Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Michigan's U.S. Senate seat, is scheduled to headline an Islamic convention in Detroit that also features a Pakistani cleric who admitted arranging the marriage of his teenage niece, and whose anti-Jewish rhetoric prompted Canadian activists to seek a visa ban.
El-Sayed is listed on the convention itinerary for the Islamic Society of North America's 63rd annual gathering, set for September 4, 7 in Detroit. His panel, titled "Cultivating God Awareness in a Turmoiled America," is scheduled for September 5. Also on the convention roster: Tariq Masood, a Pakistani mufti, a cleric qualified to issue religious rulings, who in a 2021 sermon admitted to the marriage of his 13-year-old niece, according to multiple Pakistani media reports cited by the Washington Free Beacon.
El-Sayed's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The convention lineup raises pointed questions for a candidate who has built his national profile partly by attacking President Trump and Republicans as "pedophile protectors" over the handling of Jeffrey Epstein-related files. El-Sayed is now set to appear at the same event as a cleric whose recorded statements about child marriage were so alarming that Canadian activists in 2024 urged their government to block Masood's visa, citing what they called his "pedophilic rhetoric."
Masood's 2021 admission did not stop at his niece. Pakistani media reports described the cleric as advising his followers to marry off their young female relatives. He also stated, according to those reports, that it was a husband's decision whether his wife could attend college or must remain a housewife, a position he grounded in Sharia, the Islamic legal code.
His rhetoric extends beyond marriage. In a 2024 sermon titled "The Final Humiliation of the Jews," Masood declared:
"The Quran condemns Jews."
Translations of the sermon, as reported by the Free Beacon, show Masood claiming that Jews' "cunning minds" had worked to bring the world under their control and that "evil and turmoil" among Jews was unmatched by any other community. He did note, in the same sermon, that "not all Jews are the same."
El-Sayed's appearance at the convention adds to a pattern of associations that have drawn scrutiny throughout his campaign. He was previously photographed with Nation of Islam figures who targeted Jews and defended Louis Farrakhan.
At the ISNA convention, Masood is listed to speak on a panel about "avoiding mental illness in youth," including how parents "can prevent or minimize the impact of any trauma leading to a mental illness." ISNA president Syed Imtiaz Ahmad will moderate Masood's panel. Ahmad is also listed as a participant on El-Sayed's September 5 panel, meaning the same ISNA official connects both men on the convention program.
ISNA was founded as an American arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2008, federal prosecutors named the organization an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism-funding case, a designation that has never been lifted. The convention's roster suggests the organization has not distanced itself from controversial voices in the years since.
El-Sayed's family ties to ISNA run deep. His father-in-law, Tayeb Jukaku, has served on ISNA's founding committee since 2007. Jukaku has also contributed $300,000 to a political action committee supporting El-Sayed's Senate bid, a financial connection previously reported as part of broader questions about Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations backing the candidate.
Two sponsors of the ISNA event also intersect with El-Sayed's personal finances. University Bank, which operates under the name University Islamic Financial and does not charge interest in compliance with Sharia, is listed as a convention sponsor. El-Sayed took out a mortgage through that bank and has previously expressed what he called an "obligation" to comply with Sharia law. Amana Funds, a Sharia-compliant mutual fund company, is also a convention sponsor. El-Sayed owns between $150,000 and $425,000 in Amana Funds.
Masood is not the only figure on the ISNA program with a record that would give most general-election voters pause. Siraj Wahhaj, a New York-based imam described as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is also scheduled to speak.
Yasir Qadhi, a Texas-based imam slated for several panels over the convention weekend, has called the Holocaust a "hoax" and claimed Adolf Hitler "never intended to mass-destroy the Jews."
Hussam Ayloush, a Council on American-Islamic Relations official, is listed on a panel about civic participation. After October 7, Ayloush said "Israel should be attacked" and added:
"you want to pick up arms and defend your people and your land, that is a legitimate right."
Former Pakistani president Arif Alvi rounds out the speaker list. In 2018, Alvi declined to amend Pakistan's anti-blasphemy laws after two Christian brothers were sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
El-Sayed's fellow panelist on the September 5 session is Cenk Uygur, the media personality and uncle of Hasan Piker. Piker, an anti-Israel activist, has said "America deserved 9/11." El-Sayed has maintained ties to Piker even as Jewish voters raised alarms about the relationship.
The Michigan Senate candidate has made the accusation of enabling child exploitation a centerpiece of his political messaging, attacking Trump and Republicans as protectors of pedophiles over the Epstein files. But prior Free Beacon reporting revealed that El-Sayed's use of the charge was itself calculated. In a campaign strategy call, El-Sayed told aides that if asked about the assassination of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, he would change the topic to the "pedophile president", a tactic designed to avoid upsetting Michigan's Muslim voters.
That willingness to deploy the pedophilia accusation as a political tool makes his scheduled appearance alongside Masood, a cleric whose statements about child marriage were serious enough to provoke an international visa campaign, a contradiction that his campaign has so far declined to address.
El-Sayed won Michigan's Democratic Senate primary in a result that Republicans openly welcomed. The ISNA convention, still three weeks away, offers another chance for the candidate to explain the gap between his rhetoric and his associations.
His campaign has also faced scrutiny over luxury yacht fundraisers for an Islamic charity flagged by Congress over Brotherhood ties, part of a broader pattern that Michigan voters will have to weigh before November.
A candidate who calls his opponents pedophile protectors owes voters an explanation when he shares a stage with a man who admitted marrying off a 13-year-old. Silence is not an answer.
