Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has been photographed on multiple occasions with two Nation of Islam figures who have a documented record of antisemitic statements and open loyalty to Louis Farrakhan, and his campaign refuses to answer questions about it.
Marcus Muhammad, the mayor of Benton Harbor and a Nation of Islam "student minister," posted a photo on Facebook showing himself arm-in-arm with El-Sayed backstage at the candidate's election night watch party on August 4. Troy Muhammad, described as the leader of the Nation of Islam's Detroit chapter, posted a separate photo from a Detroit NAACP event in June 2025 showing him and El-Sayed in what he called a "solidarity handshake." Troy Muhammad wore the Nation of Islam's distinctive bowtie in the image. The Washington Free Beacon reported on the photos and the two men's records on August 12.
El-Sayed's campaign did not respond to questions about the candidate's relationship with the Muhammads and the Nation of Islam, or whether he has ever met Farrakhan. The silence fits a pattern: El-Sayed has repeatedly declined to distance himself from controversial figures even as he seeks a U.S. Senate seat in a general election where Michigan's sizable Jewish electorate could prove decisive.
Troy Muhammad's record goes well beyond casual association with Farrakhan. In a March 13, 2018 video recorded at Detroit's Muhammad Mosque #1, he stood before roughly 40 Nation of Islam members and directed remarks at Jewish organizations:
"Those like the Jews who, like Goliath, they think that they're big, but Farrakhan will bring them down."
He continued in the same address:
"Behind me is [sic] soldiers you see and some that you don't see. And you might not see it until it's too late, if you keep playing with the minister."
And he went further, naming the Anti-Defamation League directly:
"So all of you who represent Satan, the ADL, and all your Negro imps... get off the track before you get ran over by a train."
Troy Muhammad joined the Nation of Islam while in prison on attempted murder charges. That is the man El-Sayed clasped hands with at a public event in Detroit last year.
Marcus Muhammad's social media trail is equally stark. After Farrakhan referred to Jews collectively as "the Satan" and accused them of having "broken their relationship covenant with God" in a July 2020 speech, Marcus Muhammad posted a photo of Farrakhan on Twitter with the caption: "Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him."
In a subsequent post, he wrote of "the ongoing Jewish and Gentile Kristallnacht against Black Muslim businesses", invoking the 1938 Nazi pogrom against Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany and Austria to frame criticism of Farrakhan as persecution of Black Muslims.
El-Sayed's ties to Marcus Muhammad are not new. The Benton Harbor mayor, elected in 2015, posted photos with El-Sayed as far back as February 2018 and again in July of that year. He has visited El-Sayed's Detroit campaign headquarters, referred to the candidate as "brother," and in a radio interview last week on WUVS 103.7 The Beat urged Black voters to "get out and support" El-Sayed in the general election.
Marcus Muhammad called El-Sayed a symbol of change. "I believe that what he represents, it represents a new day," he said in the same interview.
That same week, Marcus Muhammad promoted a video of Farrakhan discussing The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews Vol. 2, a Nation of Islam publication that claims Jews controlled the transatlantic slave trade, a claim rejected by mainstream historians. In 2019, Marcus Muhammad posted that Farrakhan had personally advised him to reject an invitation to visit Israel as part of a "peace mission" because of "the great dangers and hatred that exist." Marcus Muhammad said he declined the trip, citing Israel's "vitriolic disposition toward Muslims."
The Nation of Islam connections surface at a moment when El-Sayed already faces scrutiny over his refusal to distance himself from left-wing influencer Hasan Piker, who said "America deserved 9/11." El-Sayed rejected calls to disassociate from Piker, saying he hopes to make the Democratic Party a "big tent" coalition. That stance has raised alarms among Jewish voters in Michigan.
The "big tent" framing becomes harder to sustain when the tent keeps sheltering people with records of targeting Jews by name.
El-Sayed's campaign has also drawn questions over a $75,000 payment to the nonprofit of Detroit pastor Horace Sheffield for "political consulting" since October. Sheffield endorsed El-Sayed and conducted multiple friendly interviews with the candidate without disclosing the payments, a fact first reported alongside other financial questions surrounding the candidate.
Farrakhan himself remains a live presence in Michigan Democratic politics, not a relic. In February 2024, the 93-year-old Nation of Islam leader met with Wayne County officials Sam Baydoun, Warren Evans, and Assad Turfe for what the Islamic House of Wisdom's Facebook page described as "over two hours of fruitful conversation." All three officials appear on El-Sayed's campaign endorsements page.
Amer Zahr, a Dearborn school board member described as a close friend of El-Sayed, was photographed clasping Farrakhan's hand at the same February 2024 meeting. Zahr and El-Sayed headlined a series of luxury cruise fundraisers together in 2019, part of a broader pattern of fundraising events that have drawn their own scrutiny.
Farrakhan's record of antisemitic statements stretches back decades. He has called Adolf Hitler a "great man," compared Jews to "termites," called Judaism a "gutter religion," and declared that "the powerful Jews are my enemy" and that Jews are "Satanic." The ADL has repeatedly denounced him.
Other Democrats have recognized the political and moral cost of proximity to Farrakhan. Keith Ellison, now Michigan's attorney general, renounced his ties to the Nation of Islam and his support for Farrakhan in 2006 before running for Congress. Then-Senator Barack Obama met with Farrakhan in 2005, but the encounter was not publicly verified until 2018, when Nation of Islam member Askia Muhammad released a photo he said he had withheld out of fear it would hurt Obama politically.
El-Sayed has not followed Ellison's example. He has not renounced the Nation of Islam. He has not addressed the photographs. He has not answered whether he has ever met Farrakhan. His campaign's silence is itself a choice, one that tells Michigan voters something about what El-Sayed is willing to tolerate in exchange for support he reportedly needs.
The Free Beacon reported that El-Sayed has been struggling to attract Detroit Black voters he needs to win the general election and has quietly courted them in ways that have already generated controversy. The financial disclosures and association questions keep piling up, and El-Sayed keeps declining to address them.
Voters can draw their own conclusions when a candidate won't answer a simple question about his relationship with people who call Jews "Satan" and threaten the ADL by name. But they shouldn't have to guess. A man who wants to represent Michigan in the United States Senate owes his constituents a straight answer, and the silence is becoming its own.
