Over Labor Day weekend at Huntington Place in Detroit, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) handed the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat a stage, a thousand-person audience, and nearby floor space to recruit donors and volunteers. It was a risky move for ISNA, a 501(c)(3) charity, which is barred by federal law from intervening in an election.
Inside the convention hall, but before ISNA’s registration desk, Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign ran a full exhibitor booth beneath a step-and-repeat banner reading “ABDUL FOR US SENATE.” Flanking pull-up banners branded “Muslims for Abdul” told attendees to elect him. The table carried QR placards for “Donate Today” and “Volunteer Today,” “Muslims for Abdul” sticker rolls, and a sign offering a free T-shirt for a $50 contribution. Stacked beside them were invitations to a September 5 Detroit fundraiser. One of the campaign workers at the booth attempted to solicit a donation via a credit card from a writer for Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) even after he informed the worker that he was not a U.S. citizen.
On Saturday evening, during the convention’s marquee session, ISNA CEO Azhar Azeez introduced El-Sayed to roughly 1,000 attendees and embraced him onstage as the hall broke into sustained cheers. During his introduction, Azeez praised El-Sayed as a public official who cares more about ordinary Michiganders than “billionaires and corporations.”
El-Sayed’s campaign staff was seen working the convention hall before and after their candidate’s speech, waving posters, handing out flyers, and laying them across seats. A young male volunteer handed out campaign flyers just outside the hall as attendees filed out.
By allowing such leafleting, ISNA played fast and loose with federal law that prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations from participating or intervening in “any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” Federal statute also names the distribution of campaign literature as a form of intervention.
When El-Sayed finished his speech, Azeez returned to the stage to issue a disclaimer stating that ISNA is a religious non-profit that endorses no party or candidate. He then told the audience the Muslim community is “very smart, very wise” and that “they know exactly what decision to take.” Without naming the Republican Party or its nominee Mike Rogers, Azeez said ISNA had invited El-Sayed’s opponent and received no reply. It was an oblique response to concerns raised previously by FWI about pro-El-Sayed electioneering taking place at a mosque in nearby Dearborn, Michigan.
While the IRS allows political candidates to attend religious organization events, there are red lines that must not be crossed, which the agency explains in its Tax Guide for Churches & Religious Organizations. The organization should “not mention the individual’s political candidacy or the upcoming election” and it crosses the line if it “indicates any support of or opposition to the candidate,” or “any political fundraising occurs. The agency also explains that de facto endorsements can occur even without explicit mention, “but also by other means such as showing a picture of the candidate, referring to political party affiliations or other distinctive features of a candidate’s platform or biography.”
FWI has reached out to both ISNA and El-Sayed’s campaign and will post any responses.
Earlier that day, leaders of prominent American Muslim advocacy organizations used a convention panel to press attendees toward deeper political mobilization, repeatedly invoking New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and El-Sayed as the template for Muslim political ascent.
In 2007, federal prosecutors listed ISNA, one of the oldest Islamist organizations in America, as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the terrorism financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas financing operation. A court later reviewed this co-conspirator list, concluding that “The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of ... ISNA… with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (‘IAP’), and with Hamas.” In 2018, the Canada Revenue Agency suspended the Canadian branch of ISNA after the organization transferred $136,000 (Canadian) to Kashmir, where it is suspected to have fallen into the hands of the terrorist group Hizbul Mujahideen.