Michigan Senate Candidate Defends Sharia Law on Live TV
A Michigan Democrat running for U.S. Senate may have just torpedoed his campaign with a single interview.
Abdul El-Sayed appeared on Jesse Watters’ Fox News program Monday night and, rather than walking back past comments opposing Sharia law bans, doubled down by comparing Islamic law to Catholic canon law. The comparison ignited a firestorm among Christians and conservatives who say the two systems couldn’t be more different.
“Nobody is trying to push Sharia law on anyone else, just like I hope nobody is trying to push canon law on anybody else, because we live in an America where you should have the freedom of your religion,” El-Sayed told Watters.
The host had pressed the candidate on previous statements where El-Sayed compared efforts to ban Sharia law to White supremacy. Instead of backing away from the controversial position, El-Sayed offered what critics called a false equivalence between Islamic and Christian religious law.
Conservative voices across social media weren’t buying El-Sayed’s argument. Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” laid out what he sees as the fundamental problem with the comparison. “Canon law determines how Christian leaders, churches, and Christians should live, but Canon law is limited to affairs of the Church (spiritual penalties). Canon law grants great autonomy to the state,” Kolvet wrote on X. “Sharia law is MUCH more comprehensive, governing all aspects of life, and historically, and according to many contemporary Islamic clerics, dictates the affairs of the state.”
Radio host Dana Loesch rejected El-Sayed’s framing entirely. “@AbdulElSayed doesn’t get to bloviate about sharia being a mere ‘practice’ of faith when it’s Islamic jurisprudence used to supplant western jurisprudence,” she posted.
Conservative commentator Pamela Geller pointed to the voluntary nature of Christian and Jewish religious law versus what she described as Sharia’s compulsory nature. “The sharia is a comprehensive legal system governing every aspect of human life, and asserts authority over non-Muslims,” Geller wrote.
Political commentator Carl Jackson put it bluntly: “Sharia law is incompatible with Western Civilization. I’m tired of El-Sayed playing the victim card in attempt to avoid legitimate scrutiny of Islam.”
Michael Knowles offered a sardonic take on the comparison. “‘Jesse, the Catholic Church requires ministers to use plant oils in sacraments with the blessings of a bishop, so why shouldn’t courts allow Muslim men to have four wives?’” he posted.
El-Sayed’s comments didn’t emerge in a vacuum. In a 2009 interview with The New York Times, the candidate spoke openly about feeling religiously obligated to follow Sharia-compliant practices. “Ultimately, the question is, when I die and I stand before God and go through everything I did in my life, I don’t want to say I did it the easy way instead of the Shariah-compliant way,” El-Sayed told the Times. “Not because of fear but because of obligation.”
Sharia law has traditionally prescribed death for those who leave Islam, placed strict restrictions on women, and permitted child marriage.