Reports: Despite Denials, Abdul El-Sayed Has Long Supported Muslim Brotherhood, Has Family Ties to Terrorist Group

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Evidence is mounting that Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat nominee for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat, not only supports the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood but has strong familial ties to designated terrorist group.

The U.S. government on January 13, 2026, designated the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, along with several other branches as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” for their material support to Hamas.

El-Sayed attended the University of Michigan, where he served as vice president of the campus chapter of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), which was founded in 1963 by Islamists affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. A 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum explicitly listed the MSA as one of the “organizations of our friends” that shared strategic goals. It described the student group as a “parallel structure” and a primary recruitment conduit for Islamist ideology in North America.

El Sayed publicly supported the radical Islamist group during the so-called “Arab Spring” in 2011, when the Democrat urged the U.S. government to support the Muslim Brotherhood revolutionaries in an article for the Huffington Post.

Last month, the Washington Free Beacon reported El-Sayed was one of 46 “leaders of the Egyptian community” in the United States who signed an Arabic-language statement in 2012 demanding that the newly installed Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt “purge” media and police.  A brutal crackdown on Egyptian journalists soon followed.

The Washington Free Beacon on Monday brought to light social media posts from El-Sayed’s half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, who stated in 2012 and 2013 that her family “has long been” part of the group.

Abdelhadi even shared that some of their relatives had been “jailed” for their membership. Abdelhadi is reportedly five years younger than El-Sayed and has a different father. She was arrested for spitting on a police officer during an anti-ICE rally in Chicago last year and was charged Oct. 3, 2025, with two counts of aggravated battery against a government employee, a Class 3 felony, and two misdemeanor counts of resisting or obstructing a peace officer.

El-Sayed’s mother, Fatten Elkomy, was active in the Muslim Brotherhood while in college in Egypt, according to Abdelhadi’s posts.

During a softball interview on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, El-Sayed denied that he and his family had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, despite the new evidence suggesting otherwise.

When host Kristen Welker asked El-Sayed whether he could “set the record straight” on allegations that his family had connections to the radical Islamist group, El-Sayed curtly responded “no.”

“No, you don’t have any ties, and your family doesn’t?” Welker followed up.

“No,” El-Sayed insisted before accusing his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, of attacking him simply because of his Muslim faith.

His sister, however, has repeatedly discussed her family’s ties to the Brotherhood online.

“My family has long been MB but I’ve always felt that it has navigated the political sphere poorly/destructively,” Abdelhadi wrote in a Twitter post on June 24, 2012. “Had an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college,” she posted on that same day.

Elkomy had attended Egypt’s Alexandria University—an alleged MB stronghold—and worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA), which was designated a terrorist organization in 2004 for supporting al-Qaeda and Hamas.

“I have had family jailed for being a part of it [Muslim Brotherhood],” Abdelhadi wrote on July 3, 2013. “Praying for all my family that supports the #MB in Egypt. Lie low, stay safe” she added.

By June 2013, protests against Morsi’s oppressive regime had engulfed the country and he was ousted in a military coup by Egyptian general Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a moderate Muslim who remains president to this day. Egypt’s military rulers banned the Muslim Brotherhood, and designated it a terrorist organization.

Former President Barack Obama, who also supported Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood during those turbulent years in Egypt, endorsed El-Sayed on Monday, in a campaign ad saying “this country belongs to all of us,” it’s  “under attack” and that “Michigan is where we fight back.”

The Muslim Brotherhood itself, meanwhile celebrated el-Sayed’s victory in the Democrat primary in August, posting on its Arabic language website a statement titled: “Abdul Rahman Al-Sayyid Conquers the Zionists and Runs For Senate.”

“He was the only American candidate whose victory was celebrated by the Muslim Brotherhood,” noted Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleisher on X.

An El-Sayed campaign spokesperson issued a statement Monday saying, “Abdul is a dad and a doctor. He has spent his entire career working to keep Michiganders healthy and safe. Independent fact checkers have repeatedly debunked Mike’s lies, but their campaign continues to use bad faith attacks on Abdul’s faith and family. Mike wants to distract from Trump’s agenda that is terrorizing Michigan families at the pump and at the grocery store.”

The campaign has previously said the Muslim Brotherhood accusations have been “debunked as racist and untrue.”

Audrey Fahlberg, Washington correspondent for The Free Press, joined NewsNation’s Leland Vittert on Monday to discuss the allegations.