The National Republican Senatorial Committee has released a new ad targeting Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed over past comments about following Sharia law, escalating attacks in one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races less than two weeks before Election Day.
The ad plays a remark El-Sayed made to the New York Times in 2009: “When I die and 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.”
A narrator then asks what “the Sharia-law way” means, citing government rules on how women dress, requirements that women have a male guardian, and restrictions on women seeking divorce. “This Sharia-law compliant way? Abdul El-Sayed’s way,” the ad says.
El-Sayed made the comment as a 24-year-old medical student and Rhodes scholar, explaining to the Times why he and his wife had taken out a Sharia-compliant mortgage, which avoids paying interest, to buy a condominium in Ann Arbor. The remark was resurfaced in August by the Washington Free Beacon. In full, El-Sayed said he followed that path “not because of fear but because of obligation.”
