Deets of 2012 Hijab Hate Crime Hoax Abdul El-Sayed Blamed on Islamophobia Have Come Out and HOOBOY

Sam J. | 8:55 AM on September 15, 2026

Michigan Democrats just handed their Senate nomination to a guy who once treated a domestic homicide like a national morality play.

Nothing should surprise us about Abdul El-Sayed at this point but ... this did.

In 2012, Abdul El-Sayed rushed to frame the beating death of Iraqi-American mother Shaima Alawadi as proof that America was seething with racism and Islamophobia — even while police were still telling everyone not to jump to conclusions. The “hate crime” note, the hijab narrative, the Trayvon Martin parallel: it all made for a tidy sermon.

Then investigators followed the evidence, her husband was convicted of staging the scene after she planned to leave him, and El-Sayed never bothered to update the sermon.

Now he’s the nominee in a toss-up race.

Convenient timing for a reminder.

Abdul El-Sayed Promoted Infamous Hijab Hate Crime Hoax

In 2012, El-Sayed said Shaima Alawadi was murdered because "she had the courage to wear a hijab" and blamed America's "racism, xenophobia, and hate."

She was actually killed by her husband, who staged it to look like a…
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) September 14, 2026

Post continues:

She was actually killed by her husband, who staged it to look like a hate crime.

But sure, blame America. Stoke those lines of hatred and division, Abdul. It's what you're good at.

From the Free Beacon:

Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed falsely claimed in a 2012 essay that an Iraqi refugee in California was brutally murdered in an anti-Muslim attack because she had the "courage to wear a Hijab." In truth, Shaima Alawadi's husband killed her in an act of domestic violence that he staged to look like a hate crime.
El-Sayed, in an article on March 28, 2012, equated Alawadi's killing with the shooting of Trayvon Martin, a black Florida teenager, as examples of the "racism, xenophobia, and hate" in American society against minorities.