Michigan Democrats just handed their Senate nomination to Abdul El-Sayed, a single-payer healthcare champion who wants the federal government running your doctor’s office.
Now El-Sayed is about to spend Labor Day weekend at a convention in Detroit sharing a stage with a Pakistani cleric who, according to multiple Pakistani media reports, admitted in a 2021 sermon that he forced his 13-year-old niece into marriage.
And the Democrat Party has said nothing about it — not a word.
The Convention, the Cleric, and What El-Sayed Chose Not to Avoid
El-Sayed is scheduled to speak at the Islamic Society of North America’s (ISNA) 63rd annual convention, held in Detroit from Sept. 4-7.
El-Sayed, whose father-in-law is a founding member of the ISNA — which is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood — will speak on the oddly titled panel, “Cultivating God Awareness in a Turmoiled America,” according to an itinerary.
ISNA was founded as an American arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism funding case in 2008. That’s not a fringe claim. That’s a federal court record.
But the speaker who deserves the most attention isn’t El-Sayed. It’s Tariq Masood.
According to multiple Pakistani media reports, Masood in 2021 admitted in a sermon that he forced his 13-year-old niece into marriage, and advised his followers to do the same with their young female relatives.
Masood also said it was a husband’s decision whether or not his wife can go to college or must remain a housewife, citing Sharia, or Islamic religious law.
In 2024, Canadian activists urged the government to block Masood’s visa to the country over his “pedophilic rhetoric.”
And what panel is Masood speaking on at this convention? Youth mental health. Let that sink in for a moment.
In a 2024 sermon titled “The Final Humiliation of the Jews,” Masood said, according to translations of the event, that Jews’ “cunning minds” had worked to bring the world under their control.
“The Quran condemns Jews,” Masood said, while adding that “not all Jews are the same.” He nevertheless claimed that the amount of “evil and turmoil” among Jews was unmatched by any other community in the world.
That’s the man sharing a convention with Michigan’s Democrat Senate nominee. Not a distant association. The same event. The same weekend.
The Rest of the Guest List Isn’t Much Better
Other speakers include Siraj Wahhaj, a New York-based imam who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Texas-based imam Yasir Qadhi, who will appear on several panels over the weekend, has called the Holocaust a “hoax” and said that Adolf Hitler “never intended to mass-destroy the Jews.”
Hussam Ayloush, an official with the pro-Hamas Council on American-Islamic Relations, will speak on a panel about civic participation. After Oct. 7, Ayloush said that “Israel should be attacked,” and that if “you want to pick up arms and defend your people and your land, that is a legitimate right.”
There’s also a structural link between El-Sayed and Masood that goes beyond simply appearing at the same large gathering. Masood will moderate his panel with Syed Imtiaz Ahmad, the president of ISNA. Ahmad will also take part in El-Sayed’s panel, according to the itinerary. So the man accused of forcing a child into marriage moderates a panel with the ISNA president — who then turns around and sits on El-Sayed’s panel. These aren’t strangers passing in a hallway.
El-Sayed’s father-in-law, Tayeb Jukaku, has served on ISNA’s founding committee since 2007, the Free Beacon reported. Jukaku has contributed $300,000 to a PAC supporting El-Sayed.
And the financial ties don’t stop with family. The Free Beacon reported that El-Sayed expressed an “obligation” to comply with Sharia law, citing a mortgage he took out at University Bank, a bank that does not charge interest in compliance with Sharia. The bank, now known as University Islamic Financial, is a sponsor of the ISNA event. So is Amana Funds, a Sharia-compliant mutual fund company with which El-Sayed owns between $150,000 and $425,000.
What This Actually Tells Voters About El-Sayed
El-Sayed has built his Senate campaign around attacking Republicans. El-Sayed has attacked President Trump and Republicans as “pedophile protectors” for allegedly withholding files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
And yet he chose — freely, without apparent hesitation — to headline a convention that includes a cleric who reportedly bragged from the pulpit about forcing a 13-year-old girl into marriage and told his followers to do the same. That choice is worth dwelling on.
In March, El-Sayed told aides in a campaign strategy call that if asked about the assassination of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, he would change the topic to the “pedophile president” in order to avoid upsetting Muslim voters, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
So the man who uses “pedophile” as a political weapon against his opponents arranged his campaign calendar around a convention featuring a cleric denounced for exactly that kind of rhetoric. The irony is not subtle.
El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Free Beacon.
What’s unfolding in Michigan isn’t simply a story about one candidate’s awkward scheduling. It’s a window into how the Democrat Party has decided to handle the growing influence of political Islam in its coalition — which is to say, it hasn’t decided to handle it at all. Chuck Schumer and the party apparatus moved to accommodate El-Sayed after he defeated their preferred candidate in the primary. They didn’t ask questions. They didn’t demand answers. They got in line.
Compare that to how the media would treat a Republican Senate nominee who chose to spend a holiday weekend at a convention featuring Holocaust deniers, a figure named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a World Trade Center bombing case, and a cleric who reportedly forced a 13-year-old girl into marriage. The coverage would be wall-to-wall. There would be demands for withdrawal. There would be a national reckoning.
But El-Sayed is a Democrat. So the silence from the legacy press is, at this point, entirely predictable.
American constitutional values — including genuine religious freedom and equal protection under the law for women and girls — depend on a civic culture that refuses to normalize the importation of legal and religious structures that treat children as property and women as subordinates without rights. Sharing a stage with Tariq Masood, even at a sprawling convention, sends a message. And El-Sayed sent it voluntarily.
Michigan voters will have to decide what that message means.
Sources: Washington Free Beacon; New Conservative Post; RedState; RAIR Foundation; Washington Free Beacon (El-Sayed father-in-law reporting, July 2026)