Nearly two decades before he became a candidate for the U.S. Senate, Abdul El-Sayed helped organize a walkout against three men who had once dedicated their lives to terrorism, before encountering Jesus Christ and turning away from violence altogether. As El-Sayed now seeks to represent Michigan in Washington, this 2007 incident offers voters a window into how he has responded to the testimony of former jihadists who found freedom in the gospel.
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The story of these three men, and the resistance their testimony provoked, is a powerful reminder of the transformative power of the Christian faith, even in the most hardened hearts.
From The Daily Signal:
The event, titled “Terrorism: The World’s Greatest Threat,” was hosted by an affiliate chapter of the Young America’s Foundation and featured Walid Shoebat, Zachariah Annani, and Kamal Saleem, the Michigan Daily reported at the time. El-Sayed attended the university from 2003 to 2007, The College Fix noted.
More than 20 minutes into the event, The College Fix reported, about a quarter of the audience left their seats, walked out in protest, and gathered at a different on-campus location to engage in a counter discussion, after attempting to prevent their peers from attending the event.
“[I am] elated at the success of the walkout,” El-Sayed said after the walkout, the Michigan Daily reported at the time. “We’ve done something good today, and we need to keep that going in the future.”
The three speakers each carried a remarkable testimony of leaving behind lives devoted to radical Islam and terrorism. Saleem said he was recruited by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestine Liberation Organization at age 7 and trained to fight Israelis before being sent to the United States on a mission against Jews and Americans. A car accident and the kindness of a Christian doctor who treated him afterward led to his conversion to Christianity. Annani, raised in Lebanon to lead at his mosque, was drawn into Islamic rebel militias as a young teenager but secretly read the words of Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30 and ultimately renounced violence, an act that led to his captivity and rejection by fellow militants. Shoebat, a Palestinian, said he was recruited by the PLO while attending college in Illinois in 1978 before later converting to Christianity as well.
El-Sayed served as vice president of the Muslim Student Association at the University of Michigan, one of the organizations that coordinated the walkout. Fellow student organizer Sirene Abou-Chakra said at the time that the protest aimed to push back against what organizers viewed as unfair generalizations about Muslims. But at least one student who stayed for the full event told the Michigan Daily its purpose was to educate the campus about the dangers of Muslim extremism, not to promote intolerance. El-Sayed now faces Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., in November’s race for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat.
This episode raises important questions for voters as they evaluate candidates seeking positions of national influence. The testimonies of Saleem, Annani, and Shoebat represent exactly the kind of stories that reveal the gospel’s power to change even the most committed extremists, individuals once willing to kill in the name of jihad who instead found peace through Jesus Christ. That such testimonies would be met with organized resistance, rather than open engagement, reflects a broader cultural discomfort with narratives that challenge prevailing assumptions about Islam and terrorism. As El-Sayed seeks higher office, his history with this event may inform how voters, particularly those concerned with religious liberty and support for Israel, understand his views.
Scripture teaches that no one is beyond the reach of God’s transforming grace, and the testimonies of these former jihadists stand as living proof of that truth. We are called to pray for those still trapped in ideologies of hatred and violence, that they too might encounter the same freedom found in Christ. Let us also pray against the spread of Islam in America.
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(Excerpt from the Daily Signal. Photo Credit: Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP via Getty Images).
