A Pakistani cleric who admitted to forcing his 13-year-old niece into marriage will no longer appear at the Islamic Society of North America's annual convention, where Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is scheduled to speak over Labor Day weekend. But El-Sayed will still share the stage with plenty of controversial speakers, including Islamic scholars who have called the Holocaust a "hoax," accused Israel of bankrolling ISIS, and defended the practice of sex slavery and marital rape.
Tariq Masood was slated to speak on a panel about youth mental health but "is no longer speaking at the convention," ISNA said Monday following a Washington Free Beacon report on the influential cleric, who has defended child marriage and admitted that he forced his young niece to get married, remarks that prompted Canadian activists to urge their government to block Masood's visa to the country in 2024 over his "pedophilic rhetoric." The report stoked outcry against El-Sayed, who has sought to cast Republicans as "pedophile protectors" for allegedly blocking the release of Jeffrey Epstein files.
El-Sayed's campaign distanced the candidate from Masood, saying that "Abdul is not affiliated with and does not endorse any other participant of the conference" and that the candidate is scheduled "to speak on unity and commitment to justice in public service."
"We have no further comment on this matter," ISNA spokeswoman Crystal Habib told the Free Beacon.
While Masood seems to have crossed a rhetorical red line for ISNA and El-Sayed, the convention will still feature a number of speakers with records of extremism. That could further fuel concerns about El-Sayed's connections to Islamic extremists. El-Sayed, who is running against Republican Mike Rogers, has already faced scrutiny over his father-in-law Tayeb Jukaku's position on the founding committee of ISNA, which the federal government identified as a public-facing group for the Muslim Brotherhood and linked to the financing of Hamas, the Free Beacon reported.
Texas-based imam Yasir Qadhi, who will appear on several panels over the weekend, has called the Holocaust a "hoax" and said Adolf Hitler "never intended to mass-destroy the Jews." AbdulNasir Jangda, another Texas-based cleric who will speak on a panel with Qadhi, has defended the practice of sex slavery and said that husbands have a right under Islamic law to rape their wives, according to reports.
Baqir Berry and Hassan Qazwini, two influential imams in the Dearborn area, will also speak on a panel about closing the "divide" between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Berry, the head of Dearborn's Islamic Institute of Knowledge, prayed in a sermon in June to grant "mighty victory" to the "mujahideen" over the "evil of these Zionists," the Middle East Media Research Institute reported.
Qazwini, the head of the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, recently prayed in a sermon to "grant victory to our brothers in Iran" and "inflict defeat upon Your Zionist enemies."
In 2020, then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders's campaign condemned Qazwini's "antisemitic conspiracy theories" after the imam accused Israel of backing ISIS. El-Sayed offered Qazwini a "hearty congratulations" during a speech at the grand opening of the Islamic Institute of America in June, the Free Beacon reported.
Other convention speakers include Siraj Wahhaj, a New York-based imam who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Hussam Ayloush, an official with the pro-Hamas Council on American-Islamic Relations, will speak on a panel about civic participation. After Oct. 7, 2023, Ayloush said that "Israel should be attacked" and that if "you want to pick up arms and defend your people and your land, that is a legitimate right."
Perhaps the biggest convention draw besides El-Sayed is former Pakistani president Arif Alvi. Alvi, who will give the keynote speech at the convention, stoked outrage in 2018 when he declined to amend Pakistan's anti-blasphemy laws after two Christian brothers were sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
El-Sayed's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
