Muslim Cleric Hate in Michigan
Michigan: Shi’ite imam praises Iran’s defiance of US, speaks of ‘how beautiful death is for people of dignity’
JUL 12, 2025 5:00 PM
BY ROBERT SPENCER
Once again the question must be asked: how long can a nation endure the
presence within it of people who hate it and long for its destruction?
Elahi’s love of death is a reflection of the Qur’an (62:6) and the
frequently repeated statement of jihadis: “we will win, because we love
death more than you love life.” We shall see.
“Dearborn Heights, Michigan Shi’ite Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi Praises
Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei’s Defiance Of President Trump, Adds:
For People Of Dignity, Death For A Higher Purpose Is As Beautiful As A
Necklace On A Beautiful Girl; Visiting Sunni Imam Achmat Salie, Board
Member Of Michigan Coalition For Human Rights And Professor At
University Of Detroit Mercy: We Love Martyrdom, They Do Not; Iran
Destroyed One Third Of Israel – Ethically And Methodically,” MEMRI,
June 27, 2025:
During a Muharram commemoration at the Shi’ite Islamic House of Wisdom
in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, on June 27, 2025 Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi
quoted Imam Hussein, whose death is commemorated during Muharram,
saying: “I reject humiliation – even if the price is the sword – I
don’t care.” Elahi added that Imam Hussein had equated death for a
higher purpose to the beauty of a necklace on a beautiful girl. He
asserted that only the Shi’ites had supported the suffering people in
Gaza over the past two years. Elahi also claimed that Iran’s Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei responded to President Trump’s demand that Iran
surrender in the same spirit shown by Imam Hussein, and he added that
Trump likely didn’t know the word “surrender” doesn’t exist in Imam
Hussein’s dictionary.
On June 30, 2025, Sunni Michigan Islamic scholar Dr. Achmat Salie was
invited to speak at the Muharram commemoration by Elahi. Salie is a
professor and program developer at the University of Detroit Mercy, and
created Islamic Studies programs at Oakland University and University
of Detroit Mercy. He is a board member of the Michigan Coalition for
Human Rights.
Salie said that Muslims love martyrdom, while non-Muslims fear death
and would rather live a thousand years. He praised Khamenei and said
that Iran had successfully destroyed a third of Israel during the June
war between the two countries. He added that “Iran has done such a
thorough job and did it so ethically and methodically.”
Imam Elahi is a prominent Iran-born Shi’ite cleric who heads the
Shi’ite Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights. He is considered a
central figure in the U.S. Shi’ite community and is known to maintain
close ties with the Iranian regime as well as with the local Michigan
Democratic leadership. In March 2025, Elahi hosted Congresswomen Debbie
Dingell and Rashida Tlaib at the Islamic House of Wisdom. On January 1,
2023, he delivered the prayer at the inauguration ceremony of Governor
Gretchen Whitmer. Elahi has also met with former Vice President Kamala
Harris, former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and former
Secretary of State John Kerry. He is also known to maintain close ties
with the Iranian regime. On September 24, 2024, he met Iranian
President Masoud Pezeshkian during his visit to address the UN General
Assembly in New York City.
In a November 6, 2020 sermon at the Islamic Center of Detroit, Dr.
Achmat Salie said that both U.S. presidential candidates, Trump and
Biden, are “Zionist puppets,” and that all the decision-making in the
world is done by tech companies in Silicon Valley and Israel. In
addition, Dr. Salie rejected germ theory and argued that face masks
cause illnesses. Claiming that Islam’s enemies want to shut down
mosques and keep abortion clinics and bars open, Dr. Salie suggested
that there may be a plot to infect Muslims with COVID-19.
Mohammad Ali Elahi: “[Imam Hussein said:] ‘I reject humiliation – even if the price is the sword – I don’t care.’
“Look at the beauty of a necklace on the neck of a girl, that is how
beautiful death is for people of dignity – for [the sake] of a higher
purpose.
“Those [Shi’ites] who said: ‘We respond to your call, oh Hussein,’
those who said: ‘Away with the humiliation,’ are the same ones who have
been saying: ‘We respond to your call, oh Gaza’ in the last almost two
years.
“The only ones who supported and showed solidarity with people who were suffering in Gaza were the ones who said, ‘oh Hussein!’
“Seyyed [Khamenei] the Leader, may Allah protect him, made the same
statement as Imam Hussein, you know that the word ‘surrender’… The
President said Iran [must] surrender, and Seyyed [Khamenei] said that
this term ‘surrender’ is not something new, it has been going on for
the last 46 years.
“And the same president who used the word ‘surrender,’ [he said:]
‘Iran, you have no option, surrender’ – probably he didn’t read all
these mottos of Muhrram, and things about Imam Hussein. He didn’t know
that in the dictionary of Imam Hussein, that word doesn’t exist.”
Achmat Salie: “We love martyrdom, they don’t love martyrdom. They fear death, they want to live a thousand years.
“Ayatollah Khamenei also recited a beautiful verse of the Quran: ‘It is
only Satan who frightens [you] of his supporters.’ It is Satan who,
actually, puts fear in the hearts of his own allies. Look at what Iran
has done to Israel, destroyed one third of it.
“Iran has done such a thorough job and did it so ethically and methodically.”
Michigan
Imam
Feted at Interfaith Events, Spews Hate
October
24,
2019
By Ryan Mauro and Alex
VanNess
Clarion
Project
A
Michigan imam preached
that
the leaders of Saudi Arabia are “agents of the Jews” and should be put
to
death, as seen in a video posted
to
Facebook and found by Clarion Project.
The
video
shows Dearborn Imam Husham al-Hussainy condemning the Saudi royal family
as
“impure,” calling for them to be executed for the Saudi campaign in
Yemen
against the Houthi rebels backed by the Iranian regime, and is filled
with
conspiratorial anti-Semitism.
Speaking
in
Arabic, al-Hussainy said that the Saudi leaders are “agents of the Jews”
and
that the so-called Zionist conspiracy should be blamed for any Saudi
transgression.
Al-Hussainy
even
went so far as to claim that the Saudi airplanes bombing Yemen “are
Israeli airplanes with Israeli policy and Israeli targets.”
He
then urged
Muslims to “stand together” with Christians against the “oppressive
Saudi-Zionist airplanes.”
Al-Husainy,
an
Iraqi-American Michigan imam who founded the of the Karbala Islamic Center in
1995,
has a history of
supporting
the Hezbollah terrorist group, Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution
in Iran
and radical Shiite militiamen in Iraq backed by the Iranian regime.
For
example,
last year, al-Hussainy visited Iraq and was a guest speaker for a crowd affiliated with
the Iranian-backed militia Saraya Ashura. Iranian regime operatives
have
directly trained and armed many
of
Saraya Ashura’s fighters and the militia threatened to
attack
U.S. personnel in Iraq.
Yet,
despite
this public record, al-Hussainy is welcomed and participates in interfaith and
civil
rights events nationally and
throughout
the city of
Detroit.
Only
two
months after he gave this sermon (which was posted in 2015 to the
Facebook page
of the Karbala Islamic Center in
Dearborn),
al-Hussainy participated in
a
Detroit-area civil rights award dinner sponsored by the Arab American
Civil
Rights League (ACRL) and the Detroit branch of the NAACP.
In
2017,
Hussainy was
invited to
speak at a memorial service to remember the victims
of 9/11
with Detroit community leaders. In 2018, a judge determined what
many
suspected all along — that Hezbollah and the Iranian regime (both of
which
Imam al-Hussainy supports) are culpable for the 9/11 attacks because of
their
material support for Al-Qaeda and the hijackers, specifically.
Yet,
al-Hussainy is a well-respected imam. In 2007, he gave
the
invocation prayer at the Democratic National
Committee’s Annual
Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Al-Hussainy
and
his mosque are also embraced by other Shiite groups and mosques in the
Detroit area and nationally. The Karbala Islamic Center conducts activities with
the
Islamic Center of America and the Islamic Institute of Knowledge, among
others.
Al-Hussainy’s
preaching
endangers both Saudis and Jews, as the sermon legitimizes violent
retaliation against both. If you believe that the Saudi leaders deserve
death,
then the Jews supposedly commanding the Saudis are likewise deserving of
death.
The
conflict
between Iran and Saudi Arabia has spilled over onto American soil in the
past.
In 2011, Iran hatched a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. by
blowing up a restaurant in Washington D.C., an attack that would have
killed
perhaps dozens of American civilians.
The
tension
between the two countries is much higher today than it was then, with
Iran now attacking Saudi
cities
and oil fields.
If
Iran’s
network of supporters in America, like Imam Al-Hussainy, believe that
“the
Jews” and Israel bear responsibility for the Saudis’ actions, then
synagogues,
Jewish-owned businesses, Israeli governmental buildings and similar
sites may
be potential targets for Iranian retaliation.