Report: Islamic Groups Urged Violence, Called America ‘Satan’ — And Got $47 Million From Taxpayers

At more than 30 Islamist institutions in Michigan, speakers demonized America, prayed for jihad, called for the death of Jews, or made other extremist and controversial statements, a new report has found. But a number of these institutions received the approbation of public officials, and a third of these groups raked in nearly $50 million in public funds. The Middle East Forum, a group focused on “protect[ing] Western values from Islamist threats,” compiled the statements and financial data and published a database of videos of more than 900 statements made at the Islamic institutions, along with an interactive map, lists of funding sources and amounts, and individual pages detailing the institutions. The site is titled “Michigan’s Islamist Pulpits.” According to an MEF press release, “The site sets out 928 statements from 36 Michigan Islamist institutions, each linked to the institution’s own video at the moment the words were spoken. Twelve of the 36 received $47,357,045 in federal, state, and city money. Forty-one public officials and public bodies attended, spoke at, honored, or funded them in 63 acts.” ‘House of Shaitan’ MEF captured various kinds of public extremist and anti-American statments. Multiple speakers at certain Islamic institutions have demonized the United States as “the house of shaitan” (Satan), the “great Satan,” or “the belly of the beast,” according to the report. At the Islamic Center of East Lansing, an Arabic speaker prayed: “O Allah, deal with those who besieged them. O Allah, deal with the aggressor Jews. O Allah, count them in number and kill them dispersed, and leave not one of them.” A speaker at the Islamic Center of America prayed that “Zionists” would be “cut … limb from limb.” More than 90 statements “pray for the mujahideen or call for jihad, at 16 of the 36 institutions.” The overwhelming lion’s share of the taxpayer funds documented by MEF — more than $40 million — came from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) via the Michigan Department of Education in the form of school lunch dollars distributed to the Islamic Center of Detroit. Other funding sources included the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Health and Human Services (HHS), the state of Michigan, and local governments, such as the city of Detroit. The Michigan’s Islamist Pulpits site includes individual pages detailing the statements and (if applicable) funding of each of the Islamic groups. MEF clarified that “each institution received a request for comment before publication,” and their replies are documented in the database. Notably CAIR-Michigan received more than $100,000 from the state of Michigan and the city of Detroit. During a talk on the “Dangers of Extremism,” a speaker at the CAIR-Michigan event told the audience: When someone leaves the fold of Islam or commits treason then it is permissible for them to be killed but even still it’s not your decision or my decision it has to come from the sultan or the imam or the Amir al-Mu’minin, or if a judge, if a hakem or a qadi, then gives the hadd, gives the punishment for this. Just you or I just can’t say, well, someone committed treason, then we go shoot him in the head. This is Islam — respects the law and order. This would be un-Islamic. Islam respects law and order, dear brothers. Tayeb Jukaku, the father-in-law of Muslim Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, is on CAIR-Michigan’s board of directors. Jukaku has backed El-Sayed with $300,000 in funding and is alleged to be a leader of a Muslim Brotherhood front group that funds Hamas. “These are not anonymous voices on the internet. They are Michigan pulpits, in their own words, and many of them take public money and host public officials,” said Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum. “The First Amendment protects a sermon. It does not entitle anyone to a state honor or a federal grant. Michigan’s leaders should stop funding and honoring these institutions until they have reviewed what is preached there, and every governor and every federal agency should ask the same question about the institutions they fund.” Stopping the Flow of Taxpayer Dollars To Extremists MEF is proposing several courses of action to remedy the problem. The group calls on Congress to step in and investigate, holding “oversight hearings on federal money to institutions whose pulpits pray for jihad and for the killing of Jews.” In addition, MEF calls on the executive branch, specifically agencies such as USDA, DHS, and HHS, to clarify how they review grant subrecipients. MEF also calls on state leaders in the executive and legislative branches “in every state” to investigate “which religious institutions receive schoolmeal, refugee, and security-grant money passed through their state, how those recipients are vetted, and which state officials have honored them.” El-Sayed has appeared at a number of the mosques and institutions listed, such as the Islamic Center of Detroit and the Islamic Institute of America. Joshua Monnington is an assistant editor at The Federalist. He was previously an editor at Regnery Publishing and is a graduate of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Abdul El-SayedantisemitismCairCAIR-MichiganDHSHHSIslamIslamic Center of DetroitIslamic Institute of AmericaJewsjihadMichiganMiddle East ForummosquesMuslimsslamic Center of East Lansingviolence