Abdul El-Sayed’s father serves on the board of Life for Relief and Development, an Islamic charity previously accused of funneling money to Saddam Hussein in violation of United States sanctions. Federal prosecutors’ documents also connect two current members of the organization to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Dr. Mohammed El-Sayed, a Michigan academic and imam, is identified as a board member on the charity’s website. The organization says he is a professor of engineering at Eastern Michigan University with more than 30 years of industrial and academic experience.

The website describes Mohammed El-Sayed as a fellow of ASME and SAE and says those distinctions recognize engineers for excellence in leadership, research, and innovation. It also identifies him as a visiting imam at various community organizations.

Federal tax forms show that the elder El-Sayed has been associated with Life for Relief and Development since at least 2020. Abdul El-Sayed’s father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb, previously served on the organization’s board.

Life for Relief and Development describes itself as “a trusted top-rated global humanitarian organization committed to helping people in crisis from natural disasters to man-made emergencies.” Its history, however, includes a $780,000 settlement with the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The FBI raided the charity’s office in 2006. One year later, its CEO was charged by a grand jury with violating sanctions and money laundering laws, while the charity’s Bank of America accounts were closed.

The evidence just keeps mounting of Abdul El-Sayed’s close ties to terrorism.

Abdul El-Sayed’s father sits on the board of a charity that was busted by the feds for funneling cash to Saddam Hussein, and whose offices were raided by both the FBI and the U.S. military. https://t.co/79yAx0lWso — Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) October 28, 2026

Federal agents also raided the home of Khalil Jassemm, the organization’s CEO at the time, according to a September 2006 Detroit Free Press report. Files seized included correspondence, notes, emails, facsimiles, documents, and records connected to the Islamic African Relief Agency.

That agency was a known alias for the same group where El-Sayed’s mother, Fatten Fathy Elkomy, worked. The agency was later shut down after authorities identified it as an organization linked to al Qaeda.

HOLY CR*P Abdul El-Sayed wrote a letter to the Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Egypt telling them to purge the police and the media

Not only that: “Literally the family is Muslim Brotherhood. The father-in-law is Muslim Brotherhood. Barack Obama put the sister-in-law on a terror watchlist in 2016. The mother was part of an organization that was shut down for funding terrorist organizations. The man wrote a letter to the Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Egypt telling them to purge the police and the media” Abdul El-Sayed is literally a Trojan horse for the Islamic takeover of America I looked it up and the letter is true, In November 2012, published Nov. 25 on the Egyptian site Al-Ahram Gate, 46 people identifying as “leaders of the Egyptian community” in the US signed a statement supporting Mohamed Morsi who was the newly elected Egyptian president and a longtime Muslim Brotherhood figure The 33rd signature was listed as “Dr. Abdul Rahman El-Sayed” of New York. This is Abdul El-Sayed. The New York Times has confirmed he signed it while in medical school In the months that followed Egyptian authorities pursued journalists on charges including “insulting Islam” and “insulting the president.” Again, HOLY CR*P But it gets even darker, several of the people who signed that letter have been confirmed to have donated to Abdul El-Sayed campaign for Senator Abdul El-Sayed must not be elected — Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) October 28, 2026

The case against Life for Relief and Development was dropped in 2014 after the charity reached an agreement with the government. That agreement produced the $780,000 settlement with the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

According to the government, the charity appeared to have knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to move funds from the United States to Iraq through Amman, Jordan, between September 9, 2002, and March 19, 2003. The government characterized the violations as an “egregious case.”

The Office of Foreign Assets Control said the organization had received written notice that the transfers were prohibited and unauthorized. It also said the charity’s highest management levels knew about the conduct and that its president directed transfers to Iraq through Jordan.

The transfers occurred during heightened tensions between the United States and Saddam Hussein’s regime. According to the settlement, they continued until the day the United States began bombing Iraq.

In 2004, after Hussein’s fall, the United States military raided Life for Relief and Development’s Baghdad offices, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Officials said 12 computers and 20 boxes of files were confiscated, while charity leaders said authorities likely suspected collaboration with local insurgents.

The organization’s public relations coordinator, Muthanna al-Hanooti, was later charged with acting as an unregistered agent for Hussein’s government. He ultimately pleaded guilty to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

The New York Post reported in October 2007 that the charity gave millions to a group identified by the FBI as Hamas’ Jordanian operation. Citing law enforcement sources, the paper also reported that Life for Relief and Development was suspected of funding al Qaeda insurgents in Iraq.

CEO Hany Saqr appeared in a 1992 directory of Muslim Brotherhood leaders based in the United States that federal prosecutors submitted during the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror financing case. In 2018, Saqr used a Muslim Brotherhood logo as his Facebook profile photo and called Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi a “dog of the Jews.”

Saqr and Abdul El-Sayed also signed a 2012 letter urging then Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, to purge the media and police. Board member Mohamed Yahia Abdulrahim appears to have been listed as head of the Muslim Brotherhood directory’s economic department.

Another board member, Sherif Gindy, called for Muslims to conduct “jihad” in all its “forms,” including by “force,” to impose hair coverings on girls and push Jewish people out of Israel. Saqr, Abdulrahim, and Gindy each donated $1,000 to Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate campaign.

Abdul El-Sayed has resisted questions about his family’s connections to Islamic extremism and his previous support for the Muslim Brotherhood, calling the inquiries “Islamophobic.” Life for Relief and Development, Mohammed El-Sayed, and El-Sayed’s campaign did not provide on-record responses.

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