Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has publicly disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood following a tense exchange with an attendee at a town hall meeting in Caro, Michigan, on Saturday.
The confrontation came amid growing scrutiny of El-Sayed over alleged links between his family and the Islamist political movement, with Republicans, including his opponent Mike Rogers and President Donald Trump, raising questions about the issue in recent days.
During the event, an attendee repeatedly challenged El-Sayed, insisting that the candidate had not clearly distanced himself from the organisation.
“Abdul, will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?” the man shouted from the crowd.
El-Sayed rejected the movement before criticising the attendee for suggesting that his Muslim faith could create divided loyalties.
“You assume … that because I am Muslim, that somehow I would have some allegiance to something that is not our Constitution,” he said.
He later stressed his commitment to the country’s founding document, adding, “For me, that Constitution is the guiding light.”
The attendee eventually left the venue as members of the audience cheered the candidate.
El-Sayed, who could become the first Muslim elected to the US Senate, has faced repeated questions about alleged connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. The latest controversy followed the resurfacing of old social media posts by his half-sister.
In a 2012 post, she reportedly described having “an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college.”
Earlier in the week, El-Sayed denied that he or his family had ties to the organisation, describing such assumptions about his relatives as “an insane thing to assume.”
He has also said he does not know what his mother was involved in while living in Egypt during the 1970s. According to El-Sayed, his parents divorced when he was three, after which he was raised by his father and stepmother and did not see his mother for years.
Responding to the renewed attention surrounding his family, he said on Thursday that voters should focus on his record rather than allegations involving his relatives.
“They want to talk about me or point to my mom or my sister,” El-Sayed said, adding, “I’m running for office. Judge me by my actions and my work.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamist movement founded in Egypt that has developed branches and affiliated groups in several countries. Although the organisation officially rejects violence as a means of achieving its objectives, some offshoots have been linked to attacks.
In November, Trump signed an executive order initiating a process through which certain branches or subdivisions of the movement could be considered for designation as Foreign Terrorist Organisations.
El-Sayed has argued that the questions about his alleged connections to the group reflect prejudice against his religion.
Speaking on MSNOW on Sunday, he questioned why his Muslim faith should prompt doubts about his loyalty to the United States.
“To insinuate that somehow, because of my Muslim faith, as somebody who might be the first senator who has that faith, that I would have anything but allegiance to the Constitution, that should be called into question,” he said.
