Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed sparked controversy on social media Monday night after comparing Sharia law to Christian canon law during an interview with Fox News anchor Jesse Watters.
“Getting rid of Sharia law is White supremacy?” Watters said to El-Sayed, bringing up past comments from the Michigan candidate opposing a ban on Sharia law and comparing those efforts to White supremacy. “Can you explain that one?”
Sayed responded by comparing Sharia, Islamic law based on religious texts, to Catholic Church law and governance.
“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 said.
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The comparison sparked pushback on social media from users highlighting the differences between the two viewpoints and traditions.
“He lies and says no one is trying to push Sharia (they are), and draws a false equivalency to Christian Canon law,” Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” posted on X. “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 continued, “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.”
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“Sharia law is incompatible with Western Civilization,” political commentator Carl Jackson posted on X. “I’m tired of El-Sayed playing the victim card in attempt to avoid legitimate scrutiny of Islam.”
“Yeah, it’s over for him,” Fox News contributor Kaylee McGhee White posted on X. “Rogers by 6.”
“@AbdulElSayed doesn’t get to bloviate about sharia being a mere ‘practice’ of faith when it’s Islamic jurisprudence used to supplant western jurisprudence,” conservative commentator and radio host Dana Loesch posted on X.
“‘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?’” conservative commentator Michael Knowles posted on X.
“Canon law applies to Catholics,” conservative commentator Pamela Geller posted on X. “There is no compulsion is Canon law. Jewish law applies only to Jews. There is no compulsion in Jewish law. It is voluntary. The sharia is a comprehensive legal system governing every aspect of human life, and asserts authority over non-Muslims.”
“This was a very strange prepared defense from Abdul,” GOP communicator Matt Whitlock posted on X. “I expected him to say it was out of context, not reflective of current views, etc. Instead he accepted the premise and defended promoting Sharia Law – opening that lane up to more attacks.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the El-Sayed campaign for comment.
El-Sayed previously said he felt religiously obligated to follow Sharia-compliant practices in a 2009 interview with The New York Times.
“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 traditionally prescribed death for people who leave Islam, placed strict restrictions on what women can do and allowed child marriage.
El-Sayed has spoken out against bans on Sharia law, arguing such efforts are rooted in White supremacy.
“The state of Oklahoma voted in a referendum to amend the constitution to ban Sharia law. What does that mean? I don’t know. And yet the voters banned it anyway,” he said in 2022. “The same exact forces that drove Native peoples from their land two centuries ago, destroyed Black Wall Street a century ago, bombed a building decades ago and tried to ban Sharia law not a decade ago, those forces are alive and well today.
“The reason I wanted to go all the way back to the 1830s is because you can’t understand a Sharia ban without understanding the Trail of Tears. You can’t understand the efforts to uproot Muslim Americans without understanding the Tulsa massacre. You cannot understand the challenges we face today without understanding White supremacy.”
Fox News Digital’s Robert Schmad contributed to this report
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