There’s no shortage of takeaways from last Tuesday’s shellacking, but one of the most unfortunate is the door the GOP’s drubbing opened for radical Islam. In Michigan, which is sounding more like an arm of the Tehran propaganda machine every day, two of the most powerful offices are laying an unnerving groundwork for the nation’s next chapter. As Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed openly warned in his victory speech, winning his seat was never the goal. “The goal is to use that seat to transform our politics.” And that’s what every American should be afraid of.
El-Sayed’s success, which seemed impossible in a post-9/11 world, has ushered in an era of proud anti-Semitism and a growing concern that his religion — which is predicated on non-Muslim hatred — is starting to gain an eerie foothold in the halls of American government. “I’m honored to be the next United States senator from the great state of Michigan,” El-Sayed told his new constituents, adding that the state is now “the capital of Arab America.”
Arab America is one thing, experts would note, but when Arab America is just a front for the ultimate goal — Sharia law — the country should be very concerned. That much was clear from the congratulations that came pouring in from extreme Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who called it just one step in ensuring “Muslim political power lasts for the long haul.” Any doubts about El-Sayed’s ties to the terrorist-adjacent Brotherhood should have vanished with the group’s jubilant celebration of the Colombia graduate. Senior officials hailed the win as a model for the religion to work from “within the political system” on behalf of the Islamic world.
The fervor is even affecting Governor-elect Jocelyn Benson, who’s now appointed a Nation of Islam leader to serve on her transition team, “months after an antisemitism coalition removed him from an advisory panel over his controversial affiliations.” Marcus Muhammad will be helping to shape Benson’s policy priorities, despite comparing Jews to “termites” and calling Adolf Hitler “a great man.”
But exactly how worried should Americans be about the rise of Islamic power in the U.S.? The Washington Stand’s Casey Harper sat down with Shahram Hadian, a former Muslim who fled Iran, in his latest “Outstanding” podcast, and he asked that very question: is the paranoia over Sharia law just fear-mongering, or is there more to it?
“Well,” Hadian replied, “do you value your freedoms? Because if you value your freedoms, then it is absolutely a concern. If you don’t value your freedoms, and you’re okay being subjugated, whether you’re subjugated under the push for socialism, Marxism, communism,” then fine. But one thing people need to understand is that “Sharia is Islam. … It encompasses every area of life for a Muslim. So that’s part of the problem we have. … We’re trying to separate the two. And there is no separation.”
Thanks to the media and our leftist education system, young people, especially, have been led to believe that there are two kinds of Muslims — the peaceful followers, which they’ve been taught is the majority, and a tiny fringe of violent jihadists.
Pastor Hadian passionately disagreed. He talked about the success these forces have had in brainwashing our children, pointing to a disturbing new Rasmussen poll that found four out of 10 young people between 18 and 25 (43%) have a highly favorable view of Sharia. “These are not Muslims,” he noted. “These are just young Americans that they surveyed. That should be disturbing, because where are they getting that? They’re getting that as a result of our indoctrination in our high schools, in our universities, in our colleges, by the media,” he explained.
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The effect, he warned, is that entire generations “want to prop up anyone they see as marginalized or as discriminated against. So, as you said, they’re going to say we’re being racist” by pointing out the truth about this religion. “They’re going to say we’re being Islamophobic. No, I’m not against any individual people. … It’s the ideology we have a problem with,” the Iranian made clear. “And if Muslims come to this nation, assimilate, follow our laws, fine. You want to privately be a Muslim? I don’t have a problem. The moment you try to ask for public accommodation, public funding, and try to change our system, now we should have a problem.”
Why? Because Islam isn’t simply a religion, Hadian stressed. “It is a political system. It is a governmental system. It is a legal system. It is a military system. It has a religious component, no doubt. But you can’t separate them. And we would do well to stop calling Islam a religion and start calling it a political ideology that is bent on … tearing down any other man-made law — which is what they consider our Constitution — and imposing Sharia.”
In America, our rights come from God. They’re based on natural and common law — all of which is at risk under a Muslim-dominated society. Look at Iran, the pastor urged. “One of the things that they did in Iran when Sharia became governance — within six months of the so-called revolution — was that they mandated that women must once again go back to wearing the hijab, which is the full head covering, and then, in some cases, the full-body covering.
They mandated that the rights of women are now secondary to the rights of man. They mandated blasphemy laws. If you insult Islam, you can be arrested or killed. They mandated apostasy laws, where if you leave Islam, you can be killed. All of that is not a radical interpretation of Islam or Sharia.” Our rights, our republic, and especially the First Amendment, would be on the chopping block.
Harper reframed it this way. “Everything you’re describing is Islamic fascism, essentially. And I think … because we call it ‘Sharia,’ maybe people don’t get it. But if you just call it Islamic fascism, people might understand what we’re talking about. It’s very similar.” He paused to play devil’s advocate. “The skeptic in my mind would say, ‘Well, sure, Iran has Sharia. They’re kind of totalitarian, but this is America. Is this really going to happen here? The Muslims here are westernized.’”
