In a video from last May that RNC Research posted on Friday and since then has amassed over 70,000 views, Marxist Muslim Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed tells a story that seems to be about the dangers of being hypocritical. He ends up, however, revealing more about his own views than the handlers who are featuring his wholesome American grandparents in campaign ads might have liked.
El-Sayed tells a story dating from his stint as executive director of the Detroit Health Department, a job he held from 2015 to 2017. “When I was first year as health director,” El-Sayed says, “I walked into a gas station slash liquor store, you know the type, you know, you were raised in Detroit. Yeah, I know. And I got this business owner, Arab guy, who's got this big, thick beard, right? And he, I was buying Gatorade or something, and I bring it to the teller to pay for it.” The teller? What, they sell Gatorade at the bank now?
WATCH
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 4, 2026
In May this year, Abdul El-Sayed admitted to a violent rage where he smashed a bottle of vodka and destroyed a store owners property all because he was told his beard was too short. pic.twitter.com/KGMRbUR8Uc
Anyway, El-Sayed continues: “And he says, ‘Oh, you know, are you Muslim?’ I said, “Yeah.’ He said, ‘Well, your beard is too short.’” The clerk was apparently trying to shame El-Sayed as un-Islamic for trimming his beard too close. Islamic tradition states that Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, “used to have a very hairy beard.” (Sahih Muslim 2344) Another tradition states that Muhammad “had a thick beard; according to another report, he had a bushy beard; according to another report, he had a wide beard.” (An-Nisaa’ 5232)
It matters how Muhammad wore his beard because the Qur’an says: “Indeed in the messenger of Allah you have an excellent example for him who looks to Allah and the last day, and remembers Allah a great deal.” (33:21) Muhammad’s status as the “excellent example” applies to everything: If Muhammad did something, it is good, and Muslims should imitate Muhammad’s behavior.
The executive director of the Detroit Health Department, however, was not in any mood to be questioned about his Islamic bona fides. “I was like, ‘Okay, you're going to judge me? Okay, give me a second. I forgot something.’ So I walked back, I get a fifth of vodka, and I put it on the, I put it on the counter.’ He's like, ‘You can't buy that.’ I was like, “You're right, and you can't sell it.’ So I smashed it on the ground and walked out.”
In taking a bottle of vodka from the store’s stock and smashing it on the floor, El-Sayed was telling the alarmed storekeeper that he wasn’t in compliance with Sharia, either, since he was selling alcohol. Another tradition has one of Muhammad’s early followers relating what Muhammad thought of all this. “Narrated Jabir bin Abdullah: That he heard Allah’s Messenger saying in the year of the Conquest (of Mecca) while he was in Mecca, ‘Allah and His Apostle have made the selling of wine (i.e. alcoholic drinks) unlawful.’” (Sahih al-Bukhari 4296)
In March 2009, Abdul El-Sayed said: “Ultimately, the question is, when I die and I stand before God and go through everything I did in my life, I don’t want to say I did it the easy way instead of the Shariah-compliant way.”
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Yes, his beard is too short by Islamic standards. But is it really wise for Michigan to send a largely Sharia-compliant Muslim to the Senate? Leftists would say yes, as Sharia is harmless religious law. But it isn’t. It’s political, supremacist, expansionist and violent. And here also we have the specter of a man who wants a seat in the U.S. Senate calmly telling a story about how he destroyed part of this liquor store’s stock, didn’t pay for it, and left the premises. The Senate is already full of thieves, but do we really need a Sharia-adherent vandal to join them?
If we had journalists these days, one of them might ask El-Sayed some specific questions about his views regarding Sharia and the U.S. Constitution, and which one he plans to put first if he is elected. If anyone did ask El-Sayed such a question, however, the candidate would almost certainly react by excoriating the questioner for his “Islamophobia,” and leaving the legitimate concerns of Americans who don’t want to live under Sharia unaddressed.
At very least, if he becomes a senator, El-Sayed should pay that poor devil for the bottle of vodka he broke.
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