Go Ahead, Call Abdul El-Sayed A “Jihadist”

President Trump has leveled up his attacks on Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, calling him “Mohamed” and “Abdul Ramadan” in a way meant to provoke his rally attendees and, one could argue, tap into anti-Muslim prejudices. Then he went a step further, labeling El-Sayed a “jihadist,” which has incensed the liberal media and led to a tidal wave of pearl-clutching at Al Jazeera, NPR, and the BBC.

On-air with the BBC’s Sumi Somaskanda, I answered a question about this campaign rhetoric and told the truth: calling El-Sayed a “jihadist” is not only fair play — it’s a legitimate concern.

The BBC didn’t take kindly to scrutiny of Abdul El-Sayed’s demonstrated affinity for Islamic terror. Michigan isn’t going to fall for this. https://t.co/R7H4o9kE0A

— Stephen Kent (@StephenKentX) October 28, 2026

This is what I told Somaskanda: “This is something that is actually important and plays into the zeitgeist of this campaign — this entire campaign with Mike Rogers has been about whether or not El-Sayed has been clear enough on his associations, family ties, and affinity for the Muslim Brotherhood and foreign terrorism from Islamic groups. I have never heard from him a very clear layout of what kind of Islamic terrorism he objects to, and when someone runs a van into a Jewish kindergarten, his response to that is ‘hurt people, hurt people’ — people have valid questions about whether or not he is warm to Islamic terror, and ‘jihadist’ is a word to communicate that.”

Somaskanda looked panicked and began running cover: “Abdul El-Sayed did apologize for those comments on the ramming attack on the synagogue and said that he didn’t want to cause that pain with his words — and there is no evidence that he is a jihadist — ‘jihadist’ indicates a certain aggression (violence) that certainly is not there.”

This is false. While jihad is most popularly understood as the violent terrorism witnessed on September 11, 200, or the truck attack in Nice, France, on Bastille Day 2016, or the coordinated Easter church bombings in Sri Lanka back in 2019, or the Islamic State-inspired mass shooting that occurred in late 2025 at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia — jihad is not limited to violent suicide attacks.

In the case of United States v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, et al. (2008), a memo was entered into evidence dated May 22, 1991, titled “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.” In the memo, the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) is identified as the head of a strategy to advance a global jihad through information warfare and society.

In their own words:

The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.

It’s worth remembering that the defendants in the Holy Land Foundation case, who received prison sentences, known as “The Holy Land Five,” are praised by none other than New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in his less-than-stellar rap music from before his political rise. In July 2004, a federal grand jury issued a 42-count indictment accusing the Holy Land Foundation and related entities of directing roughly $12.4 million to Hamas-controlled committees in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Ikhwan memo on Civilization-Jihad is a blueprint for Islam to settle North America and reform its institutions and culture using the accepted methods of change in that part of the world: politics and media. The Brotherhood articulates the goal of “settlement of Dawa,” shorthand for Islam rising as a “civilizational alternative” against its rivals. Those alternatives would include Western liberal democracy and the legacy states linked to Judeo-Christian civilization.

Within Islam, there is “lesser” and “greater” jihad. Liberals running cover for radical Islam will insist that all jihad is “internal struggle against sin,” which is categorized as the “Greater Jihad.” External struggle, violence, martyrdom, and what we call terrorism fall into the category of “Lesser Jihad.” It’s all jihad. That’s why a New York cleric, Ibn Muneer, said, “Islam without jihad is like honey without the sweetness.” The Muslim Brotherhood, of which Abdul El-Sayed has numerous links to, has a category for the “Grand Jihad,” which is well-suited for participation in American politics and government.

When they say “grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within,” that means getting elected to office, in say…New York City, or the United States Senate.

When El-Sayed’s half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, says that “My family has long been MB (Muslim Brotherhood),” this is a serious matter. It’s even more serious because getting Abdul El-Sayed to address it is like pulling teeth.

I understand why Somaskanda and the BBC tread carefully when a politician calls a Muslim Senate candidate a jihadist. It’s strong language, and I have no interest in stoking anti-Muslim sentiment. But the media’s caution is backward. If criticizing ISIS sympathizers is the same as criticizing Muslims, then you’re the one claiming the two are the same thing. They aren’t, and Bondi Beach proved it. When a father and son opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration, it was a Muslim bystander, Ahmed al-Ahmed, who heroically subdued one of the gunmen with his bare hands.

The facts of Abdul El-Sayed’s race for Senate are simple: He has a disturbing number of links to the Muslim Brotherhood, and he has struggled to convince anyone that he isn’t sympathetic to their goals. So, Trump should feel free to carry on with his attacks on Abdul El-Sayed, but bonus points for cleverness are owed to Ted Cruz, who called Abdul a “jihadist leprechaun.”

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 Stephen Kent is a conservative columnist. Follow him on X @StephenKentX.

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