How the US far-right weaponised ‘inshallah’ against Abdul El-Sayed

Published 10 August 2026 · world

After his historic Senate primary win in Michigan, the Egyptian American doctor faced a coordinated digital smear campaign. An Al Jazeera investigation has tracked the

After his historic Senate primary win in Michigan, the Egyptian American doctor faced a coordinated digital smear campaign. An Al Jazeera investigation has tracked the rapid spread of an anti-Muslim campaign on X after Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan in the Democratic primary for a United States Senate seat. It found that the apparently orchestrated campaign against El-Sayed, whose election win is seen as a setback for pro-Israel lobbying groups such as AIPAC, has sought to reframe his electoral win as a religious and ideological threat to the US. The attacks began with accounts clipping the phrase “inshallah”, which means “God willing”, from El-Sayed’s election night speech. This word was used in the context that he hoped his election win would prove that money alone does not decide elections in the US. The phrase was stripped of its ordinary context – as a common expression of hope by Arabic speakers – and was instead presented as evidence of a sinister political and religious takeover of the country. Right-wing influencer Benny Johnson led the trend, posting a clip that gathered more than 193,000 views with the caption: “Muslim Socialist Candidate for Senate in Michigan Abdul El-Sayed says ‘inshallah’ during his speech on election night.” Similarly, the account ALX framed the speech as a suspicious act in a post that drew more than 80,000 views.

Accounts also used terms such as “socialist Muslim candidate” while far-right figure Laura Loomer described the clip as “disgusting”. Before the final results of Tuesday’s primary were even in, one account claimed an “Islamic communist takeover of the left is coming”. Anatomy of a coordinated smear Al Jazeera’s investigation mapped a network of 1,966 accounts and more than 2,500 connections in the first 24 hours alone. The analysis showed the spread of anti-El-Sayed tweets relied heavily on reshares of posts rather than direct discussion. Al Jazeera recorded 1,847 reposts, 1,157 quotes and 1,536 mentions. Accounts such as End Wokeness appeared to try to portray El-Sayed as a threat by sharing an out-of-context clip of him saying: “When they go low, we don’t go high. We take them to the mud and choke them out.” This quote, however, was from an August 2025 event in which he was subverting former first lady Michelle Obama’s famous phrase to critique political attacks by President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) base. The rhetoric quickly escalated into baseless claims that “Sharia is coming to America” and Michigan was being “invaded”. The city of Hamtramck, where 25 percent of its 28,000 residents are Arab Muslims, was targeted as an “occupied city” facing a demographic invasion due to immigration and mosque expansions.