Politicians and Anti-Muslim Activists Keep Getting Michigan Wrong

Michigan has long served as home to a diverse collection of Middle Eastern communities, woven into the state’s social and economic fabric through successive waves of immigration over the past century. In recent years, however, rising community tensions—fueled by terrorism plots, illegal migration, and ideological dogma—have put these communities under a spotlight.

Increasingly, anti-Islam activists, led by figures such as Jake Lang, a far-right operative and (pardoned) January 6 rioter, have focused their rage on Islam and Muslims, organizing ugly protests and burning Qurans.

Such provocations serve to distract policymakers and the press, by reducing scrutiny on the real, tangible question of Islamism and its networks across Michigan. The real threat is not theology, but political ideology.

The result is a state trapped in a fog of misdiagnosis. The hard left blindly denies the problem of Islamism, while the hard right obsesses over ordinary Muslims. Meanwhile, powerful, competing Islamist networks operate with impunity across Michigan through mosques, community centers, and advocacy groups, shaping local politics and communities in ways that go mostly unexamined.

Across Michigan, Sunni Islamist members of transnational ideological networks have sought power beyond religious leadership, pursuing formal political authority, leveraging local communities and their politics to advance extremist agendas. In Hamtramck, Islamist members of the city council, including the mayor, have demonstrated how to capture local institutions and reshape them from within. Recent Hamtramck decisions have included staffing changes that reduced non-Muslim representation within city administration, alongside anti-Jewish rhetoric, condemnations of U.S. military aid to Israel, and renaming a major city street to “Palestine Avenue.” Similarly, Islamist operatives in the state engaged in efforts to disrupt Democratic primaries during the 2024 election, underscoring Islamist determination to impose political change more broadly.

Several Michigan organizations operate within broader international Islamist networks tied to state actors. For instance, the 2014-established Turken Foundation, an accused Turkish regime influence operations that maintains activities and partnerships in Michigan. Turken was established by Turkish organizations Ensar Foundation and TÜRGEV, both publicly associated with President Erdoğan’s Islamist-political network. TÜRGEV, in fact, is controlled by members of Erdoğan’s own family.

In 2018, Turken acquired Muhammad Ali’s former estate in Berrien Springs, Michigan, for $2.5 million, with plans to develop it into an educational camp and summer school. Through student housing, educational programming, and social programs, Turken’s efforts illustrate how foreign-linked institutions cultivate long-term influence by shaping educational and community institutions.

Qatar also has engaged directly with local institutions, such as through its ambassador’s participation in a 2023 community ceremony at the Islamic Center of Detroit, to which Qatar provided financial support. The Detroit mosque has long served as a key platform for extremist Salafi speakers.

While such outreach is legal and overt, it reflects a broader pattern of religious diplomacy, in which foreign Islamist governments cultivate relationships with local religious institutions to build goodwill and influence within diaspora communities.

Alongside these institutions, political advocacy groups the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Emgage Action, which were founded by supporters of Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, play an increasingly prominent role in voter mobilization and policy advocacy.

CAIR and Emgage operate domestically and lawfully, but their proximity to transnational ideological currents complicates efforts to distinguish grassroots political participation from imported political agendas. The head of CAIR’s Michigan branch, Dawud Walid, mixes Islamism with black nationalism and has a history of overt bigotry and support for violent criminals.

Photos published by Niraj Warikoo

Sections of Michigan’s Shi‘a-majority neighborhoods—particularly in Dearborn and parts of Flint densely populated with Lebanese and Iraqi expats—operate under a different set of transnational influences.

Major community centers such as the Islamic Center of America (ICA), the Islamic House of Wisdom (IHW) and the Al-Mabarrat Association maintain ties, direct or indirect, to Iranian regime’s clerics in Qom, as well as to charitable networks and political movements aligned with Hezbollah and violent Iraqi factions. Imams such Mohammad Ali Elahi, who reportedly previously worked as a senior regime operative, are openly supportive of Hezbollah,

Academic studies, including those produced by researchers at George Washington University, and public reporting on nonprofit funding show that scholarships, welfare programs, and community activities in Michigan often rely on financial pipelines originating overseas. A 2024 GWU study highlighted Dearborn’s IHW and ICA as pivotal hubs for pro-Iranian ideology.

These Khomeinist institutions work to impose political change. In 2022, Hassan Al-Qazwini, of the Islamic Institute of America, used his pulpit to denounce school libraries for promoting “pornography” and “homosexuality,” urging congregants to confront the Dearborn Public Schools board and “vote them out” if necessary. Within days, hundreds of activists packed school-board meetings, forcing one to shut down before multiple titles were removed.

Beneath Michigan’s legitimate businesses lie an under-reported layer of illicit commerce, involving tobacco and cannabis interstate smuggling, stolen car-export operations, and cross-border money movement. There is evidence of significant Islamist involvement with such crimes, with DEA and ATF task forces uncovering Hezbollah-linked smuggling rings active in the state, alongside other laundering activities.

Michigan’s array of extremism forces, with Islamists on one side, and increasingly violent anti-Muslim activists on the other, has increasingly prompted the quiet departure of law-abiding families. An Iraqi resident, a former interpreter for U.S. forces, warned about harassment from Islamists, confiding to FWI: “They pressure them to pick sides, threats if you don’t participate.”

By targeting Muslims as a monolithic bloc, populist anti-Muslim activists make it easier for progressive Democrats to embrace Islamist-run Muslim voter mobilization structures, thereby strengthening Michigan Islamists and reducing the political will to scrutinize their foreign funding and ideological ties.

Foul-mouthed Michigan political activists such as gubernatorial candidate Anthony Hudson, meanwhile, have begun to note the political advantages of the left’s outreach to Islamists. Hudson has begun to reject his past anti-Muslim positions, to the delight of Islamist groups such as CAIR.

Populist anti-Muslim rhetoric and progressivist shielding of Islamism have become two sides of the same coin: jointly insulating radical networks from scrutiny. In all cases, the Islamists benefit, and Michigan’s moderate Muslims are left behind.

American history is littered with religious panics, from the 19th-century Know-Nothings anti-Catholic movements, to 1920s quotas on “Hebrew hordes.” Each faded under constitutional challenge. Anti-Muslim waves will be futile, and Islamism will persist, unless dissent shifts toward an accurate public discourse that recognizes intra-Muslim diversity and separates faith from transnational political agendas.

Foreign governments and ideological movements seek to build long-term influence in Michigan. Shedding the radicalism of both sides of the political aisle, policymakers must act against these ideological threats working to shape Michigan’s political environment through the manipulation of its Muslim communities.

There is important work to be done: enforcing financial transparency, scrutinizing foreign funding, minimizing foreign influence operations and empowering the silent majority of law-abiding Michigan residents who simply want functional civic institutions.

Until Americans confront the ideological reality in Michigan, the state’s loudest actors—Islamists, demagogues, and opportunists—will keep defining Michigan’s politics.