Well, Michigan’s U.S. Senate race just picked up an issue that is going to require some careful distinctions.
Democratic nominee Abdulrahman El-Sayed’s campaign has confirmed that he continues to follow the rules of his Islamic faith in his personal life after a 2009 interview resurfaced in which El-Sayed described following Sharia as an “obligation.”
But — and this is important — his campaign also says El-Sayed supports separation of church and state and opposes putting Islamic religious law into American law.
So those are the two facts sitting next to each other. Now let’s get into what happened.
Back in 2009, The New York Times profiled El-Sayed when he was a 24-year-old medical student and Rhodes scholar. He had purchased a $123,000 condominium in Ann Arbor using what the newspaper described as a “Sharia-compliant” mortgage.
Why structure a mortgage that way?
Islamic religious rules traditionally prohibit riba, commonly understood to encompass paying or collecting interest. Sharia-compliant financial products are designed to allow observant Muslims to finance purchases without using a conventional interest-bearing arrangement.
El-Sayed explained his reasoning to the Times in intensely personal terms.
“Ultimately, the question is, when I die and I stand before God and go through everything I did in my life, I don’t want to say I did it the easy way instead of the Shariah-compliant way,” he said. “Not because of fear but because of obligation.”
Fast-forward 17 years.
El-Sayed is no longer an obscure medical student. He is the Democratic nominee for a United States Senate seat.
So the Washington Free Beacon, which resurfaced the interview, asked his campaign where he stands today.
Campaign spokeswoman Roxie Richner didn’t disavow his religious observance.
“Abdul believes in the separation of church and state,” Richner said. “While he personally lives by the rules of his faith, as many Americans of various faiths do, Abdul opposes any effort by any religious community to write their faith laws into the laws of our country.”
There’s the dividing line his campaign wants voters to understand.
Personal religious practice? Yes.
Imposing religious law through government? No.
And that distinction matters because “Sharia” is an enormous term. It refers broadly to Islamic religious principles and jurisprudence, with interpretations varying across traditions, countries and individual Muslims. It can encompass ordinary personal practices involving prayer, diet, marriage and finance, while some traditional interpretations also contain criminal and family-law provisions sharply at odds with modern American constitutional principles.
The question for an American candidate, therefore, isn’t simply whether he follows religious rules personally. Plenty of Americans organize their lives around religious commandments.
The political question is whether he intends to use government power to impose them.
El-Sayed’s campaign explicitly says he does not.
But here’s where the story gets complicated.
This subject has followed him before.
During his unsuccessful 2018 campaign for Michigan governor, journalist Laura Loomer questioned El-Sayed about whether he was “Sharia-compliant.” El-Sayed denied having said he was and cut the interview short.
Then there’s a moment from the documentary How To Fix A Primary.
El-Sayed noticed items on a bookshelf while cameras were filming.
“You’re going to want to not get these things in the shot,” he said. “We’re trying to keep the shot secular.”
Again, context matters, but you can understand why political opponents will replay that clip now that his old comments about Sharia are back in circulation.
El-Sayed has also opposed attempts to ban Sharia. During a 2022 speech, he criticized an Oklahoma ballot measure targeting the practice while discussing it alongside grim episodes in Oklahoma history, including the Trail of Tears, Tulsa race massacre and Oklahoma City bombing.
And now all of this is arriving in the middle of a serious Senate campaign.
El-Sayed narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic primary despite more than $30 million in spending by AIPAC supporting Stevens. He now faces Republican Mike Rogers in November for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters.
If El-Sayed wins, he would become the first Muslim U.S. senator.
That makes his religious beliefs historically noteworthy. But being Muslim, or personally observing Islamic religious rules, isn’t itself a constitutional problem. Article VI of the Constitution expressly prohibits religious tests for federal office.
So the campaign argument is going to have to stay focused on something more concrete.
El-Sayed said in 2009 that following Sharia in his own life was an obligation before God. His campaign confirms today that he continues to live according to his faith. His spokeswoman also says he opposes any religious community — not merely Muslims — turning its religious laws into the laws of the country.
Those are his stated positions.
Now Michigan voters get to decide whether that explanation settles the issue, while his opponents get to examine his public record and test whether his actions match it.
