EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

IPT Investigation Documents Abdul El-Sayed's Two Decades Inside the Institutions the Muslim Brotherhood Built in America

Six-part series draws on the Michigan MSA's own records, declassified FBI files and the Brotherhood's own documents, and closes with ten questions the Michigan Senate nominee has not answered

The Six Parts (click each part to read)
Part 1. "Sure. Yeah, Absolutely." The long road to a three-word disavowal
Part 2. "Our Organizations." What the FBI and the Brotherhood's own records say
Part 3. The Ann Arbor Years. Inside the MSA chapter he helped run
Part 4. The Circuit. ISNA, CAIR and ICNA-MAS, 2017–2020
Part 5. The Company He Keeps. A rally, a flotilla organizer, a youth council and Hasan Piker
Part 6. In His Own Words. Israel, Hamas, Iran, the Brotherhood, and ten questions

WASHINGTON October 28, 2026 — The Investigative Project on Terrorism today released El-Sayed in the Brotherhood's Orbit, a six-part investigation of Michigan's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate.

The series documents his years as an officer of the University of Michigan Muslim Students' Association. The Brotherhood's own records say the MSA was founded by "a group of the first Ikhwans." A 2007 FBI assessment calls it "the first formal U.S. MB organization."

It documents his appearances from 2017 to 2020 as a featured speaker and fundraiser before ISNA, CAIR and the joint ICNA-MAS convention.

And it documents the ten weeks it took him, after the Brotherhood question was first raised following the August primary, to say three words of disavowal.

What the series reveals

1. "The first formal U.S. MB organization." The FBI's 2007 description of the MSA, written while El-Sayed was vice president of the Michigan chapter.
2. "Officially" the U.S. Brotherhood. A 2009 FBI interview in which a former member named the MSA, ISNA and MAS, all groups El-Sayed has served or addressed.
3. The outreach chair. He helped run his chapter's recruitment and, in a 2006 op-ed in the chapter's newsletter, urged "harder-impact Da'wa" and described metro Detroit as "the point of nucleation for global unification." "No legal problems." The MSA board, on which he served, weighed a fundraiser for KindHearts, a charity named in a 2003 Senate terror-finance inquiry, months after its fundraiser was indicted for financing Hamas.
4. A campaign for Tariq Ramadan. Planned at the first board meeting of his outreach year, for the Brotherhood founder's grandson.
5. "Their ends I do not question." His 2006 Michigan Daily column on the kidnappers of journalist Jill Carroll.
6. Raising money for CAIR. His 2020 appeals for the group prosecutors said "was later added" to the Brotherhood's Hamas-support committee.
7. "Entirely correct." His 2019 endorsement of Rep. Ilhan Omar's objection to repeated demands that Muslim officials condemn Hamas.
8. "You fund neo-Nazis." Said of "the Jewish Federation" at a 2018 CAIR banquet where he was a featured speaker. In the recordings reviewed, he never objected.
9. The alleged disavowal of the Muslim Brotherhood. Two months of silence; no endorsement of the U.S. designations; then "Sure. Yeah, absolutely," naming nothing and condemning nothing.

How the investigation was conducted

Over the past two months, the IPT reviewed thousands of pages of documents and hundreds of hours of recordings.

The MSA's own records: about 4,770 archived records, including the chapter newsletter, Al-Risalah (2004–2009), and its 2004–05 board minutes.

FBI and ICE files under FOIA: FBI reports on the North American Islamic Trust (1987, 1988), a 2007 FBI intelligence assessment, and a 1,013-page ICE release containing FBI interviews with former U.S. Brotherhood members.

The Brotherhood's own documents: exhibits from U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation, including its 1991 "Explanatory Memorandum."

His appearances and writings: recordings of more than a dozen events from 2017 to 2020, videos from his social media accounts, and Substack essays retrieved after he restricted access.

Steven Emerson is an award-winning investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker, and founder and executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), which maintains one of the world's largest archives on Islamist terrorist networks. He is the author or co-author of eight books on terrorism and national security.

Copyright © 2026. Investigative Project on Terrorism. All rights reserved.

Articles by the IPT may be re-published as long as full attribution and a link back to the original article is provided.