The imam at the mosque that Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed frequently attends has railed against homosexuality, arguing that it is “against human nature,” and complained that all too often, Jews are teaching Islam in American universities, introducing “confusion” and “suspicion” to young minds.
Abdelhamid Algizawi serves as the imam at the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor, the mosque where El-Sayed frequently prays. Three days after El-Sayed eked out a one-point victory over Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary, on August 7, Algizawi described the win as a “very big victory for the Muslims, Hamdillah, and for the Ummah, and for the Islamic nation.”
“Right now, the community has to change their minds, this is an obligation,” Algizawi said in a video captured by the Middle East Media Research Institute. “When we have a Muslim Senator or a Muslim, you know, in office, any office or any post for the Muslim, this can work for goodness, this can change the society.” He said it is incumbent on Muslims to cast their ballots for El-Sayed in November and recounted with dismay last month that his own daughter said she wouldn’t vote for a Muslim “running for Senate” because “he’s working against women.”
Unlike Jews and some Christians, most Muslims do not formally join a mosque in order to attend prayer services there, and many pray at several different mosques. But El-Sayed typically prays at the MCA of Ann Arbor, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.
Algizawi’s sermons are littered with inflammatory remarks about gays and homosexuality, bemoaning its prevalence in America and arguing that it is incumbent upon Muslims to reject it because “it cannot bring stability to life” and “people cannot give children from this relationship. You understand?”
“Here in America—in America, there is, you know, it became a fashion these days: homosexuality and LGBTQ and something like that becomes a fashion everywhere. And even this has reached the Muslim community, and people ask what the [sic] Islamic stand on that … Islam as a religion refuse,” Algizawi said in 2022 remarks at a Sacramento-area Islamic center. “Why? Because there is purposes for marriage … This relationship cannot bring stability to your life … We are looking for children when we get married. People cannot give children from this relationship. You understand?”
He continued: “So this is against human nature, by the way. Also, Muslims cannot compromise their religion. We cannot say: ‘Hey, because I am a Muslim, I’m American, we are living in America, we have…’ No, we cannot compromise our religion.”
Algizawi acknowledged the controversial nature of his views, particularly among young Muslims in a country where the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage over a decade ago. He recounted an exchange with a student who asked him whether he could be gay in paradise “because in paradise you can do everything.” Students, he said, “go crazy, more crazy,” when they hear his response because “they are looking for the highest level of pleasure.”
The Michigan chapter of the Human Rights Campaign, which “fights for LGBTQ+ equality,” did not respond to a request for comment on El-Sayed’s relationship with Algizawi and the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor. A spokeswoman for the El-Sayed campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
For his part, El-Sayed, who is a vocal champion of gay, lesbian, and transgender rights, has taken a different approach on the campaign trail than the one Algizawi said is incumbent on Muslims.
“Pride began with Stonewall: a movement against state violence, harassment, and discrimination,” El-Sayed declared on June 7, 2025, during gay Pride Month. “It’s rooted in the universal struggle for equal rights and protection under the law.” The Stonewall Uprising, in which gays and lesbians confronted police who had raided the Stonewall Inn in New York City, a gay bar, took place on June 28, 1969. “This month and every month, I stand with the LGBTQ+ community in their struggle for equal rights and dignity. I’ll always fight for an America where all of us can live and thrive as we are,” El-Sayed said.
The candidate also defended gender transition surgery for minors last month in a primetime Fox News appearance, likening the procedure to circumcision. “It’s a problem that you think that you get to decide what happens between a parent, a doctor, and a patient, and yes, circumcision is surgery on a kid’s ding-a-ling,” El-Sayed said.
Algizawi, described on the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor’s website as a “scholar with many years of experience in Islamic Studies and Theology” and a graduate of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, is also critical of the number of Jewish scholars teaching Islam in American universities, describing it as “a problem” and accusing them of introducing “confusion” and “suspicions” to students, though he did not elaborate on how these unidentified Jewish scholars are confusing their students.
“We have a problem here in America. In most schools those who are teaching Islam in the American university, they are Jewish,” Algizawi said in Sacramento in 2022. “So, they make complication and, you know, confusion for our students. You know, and they try to bring the suspicions—bring it up, and without answer.” (Most of the country’s leading scholars of Islam are not Jewish.)
Though El-Sayed usually prays at the MCA of Ann Arbor, he also attends the Islamic Center of Detroit and the Wayne State University Islamic Center of Detroit, the source told the Washington Free Beacon. Imam Imran Salha of the Islamic Center of Detroit has justified Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel, posting to social media in September 2024 that “We can condemn Hezbollah atrocities in Syria while also recognizing that they *are* making sacrifices for the sake of Palestine and frustrating the illegal zionist regime in unprecedented ways esp with recent hits.”
He continued, “Anybody who continues to claim that Hezb is ‘just hitting random trees’ is using an old talking point that is just false. These unfair criticisms actually do a disservice to our legitimate criticisms of Hezb because it shows an unwillingness to recognize fact as fact.”
Salha was captured on video on October 10, 2023, declaring that Israel “has left a fire in our hearts that will burn that state until its demise” and, in May 2023, described Israel as a “disgusting Zionist regime,” according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.
“May Allah eradicate them from existence,” he said.
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