PHILADELPHIA, October 29, 2026. Speakers at Michigan Islamist pulpits have told worshippers that they live “in America, in the house of Shaitan [Satan],” declared that “the fall of the great Satan has begun,” prayed that God take Netanyahu, “his soldiers, and his minions” and “kill them individually, leaving none of them,” foretold the “final annihilation of Jews,” and asked God to let them “live upon jihad” and “die upon martyrdom.” The Middle East Forum today published these statements, each with the institution’s own video, in Michigan’s Islamist Pulpits (https://testimony.meforum.org).
Twelve of the 36 received $47,357,045 in federal, state, and city money.
The site sets out 928 statements from 36 Michigan Islamist institutions, each linked to the institution’s own video at the moment the words were spoken. Twelve of the 36 received $47,357,045 in federal, state, and city money. Forty-one public officials and public bodies attended, spoke at, honored, or funded them in 63 acts.
What the Forum found, in plain terms:
1. They call America the enemy. At the Islamic Center of Detroit, a speaker told worshippers in January 2025 that they were “living here in America, in the house of Shaitan [Satan].” At Light of Guidance in Dearborn: “Today, the fall of the great Satan has begun” (June 2020), and “We can raise children, Inshallah, to be soldiers of the Mahdi right here in the belly of the beast” (October 2025).
2. They pray for killing. At the Islamic Center of Detroit in May 2025: “O Allah, deal with Netanyahu, his soldiers, and his minions ... count them one by one and kill them individually, leaving none of them.” At the Islamic Organization of North America in Warren in 2013: “This final annihilation of Jews ... They will be exterminated.”
3. They pray for jihad and praise terrorists. At the American Moslem Society in Dearborn in April 2026: “let us live upon jihad in Your path and cause us to die upon martyrdom in Your path.” At the Al-Huda Islamic Association in Dearborn in August 2024, a speaker mourned Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as “the leader of the mujahideen.”
4. Taxpayers pay. The 12 institutions received $47,357,045 in federal, state, and city money. The Islamic Center of Detroit received $45.0 million of it: $43.7 million in federal school-meal reimbursement paid through the Michigan Department of Education, and $1 million in federal refugee assistance passed through the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity in 2025 and 2026. The Department of Homeland Security paid $2.4 million, most of it Nonprofit Security Grants passed through the State of Michigan to 8 of the institutions. Pandemic-era loans are not included.
5. Officials honor them. In December 2025, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II presented the Islamic Center of Detroit a 25th-anniversary tribute on behalf of the State of Michigan, 11 months after the “house of Shaitan” sermon and 7 months after the Netanyahu prayer. The Wayne County Commission placed a resolution honoring the same center on its December 2, 2025, agenda. Then-Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan attended its iftar in 2019. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud attended or spoke at events of 4 of the 36 institutions.
6. It is not only Michigan. The federal programs that paid these institutions (school meals, refugee assistance, and nonprofit security grants) send money through every state government.
“These are not anonymous voices on the internet. They are Michigan pulpits, in their own words, and many of them take public money and host public officials,” said Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum. “The First Amendment protects a sermon. It does not entitle anyone to a state honor or a federal grant. Michigan’s leaders should stop funding and honoring these institutions until they have reviewed what is preached there, and every governor and every federal agency should ask the same question about the institutions they fund.”
The First Amendment protects a sermon. It does not entitle anyone to a state honor or a federal grant.
The Middle East Forum calls on:
• Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity to suspend further refugee-assistance subawards to the Islamic Center of Detroit pending review.
• The Michigan Department of Education to publish the meal counts and site reviews behind the $43.7 million in school-meal reimbursement.
• The Michigan State Police to disclose how it vets recipients of Nonprofit Security Grant subawards.
• Lt. Gov. Gilchrist and the Wayne County Commission to say whether they will withdraw their 2025 honors to the Islamic Center of Detroit.
• The Michigan Legislature to hold public hearings and to require a review of an institution’s public statements before any state proclamation, tribute, or grant.
• Governors, attorneys general, and legislators in every state to ask which religious institutions receive school-meal, refugee, and security-grant money passed through their state, how those recipients are vetted, and which state officials have honored them.
• The Departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services to explain how they vet subrecipients, and Congress to hold oversight hearings on federal money to institutions whose pulpits pray for jihad and for the killing of Jews.
See every statement, the money, and the officials: https://testimony.meforum.org. Each institution received a request for comment before publication; replies appear on its page.
About the Middle East Forum
The Middle East Forum, founded in 1994, promotes American interests in the Middle East and protects Western values from Islamist threats through research, activism, and support for allies.
For immediate release
For more information, contact:
Gregg Roman
Roman@MEForum.org
+1 (215) 546 5406
