A Research Post-mortem of the Rise of Abdul El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani

By Bilal Shaukat Azad

(Warning: If you're celebrating the election of Muslim-named politicians in America's recent elections as a victory for Islam, please stop for a moment. What looks like a triumph may in fact be a carefully laid intellectual trap, aimed at the faith of our youth and of generations to come. I spent the past five days preparing this research article. I went through dozens of documents, including American think-tank reports, election records, and the backgrounds and patrons of these so-called Muslim leaders. As a student, I have done my part, and the rest is up to you. If we don't wake up today and protect our children from this sweet poison wrapped in beautiful names, our homes may still carry names like Abdul and Zohran tomorrow, while the spirit and morals of Islam quietly die inside them. Please read this article in full and with a calm mind, and share it with your friends and family. Translated and edited from the original Urdu-Editor)

It was a bright morning in May 2009. In the giant stadium of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a crowd of about 80,000 people sat holding their breath. On stage, beside America's new president, Barack Hussein Obama, stood a 24-year-old Muslim man of Egyptian descent, holding the microphone. He had been chosen as the student speaker from among thousands of students at the University of Michigan.

When the young man finished his speech, Barack Obama stepped forward, shook his hand warmly, and patted him on the shoulder. Amid the flashing cameras, the think tanks of the American establishment underlined his name in their notebooks.

That young man's name was Abdul El-Sayed.

Now come forward seventeen and a half years from that scene.

The stage is set for the recent American midterm elections of November 2026, where President Donald Trump suffers one of his worst political and parliamentary defeats in the middle of his second term. The Democratic Party takes back control of both houses of Congress. After that, Trump can no longer govern for the rest of his term with the same near-absolute freedom and power he had before.

But in this American electoral earthquake, the news that causes the most excitement in the drawing rooms, news channels, and social media feeds of Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, Cairo, and Dhaka is not Trump's defeat. It is Abdul El-Sayed's election from Michigan as the first Muslim senator in American history. Alongside it comes the impression that young Muslim faces like Zohran Mamdani, who was elected Mayor of New York a year earlier in November 2025, are taking over the corridors of American power.

The naive, emotional Muslim of our part of the world, whose reading is shallow and whom centuries of subjugation have afflicted with a psychological illness, sees the success of anyone in the West with an Arabic or Islamic name as an "Islamic renaissance" and starts celebrating. Even today, he is beating the drums over this so-called victory.

Have you ever stepped out of the intoxication of this wishful thinking and asked yourself a bitter, unsparing question? The world's largest capitalist and secular system spends trillions of dollars crushing the resources and ideas of Muslims in the Middle East. Why, then, is it suddenly rolling out the red carpet for young people with Muslim names into its own highest lawmaking bodies, the Senate and the mayor's offices?

Today, instead of joining in emotional sloganeering, I am going to open American documents, think-tank reports, electoral records, and the files on these Muslim politicians' own statements and their mentors. I will place before you a piece of "whistleblowing" that will break every lock on your mind.

The greatest tragedy of our collective psychology is the one diagnosed about six and a half centuries ago by Allama Ibn Khaldun, the founder of sociology, in the twenty-second section of the second chapter of his world-famous *Muqaddimah*:

"The vanquished and conquered nation always considers it the height of achievement to imitate the victorious nation, adopt its outward appearance, and win acceptance at its court, because the human soul is overawed by dominance." (Ibn Khaldun, *Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun*, Dar al-Fikr, Beirut, 2001, page 147)

When millions of people in Pakistan and other Muslim countries see on social media that Abdul El-Sayed, Zohran Mamdani, Ilhan Omar, or Rashida Tlaib have taken their oath in America's halls of power, they fall into a strange, spellbound state of fascination.

For them, it is enough to know that the candidate's name includes "Abdul" or "Zohran," that his mother or wife wears a headscarf, or that he went to a local mosque during the campaign and said "As-salamu alaykum."

We don't read about the intellectual nursery in which this person was shaped. We don't research which billionaire lobbies are funding his campaign. And we don't bother to check whether the political values of the constitution and party platform he has signed have even one percent in common with the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and mainstream Islam, or whether he is a modern Trojan horse cutting at the roots of Islam!

If you want to reach the real root of this global political engineering, you will have to look back past the 2018 and 2026 elections. You will have to study two published, historic documents from the RAND Corporation, the leading American policy institution and the greatest brain behind the Pentagon. These documents drew up a new blueprint for controlling Muslims in the twenty-first century.

The first was the explosive 2003 report *Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies* by Cheryl Benard (wife of the American neoconservative architect Zalmay Khalilzad). The second was the 2007 report *Building Moderate Muslim Networks*, prepared by Angel Rabasa and his team.

Both reports told the American establishment in no uncertain terms that traditional, orthodox Islam (mainstream Islam) cannot be defeated by bombing it from outside, or through a white Christian or Jewish politician. If the ideas of the Muslim world and of the millions of Muslims living in the West are to be changed, new leaders, new scholars, new intellectuals, and new politicians must be "created" from within the Muslims themselves. They must be funded, turned into heroes in the media, and brought into the halls of power, so that, wrapped in the cloak of Islamic identity, they can force the Western secular and liberal agenda down Muslims' throats.

(Cheryl Benard, "Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies", RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, 2003, Pages 25-48, ISBN: 0-8330-3438-3; see also: Angel Rabasa et al., "Building Moderate Muslim Networks", RAND Corporation, Center for Middle East Public Policy, 2007, Pages 65-92, ISBN: 978-0-8330-4122-7)

In the same report, Cheryl Benard wrote that "modernist and secular Muslims" must be brought forward who would dismiss the definitive laws of the Qur'an and Sunnah as relics of an ancient age, and present Western concepts of gender, family, and individual freedom as the true Islam.

Now keep this RAND Corporation blueprint in front of you and, as the first case study, open the file on the new Muslim star of American politics to emerge from Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed.

How this bright young man, born in 1984 to a family that had emigrated from Egypt, was shaped step by step is an open book.

Right after sharing the stage with President Barack Obama at the University of Michigan in 2009, he was selected for the Rhodes Scholarship, the greatest elite-making scholarship of British imperialism, and sent to Oxford University.

But his real political and ideological shaping began when, during his medical studies at Columbia University, he was selected for the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. This highly exclusive fellowship was founded by Paul Soros, the older brother of billionaire global financier George Soros, and his wife Daisy Soros.

(Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, Official Fellows Directory, New York; see also: Abdul El-Sayed, "Healing Politics: A Doctor's Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic", Abrams Press, 2020, Pages 42-55)

Do you know what ideology the Soros family network, especially George Soros's Open Society Foundations, cultivates around the world?

Their core goal is to erase traditional religious morality, the family system, and national and religious boundaries, and to build an ultra-liberal global society in which abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and the legal freedom to use drugs are treated as basic human rights.

After coming out of this Soros fellowship nursery, Abdul El-Sayed was lifted up at rocket speed.

In 2015, at just 30 years old, he was made director of Detroit's health department. Then in 2018, the biggest socialist leader of the American left, Senator Bernie Sanders, along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and "Justice Democrats," took him under their wing and fielded him in the Michigan governor's race, where he lost the Democratic primary to Gretchen Whitmer.

(Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaign rallies for Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, July–August 2018 — contemporaneous coverage)

This patronage from Bernie Sanders and Justice Democrats groomed him continuously for eight years. It made him a political commentator on CNN. Finally, in the 2026 midterm elections, it presented him for the Michigan U.S. Senate seat left open by Senator Gary Peters's retirement, as a "Muslim hero" whose rise had Pakistan's naive analysts grinning from ear to ear.

But wait!

Just look at this Abdul El-Sayed, who makes the rounds of mosques during his campaign, invokes his faith at Friday gatherings, and outwardly presents himself as a proud, practicing, "unapologetically Muslim" man. What is his actual political platform, and what is he fighting for on the front lines?

When we examine his official policy statements and campaign records, the soul trembles.

Abdul El-Sayed's first and most open front is not merely defending LGBTQ+ rights, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage, but aggressively legislating for them.

In his 2018 election platform and his 2026 Senate campaign, standing alongside "Equality Michigan" and America's largest gay lobby, the "Human Rights Campaign," he declared that he would fight on the front lines, through Michigan's "Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act" and federal laws, to protect the rights of gay and transgender people and gender-affirming care.

(Pride Source / Between The Lines, "Gubernatorial Candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Why He Stands With the LGBTQ Community", 2018; see also: Abdul El-Sayed Official Campaign Platform on Civil & LGBTQ+ Rights, 2018–2026)

The matter doesn't end there. The second front is "abortion rights." Here, Abdul El-Sayed aligned himself with the positions of America's largest abortion network, "Planned Parenthood," and "Reproductive Freedom for All" (formerly NARAL). He adopted the view that abortion is a woman's right, that legal restrictions on it should be removed, and that access to it should be guaranteed through government funding.

(Reproductive Freedom for All / Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, Candidate Records, 2018 & 2026)

Shake your conscience and ask yourself: if a person's entire political career rests on giving legal protection to the act of the people of Lot and making the abortion of lives growing in the womb a government-backed right, does the name "Abdul" make these un-Islamic, anti-Qur'anic policies permissible?

Now turn the camera from Michigan to New York and perform a post-mortem on the second major case study: the political story of Zohran Kwame Mamdani. Liberals and emotional Muslims of the Subcontinent alike are dancing over his rise in New York politics and his election as mayor.

Who is Zohran Mamdani, and where are his intellectual roots?

Born in 1991 in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, Zohran Mamdani is the son of Mahmood Mamdani, the famous left-wing professor at Columbia University, and Mira Nair, the Indian-born secular filmmaker who made films like Kama Sutra and Monsoon Wedding.

Now look at the greatest and most bitter irony of history!

In 2004, Zohran's father, Professor Mahmood Mamdani, wrote his celebrated book ‘Good Muslim, Bad Muslim’. In it, he revealed how American imperialism divides Muslims into two groups: the "Good Muslim," who bows his head before the Western secular system, and the "Bad Muslim," who regards his religion as a complete code of life.

(Mahmood Mamdani, "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror", Pantheon Books, New York, 2004, Pages 15-24)

But look at what fate has done. This same Mahmood Mamdani's son, Zohran, was elected to the New York State Assembly in 2020 on the platform of the "Democratic Socialists of America" (DSA). Then, in November 2025, he was elected Mayor of New York City, took office on January 1, 2026, and emerged as the most prominent Muslim face in American politics. And in doing so, he presented himself to the Western left-wing establishment as the ultimate "Good Progressive Muslim"!

What is Zohran Mamdani's modus operandi, and what are his political values?

When he needs the votes and donations of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Arab Muslims in Astoria, Queens, and in Brooklyn, he goes to Masjids, speaks words of Urdu and Arabic, films videos at kebab shops, and chants passionate slogans in support of Palestine.

But when this same Zohran Mamdani sits at the table of legislation and policy in Albany (New York's state capital) or at City Hall, which laws does he fight for on the front lines?

The official record of the New York State Assembly shows that Zohran Mamdani has been among the leading supporters and co-sponsors of the bill to decriminalize sex work in New York, given the pleasant-sounding name "Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act."

(New York State Assembly Legislative Information System, "Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act", Co-sponsored by Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, 2021–2024 Sessions; see also: Democratic Socialists of America NYC Chapter Platform on Sex Work Decriminalization)

Not only that. He supported an amendment to New York's constitution (the Equal Rights Amendment / Proposal 1, approved in November 2024), whose purpose was to give permanent constitutional protection to rights related to abortion and gender identity. He also voted for, and openly defended, the bill (S2475B / A6046B) that makes New York a "safe haven" (Trans Healthcare Shield Law), protecting patients coming from other states, and their doctors, from legal action over gender-affirming care.

(New York State Assembly Roll Call Vote on Bill A06046B, Passed June 2023; see also: Zohran Mamdani Official Statements on Queer Liberation and Reproductive Justice, NYC-DSA)

This story is not limited to Abdul El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani. Pick up a map of the entire Western world, and you will see characters cast in the same mold.

Look at Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib in the U.S. Congress. In July and December 2022, they voted for the "Respect for Marriage Act" (H.R. 8404), the bill giving federal legal protection to same-sex marriage, and proudly waved flags at gay Pride Parades.

(U.S. House of Representatives Roll Call Vote No. 373 & No. 513 on H.R. 8404, 117th Congress, 2022)

Go to Britain and you will find London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Scotland's former First Minister Humza Yousaf. In December 2022, when Humza Yousaf was Health Secretary in Nicola Sturgeon's government, he voted in the Scottish Parliament for the "Gender Recognition Reform Bill." Under this bill, 16-year-olds were to be given the right to change their legal gender on official documents without any medical diagnosis. The British government blocked the bill in January 2023, and after becoming First Minister, Humza Yousaf fought a legal battle in court to revive it. And when he was asked during the 2023 party leadership campaign whether homosexuality is a sin, he made an apologetic departure from Islamic belief in front of the cameras.

(Scottish Parliament Official Report, Stage 3 Debate on Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, December 22, 2022; see also: SNP leadership contest coverage, February–March 2023)

Professor Wael B. Hallaq, the great Palestinian-born scholar at Columbia University and an expert on Islamic law and modernity, offers a philosophical analysis of this intellectual tragedy in his landmark book The Impossible State. Every Muslim should write it in gold and hang it on the wall of their room.

Professor Hallaq argues that the modern Western secular state (the Modern Liberal State) is an intellectual and legal factory that, in its very essence, raises itself to the rank of God. Seen in the light of this analysis, when a Muslim becomes a cog in this machinery and enters its parliament or senate, he cannot make the state Islamic. Instead, the state's system forces him to sign off on making permissible what Allah has forbidden, in order to save his seat, his vote bank, and his party funding.

(Wael B. Hallaq, "The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity's Moral Predicament", Columbia University Press, New York, 2013, Pages 48-73 & 155-168)

Now the biggest and most decisive question arises: why do the architects of the "New World Order," the global capitalist elite, and Western think tanks so urgently need to carve out artificial leaders from among Muslims?

The answer is hidden in the figures of demographics and global sociology. The global demographic reports of the Pew Research Center, America's most respected research institution, show that Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. The Muslim population has reached nearly two billion. Among all the world's religions, Muslims have the lowest median age, meaning this population is made up mostly of young people. And by 2050, about 30 percent of the world's population will be Muslim, roughly every third person.

(Pew Research Center, "The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010–2050", Washington, D.C., April 2, 2015, Pages 5-18)

The powers that run the global order, whether the World Economic Forum in Davos, George Soros's Open Society network, or Washington's liberal establishment complex, understand one thing well. The new world order of the twenty-first century is built on ending the family system, reducing population through abortion, erasing gender identity, and abolishing religious morality to turn human beings into soulless consumers. If one last strong fortress stands in its way anywhere on earth, it is the "Muslim family" and the "Islamic moral system."

The West broke down the traditional fortresses of Christianity and Judaism from the inside during the last century and raised rainbow flags over their churches. But it was no longer possible to bring two billion Muslims into this new global religion by attacking them from outside.

So, to advance this global agenda, an extremely cunning psychological trap was laid, known in political science as "elite co-optation."

The method of this trap is simple but terrifying:

To get Muslim youth to follow them, "condemning atrocities in Palestine," "speeches against Islamophobia," and "opposing Trump's racism" are first used as halal bait.

When Abdul El-Sayed or Zohran Mamdani talk about a ceasefire in Gaza or criticize Donald Trump's anti-Muslim statements, Muslim youth from America to Muslim World are swept up in emotion and accept them as their saviors.

And once those young people are mentally and emotionally caught in these leaders' spell, the same leaders slowly pour this poison into their minds:

"Look! If we want to fight Islamophobia in America and raise our voices for Palestine, we must form an alliance (intersectionality) with all the oppressed communities of the left, meaning the LGBTQ, transgender, sex-worker, and abortion-rights movements, and accept their rights as our own!"

In this way, the suffering of Palestine and the fear of Islamophobia are turned into a political ladder, and the new generation of Muslims is stripped of its basic Islamic belief, its modesty, and its sense of halal and haram.

(For reference, see: Kimberlé Crenshaw's theory of Intersectionality as applied in DSA and Justice Democrats coalition politics; see also: Jonathan A.C. Brown, "Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy", Oneworld Publications, 2014)

Isn't this exactly the same formula Lord Macaulay presented to the Governor-General's Council on February 2, 1835, in his famous Minute on Indian Education? He said we must create a class of people who are Indian in blood and color, but entirely English in taste, opinions, morals, and intellect.

(Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Minute on Indian Education", February 2, 1835, in Bureau of Education, Selections from Educational Records, Part I (1781–1839), Edited by H. Sharp, Superintendent Government Printing, Calcutta, 1920, Page 116)

The only difference today is this: in 1835, Macaulay needed "interpreters" to serve as a bridge between rulers and the ruled. In the New World Order of 2026, Soros and the RAND Corporation need Muslim senators, mayors, and members of Congress named Abdul, Zohran, Ilhan, and Hamza. They post iftar photos in Ramadan and wear sherwanis on Eid, but when they swing the gavel of legislation, they give legal protection to the act of the people of Lot, get sex work decriminalized, and approve government funds for abortion!

With folded hands, I beg my Muslim readers around the world: for God's sake, come out of this intellectual childishness, this shallow wishful thinking, and this mirage of names!

Donald Trump's defeat in the midterm elections is the result of America's internal political and economic contradictions. The so-called progressive Muslim faces who won on the Democratic Party ticket as a result are by no means representatives of Islam or the Muslim Ummah. They are political pawns of secular liberal imperialism, carefully prepared over the past fifteen years to hollow out mainstream Islam from within.

Islam does not depend on an Arabic name printed on someone's ID card. Islam means unconditional obedience to the eternal moral, family, and legal principles revealed by Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, on which no compromise is possible.

The day we learn to put on the lens of research, study, and critical insight and judge ideas and platforms instead of faces, no Soros family fellowship will be able to deceive us, and no false glitter in the halls of New York and Washington will be able to trade away our faith.

The decision is now in the hands of your own awareness: will you simply look at names and clap, or will you recognize the intellectual poison hidden behind this beautiful label and protect your faith and that of your future generations?