On September 11, 2026, Usama Abdulghani gave a lecture in Dearborn, Michigan, at his mosque, Light of Guidance. Trained at the top regime-affiliated seminary in Iran, Abdulghani marked the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by blaming Israel and telling followers that “Islam wants us as Muslims, as believers, to embrace the absolute supremacy of Islam.” With that throat-clearing out of the way, he said “a little bit about the election” of Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, who is Muslim. On voting for the anti-Israel candidate, he asked: “Does this help speed up the coming of the Mahdi [the Shia Muslim messiah]? Are we hurting Israel?”
Abdulghani turned to El-Sayed’s record on LGBT and reproductive rights. Abortion, Abdulghani said, is “baby killing,” and “on Yawm al-Qiyamah [the Day of Judgment] for someone like Abdul-Rahman El-Sayed … and those who care about him, that’s a heavy one.” He added, “This man is pushing the qawm Lut [Sodom and Gomorrah] agenda on crack.” The imam was referring to the Quran’s condemnation of homosexuality, which Abdulghani called “an abomination.”
Two weeks later, he picked up where he had left off. At a September 25 commemoration for slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, a U.S.-designated terrorist, the imam spoke about El-Sayed: “One of the things that I mentioned last time was that this candidate is doing something which is blasphemy.” He warned: “Now, if, God forbid, someone is going to vote for him or to campaign for him, remember this Islamic principle.” He cited a hadith, or saying, of Muhammad, stating that if “someone does a sin openly and then no one speaks up … it demolishes the whole society.”
His sermons potentially violate the federal ban on electioneering by tax-exempt organizations. In addition to 501(c)(3) taxpayer subsidies for the mosque, one of Abdulghani’s organizations has received government funding, including from Michigan, whose Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has made commitments to LGBT rights. Abdulghani is an outspoken defender of Iran’s Islamic Republic.
“Just Lay Out Some Principles”
Abdulghani framed both talks as guidance. On September 11, he said, “This is not whether to vote or not, but just how we look at this individual.” On September 25, he told worshippers, “I wasn’t going to say my final verdict yet, just lay out some principles for mu’minoon [believers] to consider while we’re making this choice, and we are either ushering in the era of the Mahdi or, with a terrible mistake, slowing down the cause.” His guidance left little doubt about his final verdict.
In his later sermon, Abdulghani said, “This candidate is coming into our house, our backyard, and pushing these values without [sic] flamboyantly going to their pride parades, stepping all over your Quran, coming into your house and stepping all over your Quran!” Unlike other Michigan imams who have supported El-Sayed, Abdulghani declared: “There may be a time in the future where it’s good to vote as a bloc. There may be. Not now. I’m not saying that. There may be a time.”
The Johnson Amendment
In a provision known as the Johnson Amendment, Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code bars houses of worship and other tax-exempt charities from participating or intervening “in any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” IRS guidance in Revenue Ruling 2007-41 lists factors that may turn a statement into intervention: whether it identifies a candidate, disapproves of his or her positions, comes close to an election, refers to voting, or addresses an issue that distinguishes the candidates. Abdulghani did all of the above.
Abdulghani named El-Sayed and called him “this candidate.” He condemned El-Sayed’s positions on abortion and LGBT issues. On September 25, he spoke about a religious test of “whether or not we vote in the Senate campaign,” the day after absentee ballots became available.
The video of his sermon that Light of Guidance posted on Instagram went further, superimposing images and intercutting video concerning El-Sayed’s pro-choice politics and ties to LGBT groups, George Soros, and Kamala Harris. The images of the former Democratic presidential candidate show her with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a collage with an Israeli flag and text reading “Democrats and Zionism,” followed by text criticizing Harris’s support for Israel.
The IRS previously revoked a church’s exemption over this kind of message. Four days before the 1992 election, a church in upstate New York ran newspaper ads headlined “Christian Beware” that asserted that Bill Clinton “supports abortion on demand” and “supports the homosexual lifestyle, and wants homosexuals to have special rights” before concluding: “How then can we vote for Bill Clinton?” The IRS revoked the church’s exemption, and the church lost its appeal. Abdulghani’s sermons address the same social issues and point toward the same political conclusion.
In 2025 the IRS attempted to settle a lawsuit by a Christian group, National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), by agreeing that sermons to a congregation on electoral politics don’t count as campaign intervention. A district court dismissed the case on March 31, 2026, without adopting that position. It’s now on appeal, with the Department of Justice asking the appeals court to revive the NRB case. While the future of the Johnson Amendment is uncertain, the ban is still in place.
Ayatollah Khamenei a.k.a. “Our Leader”
Regarding the restriction, Abdulghani said, “Those of us who are in the West, we can’t let our tax-exempt status for our masjid become an idol that I worship bidun Allah [instead of God],” during a memorial for Iran’s slain Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at his mosque in March 2026.
Abdulghani’s allegiance to Iran’s leaders is no secret. In his March sermon, he said that Khamenei “became our leader for 36 years.” In that sermon, less than two months after the Islamic Republic slaughtered over 36,500 Iranian protesters, Abdulghani praised Khamenei for being “big-hearted” enough to call “those youth who were fooled into cooperating with the Mossad riots … shaheed[martyrs].” Abdulghani left out that in the same speech, delivered on February 17, 2026, Khamenei said “the corrupt elements, the seditionists … went to the lowest depths of Hell.” The claim that the January 2026 protests were “Mossad riots” echoes Iranian propaganda.
“The Coming of the Mahdi” and “Hurting Israel”
Abdulghani’s question about whether voting for El-Sayed would “help speed up the coming of the Mahdi” and “[hurt] Israel” reflects the marriage of religion and politics in his Islamist worldview. According to Ali Khamenei—whom Abdulghani saw as not only a “teacher” but also the “temporal ruler” of the ummah, or community of believers—the Mahdi is “a great savior who wants to fight all the centers of international power.” For Khamenei, those centers included the U.S. and Israel.
The goal of “hurting Israel” isn’t just ordinary geopolitics to Khomeinists like Abdulghani. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic—whose picture was on a wall at Light of Guidance—taught that the Mahdi would appear only after the destruction of the Jewish state.
Taxpayer Funding
The Hadi Institute is also “under the leadership of Shaykh Usama Abdulghani,” according to its own Facebook post. Light of Guidance’s 2020 IRS determination letter lists the Hadi Institute’s address. The mosque also hosts its lectures at that same address. Abdulghani spoke of “our Hadi family” in a sermon at Light of Guidance on July 10, 2026. The Hadi Institute files with the IRS as Association of Spiritual Renewal (ASR), whose returns list $989,058 in government grants between July 2018 and June 2025. Open Michigan shows the state gave ASR $163,169 from 2022 to 2024. ASR (that is, the Hadi Institute) runs Hadi Montessori and Hadi Publications, which has published the writing of Muhammad Jawad Vazirifard, an Iranian cleric and the overseer for the Supreme Leader’s representation at an IRGC university sanctioned by the U.S.
LGBT Rights in Michigan
Michigan has committed to defending LGBT rights, though it has funded an organization led by an openly homophobic imam. In 2019, Gov. Whitmer required every state grant agreement to prohibit discrimination against employees or applicants based on sexual orientation and gender identity and dropped her predecessor’s exemption for religious organizations. The rule does not govern what a preacher says, and the mosque’s and the Hadi Institute’s hiring practices are unknown.
Light of Guidance and the Hadi Institute have not responded to requests for comment.
A Legal Loophole
Could Light of Guidance’s promotion of the Islamic Republic itself put its tax exemption at risk? Probably not. A 1992 IRS training text on charities’ foreign activities says that “supporting a foreign government is not a recognized charitable purpose,” but the test is whether the organization “was formed to support the foreign government.” So Khomeinist mosques can safely cheerlead for Iran’s Supreme Leader. The electioneering ban only covers candidates for public office, including in foreign elections, but Iran’s Supreme Leader is not a publicly elected official. While U.S. law does limit lobbying for “legislation” in foreign countries, the same IRS text argues “it may be improper” to consider the edicts of “an authoritarian or theocratic regime” legislation. Advantage Tehran.
Thanks to this apparent loophole, Light of Guidance can continue advocating for Iran’s ayatollahs. Meanwhile, American taxpayers pick up the tab. Donors to the mosque and the Hadi Institute can deduct their gifts, neither organization pays income tax, and Hadi has reported receiving nearly $1 million in government grants. Some of that probably funded its school, but money is fungible: the less it spends there, the more it can spend elsewhere. Indeed, the Light of Guidance lectures take place at the Hadi Institute. In effect, taxpayers are subsidizing propaganda for a foreign adversary and apparent political campaign intervention in a U.S. election by a radical Islamist in Dearborn.
