By ALEXANDER BOESCH
Capital News Service
LANSING– Amid foreign policy issues and domestic issues at home, Muslims in Michigan have seen themselves become a political target in national “culture wars.”
“I do not recall ever seeing this level of anti-Muslim bigotry and fearmongering in the state of Michigan,” said Mohammad Khalil, a professor of religious studies and the director of the Muslim Studies Program at Michigan State University.
A recent statewide poll of voters from the Detroit News and WDIV showed that 57.2% of respondents said that Islamophobia had risen in the United States, while only 4.6% said it had decreased.
“Whether we’re talking about the anti-Abdul ads presenting him as a potential terrorist, con artist and misogynist or the mindless propaganda directed at the people of Dearborn and Hamtramck, what we’re witnessing is unprecedented,” said Khalil.
According to statistics from the Department of Civil Rights, between October 2024 and September 2025, 30 complaints were filed with the state agency on the basis of religious discrimination. Four of those complaints were filed by Muslims, all of which alleged discrimination in employment.
Attorney Nabih Ayad, the founder and board chair of the Arab American Civil Rights League headquartered in Dearborn, oversees many civil rights cases, including a joint lawsuit with the ACLU against the Plymouth-Canton School District this year.
“We sued with the ACLU for the Palestinian woman who refused to stand up in the Plymouth-Canton School District for the Pledge of Allegiance because her family overseas was being killed. We also successfully resolved that case with the [district],” said Ayad.
President Donald Trump appeared at a GOP rally in Port Huron on Oct. 25, where he called into question Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s qualifications for the U.S. Senate. El-Sayed is Muslim.
“I’m here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator,” said Trump.
Ainy Haider-Shah, the director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based Emgage Foundation, which promotes civic participation by Muslim-American voters, said that the organization was focused on getting Muslim Americans out to vote.
“These are strategic attacks from the Republican Party to dehumanize Muslims and immigrants and cause fear. Muslims have been in America since the 16th century and are as American as everyone else,” said Haider-Shah.
In another incident, on Aug.18, far-right influencer Jake Lang came to Dearborn in what he later called a “crusader revival march” in a posting on X.
Ayad said, “These individuals are always using the city of Dearborn in this region as a hub to put out their hate and their discriminatory ways, and come to try to attack this community.”