Will the federal government do anything to stop Islamists from using tax-exempt nonprofit groups to influence U.S. elections? Based on the IRS’s lax track record of enforcing the restriction on political campaign intervention by houses of worship and charities, and the willingness of successive administrations to accommodate church electioneering, it seems unlikely.
Take, for instance, Imam Hassan Qazwini telling worshippers on July 31, “don’t allow the Zionist candidate to win” at the Islamic Institute of America, in Dearborn Heights.
Islamist organizations in Michigan took advantage of the IRS’s failure to enforce the law this past summer, in the run-up to the 2026 Democratic Senate primary. The razor-thin victory of Abdul el Sayed over Haley Stevens — with a margin of less than 1 percent or just 13,792 votes — followed an active season of politicking by at least seven Michigan mosques. Most of that activity appears to contradict IRS guidance.
Take, for instance, Imam Hassan Qazwini telling worshippers on July 31, “don’t allow the Zionist candidate to win” at the Islamic Institute of America, in Dearborn Heights. The IRS says violations can include “code words for names,” such as “conservative,” “pro-choice,” or “when the message concerns an issue that figures prominently in the campaign and on which the candidates hold opposing views.” Zionism has been a prominent issue in Michigan, and el Sayed’s opponent was widely perceived as the pro-Israel Democrat.
Others were more explicit. After a sermon on Aug. 3 about defeating “Zionist lowlives,” Imam Husham al Husainy of Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center proclaimed, as el Sayed stood next to him, that “if you want to give victory to God, give victory to el Sayed.”
Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi also invited el Sayed to speak at his mosque, the Islamic House of Wisdom. With el Sayed’s campaign booth in the mosque set up for donations, he told his followers, “vote for brother Abdul el Sayed,” adding it was “as wajib [obligatory] as prayer.”
Elahi’s electioneering is particularly troubling given his ties to Iran’s Khomeinist regime. Before coming to the United States in 1991, Elahi directed the Political-Ideological Bureau of Iran’s navy, according to the CIA, Iranian media, and his own words in Persian. Elahi is a sitting member of the Ahlul Bayt World Assembly, founded by Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to ABWA’s media arm. In 2024, Iranian state media reported that, at a ceremony in Tehran in honor of Khomeini, Elahi gave an address in which he said: “What the founder of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic did was truly light.”
While not an insider like Elahi, KIEC’s Imam al Husainy carries water for Iran’s regime and its proxies. In a 2022 interview, he praised God for the Islamic Republic, calling it “the light going to Lebanon, to Syria, to Iraq, to Yemen, to all over.” In 2006, he reportedly held a picture of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during an event at his mosque.
With el Sayed’s campaign booth in the mosque set up for donations, he told his followers, “vote for brother Abdul el Sayed,” adding it was “as wajib [obligatory] as prayer.”
Nasrallah was also honored by IIOA’s Hassan Qazwini in a sermon delivered in 2025. IIOA had held a memorial for Nasrallah in 2024. According to Arab American News, Qazwini said he had a “special relationship” with Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who was a U.S.-designated terrorist known as the “‘godfather’ of Hezbollah.”
Criticizing Islamism is not contrary to America’s foundational ideal of religious tolerance. As an immigrant from Iran, with family from Afghanistan, I can speak to the fact that many Muslims have come to America to escape Islamism and have embraced the secularism, liberal democracy, and personal freedoms that make the U.S. “a shining city on a hill.”
Some reactionaries argue there is no room for Islam or Muslims in America. Reprehensible as that rhetoric is, the impulse to overcorrect for bigotry by avoiding the issue of Islamism altogether is no solution. As Zainab al Suwaij recently argued in the Wall Street Journal: “To Help Muslims, Reject Islamists.” Islamism is categorically different from the personal faith practiced by millions of moderate Muslims. Ignoring it is well-intentioned but naïve.
A more widely reported example of Islamist electioneering was the Islamic Society of North America, which allowed el Sayedto campaign at its convention in September. ISNA CEO Azhar Azeez gave a glowing introduction and hugged the candidate onstage before el Sayed’s speech. Afterward, Azeez told the audience ISNA cannot make any endorsements, but the Muslim community is “very smart, very wise” and “know[s] exactly what decision they should take.” El Sayed campaign posters were visible as Azeez spoke. There was even a campaign booth at the venue taking donations. Azeez told Texas Scorecard his remarks meant “[voters] would know who to vote for based on what these candidates have to offer.”
The U.S. government listed ISNA as an unindicted co-conspirator and a member of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation Hamas-financing case. In 2009, a judge found prosecutors had violated ISNA’s rights by naming it publicly, but refused to delist it, citing Brotherhood documents that listed ISNA among its “organizations and the organizations of our friends” and described it as an “apparatus” of the Brotherhood.
People who seek to undermine a free and open society are taking advantage of America’s freedom and openness to promote Islamist interests.
Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) has asked the IRS to investigate ISNA’s conduct, but it remains to be seen if action will be taken. According to the IRS, its focus is education and compliance, so it usually just warns violators. It has “proposed revocation in a few egregious cases,” but the details are unclear. The only identifiable organizations that have lost their status, based on IRS testimony in 2002, are two churches. The most recent public data show revocations of seven unnamed organizations in the 2000s. However, the IRS “found political campaign intervention in over two-thirds of the organizations that were selected for examination,” according to an agency page last updated on July 24, 2026.
Neither the IRS nor the mosques responded to requests for comment.
These possible violations are the tip of the iceberg. People who seek to undermine a free and open society are taking advantage of America’s freedom and openness to promote Islamist interests. American taxpayers are subsidizing this agenda through a system that gives nonprofit organizations tax exemptions, with the stipulation that they stay nonpartisan. Even when they potentially violate that rule, the IRS apparently gives Islamist organizations a pass.
