An Iranian-born Shia imam, Mohammad Ali Elahi, stood in the pulpit of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, in June 2026. In the preceding days, during the period of mourning leading up to Ashura, another speaker at the mosque had been giving lectures rife with antisemitic tropes and critical of American policy in the Middle East. Those lectures, like the Ashura observance itself, focused on an eternal battle between good and evil. Following one of those lectures, Elahi, standing at his pulpit, explained to his congregants how to fight that battle—by voting for Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic primary.
At that mosque service, Elahi told his followers that voting for Abdul El-Sayed is a religious duty—wajib, as obligatory as prayer, one of Islam’s five pillars. Then, Elahi, a cleric with a documented history of defending theocracy in Iran, invited El-Sayed to campaign from that same pulpit, praised him as the man needed to “stop Trump” and “this war against Iran,” and compared the ballot to a weapon. In doing so, Elahi shamelessly flouted a federal law that prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations, including tax-exempt mosques, from intervening in elections. A U.S. district judge in Texas had reaffirmedthe restriction months earlier.
Elahi and the Islamic House of Wisdom (IHW) were so shameless about their violation of the law that on June 23, 2026, they streamed video of the event to more than 32,000 Facebook followers. IHW has deleted the video from its page, but Focus on Western Islamism has an audio recording, and, as of this writing, photos of the event are live on IHW’s Facebook page.
“Brother Abdul El-Sayed, welcome,” Elahi said before adding, “I’m going to vote for this man!” He explained, “We need a man like him in United States Senate [sic] and, you know that he is under bombardment of Islamophobia and AIPAC and everybody is attacking him. From the Israeli newspaper, the media, Islamophobia, but we need a man.”
Elahi continued, “You know that in the U.S. Senate we don’t have any person, any Muslim, but you know the Jewish community and Muslim community, we are almost the same number in this country. There are over 10 Jewish senators in the U.S. Senate, not even a single Muslim.” He closed by emphasizing the importance of electing El-Sayed to “stop Trump” and “this war against Iran,” adding: “We need only one vote! So vote matters. Vote is really the weapon and the power of people in this country. So it’s very important.”
After El-Sayed’s speech from the pulpit, Elahi reiterated: “So voting is as wajib [religiously required] as prayer, brothers and sisters. Time comes for elections, voting is wajib. Like salat [prayer] is a wajib dini [religious], walakin [but] vote is a wajib siyasi [political], wajib ejtema‘i [social]. So please, everybody, vote and let us vote for Brother Abdul El-Sayed.” Days before the election, without stating that his remarks represented only his personal views and not IHW’s, as the IRS requires of charity officials who electioneer, Elahi reminded followers on social media that El-Sayed is “the best person for Michigan, the best for the U.S., the best for humanity.”
Elahi completed his religious training in Iran and in the 1980s served as the director of the Political-Ideological Bureau of the Navy of the Islamic Republic before joining the editorial board of the state-run English-language daily Tehran Times. He immigrated to the United States in 1991, founded IHW in 1995, and continues to prop up the Iranian regime.
Elahi eulogized Khomeini in Tehran in 2024 at a ceremony in the ayatollah’s honor, mincing no words: “What the founder of the holy system of the Islamic Republic did was truly light.” Elahi is also a member of the Ahlul Bayt World Assembly, a transnational organization led by Iran’s supreme leader and dedicated to promoting the regime’s brand of Shia Islam.
Since 1954, the Johnson Amendment has prohibited all 501(c)(3) nonprofits, including tax-exempt houses of worship, from electioneering. The law states that 501(c)(3) organizations shall not “participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements) any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”
Neither the IRS nor IHW responded to requests for comment.
Although Johnson Amendment enforcement against houses of worship has historically been rare—NPR reported that only one church has ever lost its tax exemption over political activity—Elahi’s case is not ordinary pulpit electioneering. The issue is not merely that a cleric expressed a political preference. It is that a U.S.-based imam with longstanding ties to a hostile foreign power framed support for a Senate candidate as a religious obligation to his politically mobilized audience in a swing state with national electoral consequences.
That distinction matters. When religious leaders tell congregants which candidates they like, they violate the letter and the spirit of the Johnson Amendment. But when a cleric who venerates Khomeini’s theocracy tells worshippers that voting for his preferred candidate is wajib, invokes the need to “stop Trump” and “this war against Iran,” and calls the ballot a “weapon,” the issue becomes more serious than a violation of the Internal Revenue Code. It raises the question of whether a tax-exempt mosque is being used not merely to promote partisanship but to advance the political interests of a foreign regime.
The Islamic Republic’s own record makes that concern harder to dismiss. In 2020, according to the Office of Special Investigations, Iranian threat actors sent emails “masquerading as the Proud Boys” in an apparent effort to intimidate voters before Election Day. In 2024, too, the Iranian regime used “cyber operations” and “social engineering” to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, according to the FBI. The Iranian regime understands America’s political fault lines and is willing to exploit them.
Elahi’s endorsement of El-Sayed is not just another case of pulpit politics. It combines religious coercion, political campaign intervention, and the geopolitical priorities of an ideologue deeply tied to a foreign adversary engaged in an active conflict with the U.S.
