A Call To Power: Islamic Leaders See Ballot Box As Path To Paradise
by Tyler Durden
Saturday, Aug 22, 2026 - 07:10 AM
Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations,
The call to prayer is sounding across America. From Hamtramck, Michigan, to Paterson, New Jersey, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, rooftop amplifiers remind growing numbers of Muslim faithful five times a day of their duties with the Arabic message that "Allah is the Greatest! There is no god but Allah!"
The so-called "adhan" is just one sign of how Islam is transforming pockets of the nation. As more Muslims participate in the country's political life, running for office, influencing, and in some cases, even controlling local governments, they are putting their own stamps on their communities: renaming city streets after Arab homelands and mandating Islamic holidays and halal-only lunches in public schools, while even changing noise ordinances to the consternation of many non-Muslim neighbors.
Like Polish, German, Irish, and Italian immigrants before them, American Muslims now control several small cities. These include Hamtramck, which has an all-Muslim city council, as well as midsize cities like neighboring Dearborn. They are also wielding influence in large metropolises like New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani's top staff is composed almost entirely of Muslims.
In one sense, this is just the continuation of the country's deep tradition of offering newcomers the opportunity to contribute their own customs to American society. But
some critics say this iteration of the immigrant story offers a distinct challenge. A number of leading Muslim candidates for office, for example, are so opposed to America's longtime ally Israel that their rhetoric veers into antisemitism. And some, such as the Democratic Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, are being supported with campaign funds linked to Hamas front groups and the radical, pro-jihad Muslim Brotherhood, which federal authorities say has a secret
plan for "destroying" America "from within."
El-Sayed won his primary with at least $315,000 in Muslim Brotherhood-tied funds, a RealClearInvestigations examination of Federal Election Commission filings reveals, and he hopes his harsh
attacks on "evil" Israel will help him become the first Muslim to sit in the U.S. Senate. Other Muslim candidates have ties to groups that have officially been designated as terror organizations, including al-Qaeda. Adam Hisham Hamawy, the Democratic nominee running for New Jersey's 12th Congressional District, once maintained close ties to the late al-Qaeda "Blind Sheikh," who was convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, including acting as his translator, driver and defense witness.
Critics say electing Muslims to public office is freighted with other concerns. Many come from Islamic nations where corruption is the norm, and those ways have carried over to places like Hamtramck, where the majority of the city council is under active investigation for election fraud; and to Minneapolis, where Muslim lawmakers and the Muslim attorney general have been accused of protecting, even enabling, Somali immigrants who stole hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from state and federal welfare agencies as part of a massive fraud ring,
according to the Justice Department. The 2026 Directory of Elected Muslim Officials reports that there are currently 228 American Muslim elected officials serving across 26 states.
Critics also warn that, unlike mainstream modern Christianity, Islam does not distinguish between the spiritual and political realms. Sharia law, for example, applies to religious and civic life because they are one and the same in Islam.
Based on the Quran and other holy Islamic scripture,
Sharia regulates Muslim worship, dress and diet. But it also
sanctions practices at odds with not only American culture but also the U.S. legal system - including domestic violence, polygamy, female circumcision, forced child marriage, honor killings, and militant jihad.
European Warning Signs
Republican lawmakers and counterterrorism experts fear that as Muslims win control of towns and cities, they may weaken the nation's separation of church and state while creating the kind of dangerous
"no-go" areas for non-Muslims that authorities now identify in some 900 enclaves of Europe with heavy concentrations of Muslim immigrants.
Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Portugal, and Switzerland are among EU members that have passed laws
aimed at curbing radical Islam. The
French Senate also passed a law in May aimed at countering "Islamist Infiltration" of the country following a 2025
government report, "
Muslim Brotherhood and Political Islam in France," and a poll that year finding a majority of Muslims in France aged 15 to 24
prefer Sharia law over French law.
"Tolerating beachheads of radical Islam in our country is literally civilization suicide," said Missouri Rep. Bob Onder during a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing on the growing internal threat from Islam. "We're seeing in many cases a lack of assimilation [from Muslim immigrants]. They join these very closed groups that are committed to imposing Sharia law."
"Tolerating that seems to be utter insanity," Onder added, "especially if we see what's going on in Europe right now, what's going on in Germany, in London, in France."
Democrats and Muslim-rights groups counter that fears of Sharia creeping deeper into society are overblown and a symptom of "Islamophobia."
"Actually, it doesn't appear to be an issue anywhere in this country," countered Pennsylvania Rep. Mary Scanlon. "In my district, we have a growing cultural center, Africatown, founded by immigrants-turned-citizens, many of whom are Muslim and have made huge contributions to our economic, cultural, charitable and civic life."
"There's no evidence of any plot to impose Sharia law on non-believers of Islam," she added. "It's just not happening."
Yet Islamic teaching does urge believers to create a world where everyone submits to Allah. While Christian missionaries also proselytize even in Muslim countries, opinion surveys show that Muslims in America and around the world are far more committed to global conversion. An in-depth examination by RealClearInvestigations reveals that Muslim elected officials and spiritual leaders, backed by their own funds and foreign money, some tied to officially designated terror groups, are seeking to carve out their own societies within the United States. And while many Muslims are assimilating more traditional Western values, there is also a strong push to recreate communities based on the values and cultures of their former homelands.
Vision of the Future
One vision of the Muslim future in America is being carved out of 400 acres of Texas prairie land in an unincorporated area just outside Dallas. Islamic leaders there are planning to build their own "city" to serve as the "epicenter of Islam in North America," according to court papers filed by Texas' attorney general, who opposes the project.
The massive East Plano Islamic Center, which is known as EPIC City, has already featured several extremist clerics. One of its imams, Yasir Qadhi, has
preached to the Muslim faithful that the Quran calls Jews and Christians "filthy" and condemns them to "hellfire," and that
killing homosexuals and stoning adulterers is part of their religion. Qadhi chairs a powerful Sharia-ruling body, the Fiqh Council of North America, that guides the sermons and actions of clerics at America's estimated 3,500 mosques.
Qadhi is helping promote the development of EPIC City, which was recently rebranded "The Meadows" following local backlash over a promotional
video that promised the community would bring "Islam to the forefront." In June, EPIC
sponsored a "Muslims only" event at an indoor public water park in the Dallas area - owned by the local government and funded by taxpayers - that was canceled after public outcry over the
flyer, which stated: "CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC - MUSLIM ONLY."
"Islam is on the march [and] no-go zones are building," warned Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, who co-founded the Sharia-Free America Caucus on Capitol Hill. "There are now no-go zones in the DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth) metroplex."
Qadhi and EPIC deny building a "no-go zone" and say they are just meeting demand for housing from Muslims in their flock. They point out that Texas is now home to hundreds of thousands of Muslim families, and they say their project is "still going full-speed ahead."
A similar Islamic compound, built by different developers, is under construction outside Houston. The "Sharia-compliant"
Al-Huda Islamic Center in Katy, Texas, features a planned grand mosque, K-12 madrassas for "Quran memorization," an Islamic university, cricket fields, several apartment complexes, health clinics, and retail shopping centers with halal butchers on more than 30 acres of farmland. "The surrounding area will also be fully constructed to provide a safe place for a community of Muslims," Al-Huda
reveals in a fundraising appeal to Muslim investors.
To accommodate the prayer needs of the growing ranks of Muslims in Texas, both Dallas and Houston airports have agreed to
install Muslim foot-washing stations in bathrooms, although DFW is reconsidering its plans following public backlash.
Experts expect this so-called "Islamification" process to only grow as more Muslim refugees resettle in towns and cities across the U.S. - from the suburbs of northern Seattle, where thousands of Afghans are being relocated, to those in northern Virginia, the immigrant-rich backyard of America's capital. Estimates of the Muslim American population vary widely. The Pew Research Center estimates it at
3.5 million, while the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) puts it at
8 million. There is broad agreement, however, that Islam is by far the fastest-growing religion
in the U.S. and
around the world. As the recent events in Spain show, where 60,000 Muslim migrants stormed the border early this month, many followers of the faith clamor to come to the West.
They will certainly gain more power in the U.S. as
Muslim leaders become active politically.
Financing Friendly Candidates
Islamic organizers are advancing a nationwide plan to back Muslim and other Islamic-friendly candidates with financing from a potential political war chest of more than $140 million a year in mosque and other donations from the swelling Muslim-American community.
Earlier this year, the Qadhi-led Fiqh Council of North America issued a legal ruling (
fatwah) in coordination with the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America that for the first time unlocks Muslim-American tithing and charitable giving, known as "zakat," for political use: "[G]iving one's zakat for influencing political causes is warranted." The stated goal is to, broadly, "empower" Muslim communities in America, but more specifically, to fund the campaigns of politicians who oppose Israel and support policies such as criminalizing criticism of the Prophet Muhammad and Islam in general.
Qadhi is
sympathetic to such censorship: "For us Muslims, an infinitely more amount of respect should be shown to our religious symbols and especially to our prophet."
Efforts are already underway at the state level. In Virginia, which now boasts the fourth-highest Islamic population in the U.S., a Muslim Democrat has introduced a bill in the state senate to amend hate-crimes law to criminalize "prejudice toward Islam," not just Muslims. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim, also mandates that state troopers track "Islamophobia" as a new bias-motivated offense category. At the same time,
RCI has reported, hateful rhetoric castigating Christians, Jews, and others is common in American mosques.
Legal scholars say any such blasphemy law would likely be struck down as an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment's free speech clause. Critics say this is lost on such Muslim activists, who use America's cornerstone civil rights - in this case, the freedom to practice religion - to advance their faith and its influence. In a 2023 talk to American Muslims, Qadhi exulted that they had a blessing most other Muslims lack: "A Constitution that protects our freedoms. We thank Allah for that freedom."
Also in the past year, Islamic activists have formed their own political super PACs, including one backing El-Sayed - Fighting for Michigan PAC - whose main contributor is a longtime leader in Muslim Brotherhood front groups in America blacklisted by the Justice Department as unindicted terrorist co-conspirators. Another is the Unity and Justice Fund, which Sharia watchdogs claim is part of a highly organized "electoral jihad" to
change foreign U.S. policy and
push Sharia-conforming laws.
The Unity and Justice Fund, which is aggressively raising money from mosques and Islamic groups to back Democrats in the November congressional election, is connected to the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR, the nation's largest Muslim-rights group, has a long-term
plan to elect 30 Muslims to Congress, including at least two in the Senate. If he wins in November, El-Sayed would be the first Muslim senator. Currently, four Muslims serve in Congress, all Democrats. Surveys show Muslims vote overwhelmingly Democratic.
At the same time, CAIR says it is grooming more than 200 Muslims to run for state and local offices, as well. A "U.S. based Hamas front organization,"
according to former FBI agent Lara Burns, CAIR was critical in organizing financial support and getting out the vote for New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The group now has former employees represented in top posts inside his administration. CAIR denies connections to Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet in 2009, after the Justice Department
named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror fundraising case in U.S. history, a federal court
found "ample evidence" linking CAIR to Hamas.
Robert Spencer, a senior fellow with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, recently testified in Congress that the ultimate goal of CAIR and other Hamas- and Muslim Brotherhood-tied groups is to turn America into an Islamic nation. "This is all about political power" and Islamic dominance, he maintained.
End of Part 1
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EVERY TEXAN MUST READ THIS - VOTE LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT THIS NOVEMBER!
