documented by the Middle East Forum, which compiled federal spending records and hundreds of videotaped sermons into a database highlighting what it calls Islamist pulpits that preach hatred across the state. The findings raise serious questions about how taxpayer dollars are being funneled to institutions where extremist rhetoric is not an aberration but a recurring theme.
Among the most prominent examples is the Islamic Center of Detroit, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charity whose imams and guest speakers have described the United States as the House of Shaitan [Satan] and implored Allah to take the worst revenge upon Zionists. Despite this record, the mosque has become a political stop for Democrats, including Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who earlier this year was welcomed to gather signatures there to qualify for the primary ballot and received a full-throated endorsement from affiliated imams and scholars.
Financially, the Islamic Center of Detroit stands out as the largest beneficiary of public funds identified by the Middle East Forum, taking in roughly $45 million in government money. Most of that support flowed through sub-awards from the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the national school lunch program, effectively turning a radicalized religious institution into a taxpayer-backed service provider.
We found $45 million in taxpayer funding that went to nine of these institutions that we identified, Greg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum, told Just the News on Thursday. And we also were able to find 41 officials from local, county, state, and even the federal government who went to community events at these centers.
Roman underscored the contradiction between public officials outreach and the hateful rhetoric documented on the same premises. So one day they're hosting the mayor of Dearborn; the next, the speaker's calling for killing Jews. It's just a juxtaposition that shouldn't work in our democracy.
The Islamic Center of Detroit did not respond to questions submitted by Just The News through its online contact portal. Its silence contrasts sharply with the volume of its recorded sermons, which the Middle East Forum has cataloged and translated as part of its broader investigation.
Overall, the Forums database records 928 statements from 36 mosques and Islamic organizations in Michigan, each linked to timestamped video evidence. At 16 of those institutions, speakers either prayed for victory for the mujahideen or explicitly called for jihad, language that echoes the rhetoric of foreign terrorist movements rather than peaceful religious practice.
On the financial side, the Forums tallydrawn largely from USAspending.govshows that 12 of these institutions collectively received $47.4 million in public money. The Department of Agriculture accounted for $43.7 million of that total, the Department of Homeland Security for $2.4 million, and the Department of Health and Human Services for $1 million, illustrating how multiple federal agencies have become unwitting patrons of radical platforms.
The school lunch funding did not arrive as direct federal grants but as reimbursements from the Agriculture Department to the state of Michigan for qualifying meals. The Michigan Department of Education then passed those dollars on as sub-awards to participating institutions, including the Islamic Center of Detroit, which reported a single payment of $31 million in 2022 alone.
Beyond food programs, the Detroit center received two $500,000 refugee resettlement sub-awards from HHS in 2025 and 2026, routed through the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity. It also collected about $239,000 from the Department of Homeland Securitys Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which is intended to help protect houses of worship from attack, not to subsidize platforms for incendiary preaching.
Yet the rhetoric emanating from the centers pulpit has been anything but moderate. During a May 2025 Friday sermon featuring Dr. Muhannad Hakeem, the closing prayer posted on the centers YouTube channel targeted Israels prime minister and the Israeli people with chilling specificity.
O Allah, deal with Netanyahu, his soldiers, and his minions, for they cannot escape You. O Allah, count them one by one and kill them individually, leaving none of them, the prayer said, according to the video and the forum's translation of the Arabic.
In January 2025, another sermon at the same mosque ended with a plea for God to destroy the Zionists utterly, reinforcing the pattern of eliminationist rhetoric. That same month, Islamic scholar Dr. Zulfiqar Shah told congregants that as Muslims in the United States they were living in the House of Shaitan, or House of Satan, casting American society itself as fundamentally evil.
So my respected brothers and sisters, I request you, as Muslims living here in America, in the house of Shaitan [...] Dr. Shah said, before urging them to reclaim the narrative and argue that the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were ultimately rooted in Islamic tradition. Such claims not only distort American founding principles but also serve a broader ideological project that seeks to subordinate Western constitutionalism to religious law.
Despite this record, public officials have gone out of their way to honor the Islamic Center of Detroit. Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist presented a 25th anniversary tribute last December, and in the same month Wayne County Commission Chair Alisha Bell sponsored a resolution recognizing the centers milestone, signaling official approval where scrutiny might be more appropriate.
The problem is not confined to Detroit. The Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, another registered 501(c)(3) that received only 2 out of 5 stars from Charity Navigator, was awarded a $331,155 federal disaster assistance grant in 2024.
At a July 2024 program there, a speaker defended Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terrorist organization, declaring, Hezbollah is actually not bad. Hezbollah is a very good thing.
In East Lansing, the Islamic Center of East Lansingalso a 501(c)(3) and recipient of a $46,899 Federal Communications Commission internet grant in both 2023 and 2024hosted a Ramadan service in March 2025 where a leader issued another violent prayer. O Allah, deal with the aggressor Jews. O Allah, count them in number and kill them dispersed, and leave not one of them, he said, according to the Forums translation.
Although that video has since been made private, the Middle East Forum retained a copy, underscoring the importance of independent watchdogs in preserving evidence that institutions later attempt to scrub. The pattern suggests not isolated misstatements but a sustained ideological posture that is only concealed when exposed.
The Islamic Organization of North America in Warren, yet another tax-exempt entity, received $450,000 in Homeland Security nonprofit security grants in 2023. A lecture posted to its channel in 2013 predicted the final annihilation of Jews at the hands of Hazrat Masih, Hazrat Mahdi, and Muslims, final extermination. They will be exterminated, rhetoric that mirrors the genocidal language of the worst regimes of the 20th century.
Similarly, the Islamic Association of Greater Detroit in Rochester Hills collected $450,000 in nonprofit security grants while hosting hardline teachings. In an Urdu-language lecture, a speaker said that married adulterers and anyone who apostatizes from the religion face death, according to the Forums translation, even as Gilchrist and then-Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan attended a 2024 ribbon-cutting for the mosques expanded facility.
That Rochester Hills mosque and community center is also a tax-exempt organization, listed but not rated by Charity Navigator, like several of the other institutions in the Forums database. The convergence of radical preaching, generous federal subsidies, and high-profile political validation raises a fundamental question for policymakers: why are American taxpayers underwriting organizations whose leaders call the country the House of Shaitan and pray for the extermination of Jews, and when will elected officials demand that federal dollars reflect, rather than undermine, the nations core values and security?
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