Michigan Muslims alarmed but resolute as attacks target Abdul El-Sayed

Arab and Muslim advocates in Michigan say anti-Muslim hostility has reached an all-time high in the state's US Senate race, as attacks target Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed from the streets of Dearborn to the highest levels of the US government.

Far-right provocateur Jake Lang, wearing a bulletproof vest, shouted anti-Muslim obscenities through a bullhorn outside a Detroit rally featuring former President Barack Obama. His associates, some wearing crusader-themed accessories including a tin shield with a black cross, held campaign signs for Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate candidate in a close race with El-Sayed.

'All-time high'

Suehaila Amen, a prominent Arab and Muslim advocate in the Detroit area, told Al Jazeera that bigotry against her community is at an all-time high. "They make immediately post 9/11 look like a walk in the park for us," she said.

One of Lang's allies, Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, is an official faith adviser to the Rogers campaign and helped organise an anti-Muslim march in Dearborn in August. The Rogers campaign did not respond to Al Jazeera's request for comment about the candidate's links to Sewell. Rogers has defended his focus on El-Sayed's background, saying it concerns national security: "This is not about the way you pray; it's the way you think."

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said the city, long a target for anti-Muslim provocateurs, has received an increasing number of threats in recent months via social media and calls to 911 and the city's call centre.

Attacks from Washington

President Donald Trump has repeatedly mocked El-Sayed's name, misrepresenting it as Mohammed, and called the candidate a "jihadist". He has suggested El-Sayed would pose a physical threat to the Capitol.

Rogers has baselessly accused El-Sayed of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, and last month agreed with a social media post calling him a "terrorist". Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr incorrectly claimed that Arabs do not produce literature or science and "don't win Nobel Prizes". Texas Senator Ted Cruz called El-Sayed a "jihadist leprechaun" and warned he could endanger national security on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy invoked Dearborn to raise fears about immigration.

El-Sayed, a Michigan-born doctor and former public health official of Egyptian descent, has avoided focusing on the attacks, calling them "deflections and deceptions".

Divided opinion

It is unclear how the attacks will affect the race. In a Michigan State University survey of potential voters, about 38 percent said a candidate being Muslim would make them less likely to support their campaign.

At a Trump rally for Rogers in Port Huron, some attendees appeared to accept the claim that El-Sayed is a threat. David Beamer, whose son died in the 9/11 attacks, questioned El-Sayed's American identity, saying a birth certificate "doesn't make you an American".

Local leaders say their community is not cowering. Hammoud called Trump "a fascist" and said the best response would be to elect El-Sayed, describing him as a son of the country and of the state. Amen said Arab and Muslim Americans reject attempts to cast them as outsiders: "We are an integral part of the fabric of this nation, whether people like it or not."

Earlier this year, two gunmen killed three people outside a mosque complex in San Diego in what authorities said was a hate crime. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who represents Dearborn and parts of Detroit, said she fears for her two Muslim sons amid the rise in hate during the campaign.

Source: Al Jazeera.