Abdul El-Sayed's father-in-law, a top donor to a super PAC supporting the left-wing Michigan Senate hopeful, is among the top leaders of an Islamic organization identified by the federal government as a public facing group for the Muslim Brotherhood, a Washington Free Beacon review found. As part of his role with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which the federal government linked to the financing of Hamas, Tayeb Jukaku contributes at least $5,000 to the organization annually.
Jukaku has served on the 20-member founding committee of ISNA since at least 2007, according to the organization's magazine, Islamic Horizons, and has been a member of the group for a "long time, cannot recall [when I joined]," according to Jukaku's online bio. Federal prosecutors identified the organization as an unindicted co-conspirator in the landmark 2007 terrorist financing case USA v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which culminated in the conviction of the foundation's founders for funneling $12 million to Hamas. They also identified the ISNA as one of eight entities "who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood."
The Holy Land Foundation trial began in 2007 as Jukaku served on ISNA's founding committee, and he and other committee members are required to contribute at least $5,000 annually to the organization in addition to "the 'Founders Legacy Fund,'" according to the group.
Lorenzo Vidino, the director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, said ISNA "was historically, no question, an organization created … by the Muslim Brotherhood and fellow travelers from the Indian subcontinent as basically the Islamist organization in America." He noted that Tayeb was involved with the group "when they were putting out some really nasty stuff."
"To be on the founding committee, this is the elders of the organization," Vidino told the Free Beacon.
Jukaku also served as president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations's (CAIR) Michigan chapter from 2005 to 2010, according to the group's IRS disclosures. CAIR was also named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial and included on a list of groups "who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee and/or its organizations," a similar but separate distinction from the ISNA's Muslim Brotherhood affiliation. Jukaku remains on CAIR Michigan's board of directors.
Vidino said it was "unsurprising" that Tayeb is also involved with CAIR. "This is kind of the pattern," he told the Free Beacon. "To some degree, it's a good old boys network. And so, if you're on the board committee in ISNA, chances are you also belong to your local CAIR branch. Chances are you sit on the board of another charity that is part of the network. That's kind of how it works."
Federal prosecutors first charged the Holy Land Foundation, once the largest Muslim charity in the United States, with money laundering and providing material support to terrorist organizations in 2004. The government said the foundation was "created for the purpose of providing financial and material support" to Hamas and funneled more than $12 million to the terror group through affiliated committees and organizations.
Both ISNA and CAIR were named as unindicted co-conspirators, and, though they challenged the label, a federal judge ruled in July 2009—as Jukaku served both on ISNA's founding committee and as president of CAIR-Michigan—that the Department of Justice had provided "ample evidence" linking them to Hamas. The Holy Land Foundation raised money for Hamas, for example, using a joint bank account with the ISNA, which deposited checks into the account that were "often made payable to 'the Palestinian Mujahadeen,' the original name for the Hamas military wing," according to the ruling.
The ruling also cited a 1991 memo from the Shura Council of the Muslim Brotherhood—an international Sunni Islamist group that has spawned numerous armed jihadist organizations, including Hamas—that described ISNA as a member group. The council stated in the memo that its work in the United States was "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."
The trial did not push Jukaku to distance himself from ISNA or CAIR. In 2010, he was photographed alongside CAIR executive director Nihad Awad, who said he was "happy to see" Hamas "break the siege" on Oct. 7, 2023, at CAIR Michigan's annual banquet.
Jukaku is also a top donor to a super PAC supporting El-Sayed's candidacy, the Fighting for Michigan PAC. He has given the PAC $200,000, nearly half of the $478,125.68 it has raised as of March 31.
"It’s been obvious since the 1970s that the Muslim Students Associations and ISNA … have very strong ties to the extreme fringes of the Democratic Party," said Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who led the prosecution of the Blind Sheikh in the Southern District of New York. ISNA, founded in 1982, is an outgrowth of the Muslim Students Association, which has chapters on colleges and university campuses across the country.
As his father-in-law pours money into his broader campaign effort, El-Sayed is campaigning on pushing "money out of politics," a slogan featured on yard signs supporting his campaign. He has singled out spending from pro-Israel groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which he accused of working to "buy off government" to "make sure that our money is sent abroad to kill other people." Simultaneously, the Fighting for Michigan PAC—armed with generous contributions from Jukaku—is spending big to help El-Sayed secure the Democratic nomination over his primary opponent, congresswoman Haley Stevens. So is the American Priorities PAC, a newly created anti-Israel group that aims to counter AIPAC spending and has vowed to "do whatever it takes" to help El-Sayed.
Stevens took aim at the contradiction during last week's primary debate.
"He's great at covering up that his father-in-law is running his super PAC that's spending millions of dollars for him," Stevens said. "Abdul, you talk about getting money out of politics and putting money in people's pockets. But who is putting money in yours? What are you hiding?"
El-Sayed's campaign did not respond to a request for comment. ISNA and Tayeb did not respond to requests for comment.
Tayeb, a kidney doctor, was born in India and went to medical school there before undergoing his medical training in the United States in the mid-1980s. He has said that he and his family spent the "formative years of our lives as Muslims" working with the ISNA.
El-Sayed appears to share his father-in-law's sympathies for Islamist figures and organizations. He has rallied alongside Palestinian terror sympathizers on the left, most notably the anti-American streamer Hasan Piker, who has said "America deserved 9/11." One of his former campaign staffers, Dearborn, Mich., native Mariam Odeh, was indicted in June for allegedly engaging in a "coordinated campaign" to threaten Jewish officials, businesses, and groups at the University of Michigan. El-Sayed himself has been hesitant to criticize terrorists out of concerns that doing so could alienate left-wing voters—in March, he privately told staffers that he wanted to avoid discussing slain Iranian leader Ali Khamenei because many of his potential supporters were "sad" about Khamenei's death, the Free Beacon reported.
"I also want to remind you guys that there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today," El-Sayed said, referencing the heavily Democratic city that boasts the largest Muslim population per capita in the United States. "So, like, I just don't want to comment on Khamenei at all. Like, I don't think it's worth even touching that."
