Imam Husham Al-Husainy of Dearborn speaks at Trump’s inauguration

On January 21, 2025By Littum

Imam Al-Husainy used to help organize pro-war rallies in the year before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, but later criticized US-led wars in the Middle East.

In the months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, a Dearborn cleric emerged as one of the leading public voices in support of the push to topple the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

“Death, death to Saddam!” sang Imam Husham Al-Husainy through a megaphone at a pro-war rally broadcast by C-SPAN in Washington, DCin October 2002, against a nearby anti-war rally, when the crowd echoed his remarks. “Saddam must go.”

In the months that followed, Al-Husainy became a fixture in the Iraqi American community in Dearborn, courted by the Pentagon and other US government agencies to help convince the public that an invasion of Iraq would promote democracy. Al-Husainy, a native of Iraq, held similar events in metro Detroit, where he met in Dearborn with opposition leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who later became Iraq’s interim prime minister. Al-Husainy traveled to London for an international conference of Iraqi opposition groups and was in northern Iraq in February 2003 to meet people opposed to Hussein’s rule. Al-Husainy is a Shia cleric head of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center, a Dearborn mosque on Warren Avenue that was a spiritual home for many Iraqi refugees who fled Hussein’s rule after a failed 1991 Shia uprising.

“I want to build a bridge of communication between Christians and Muslims, West and East, American and Arab,” Al-Husainy told the Free Press in April 2003, a few weeks after the US invaded Iraq.

Al-Husainy, 70, will again be in the national spotlight as he prepares to speak at the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump on Monday, one of four faith leaders to deliver a blessing after Trump’s speech. Another local clergyman, the Rev. Lorenzo Sewell, who hosted Trump at his Detroit church in June, is also set to give a blessing, as well as a rabbi and Catholic priest, both from New York.

It is believed that it will be the first time in history that a Muslim leader speaks at a presidential inauguration. There have been Islamic clerics speaking at events later in the week following the inauguration, such as interfaith service at Washington National Cathedralbut not at the initiation ceremony itself.

The selection of Al-Husainy to speak at Trump’s inauguration illustrates the complexities of politics and religion as Republicans seek to shore up their growing support among Arab Americans and Muslims in Michigan, a swing state. After demonstrating in support of the war in Iraq, Al-Husainy later became more critical of US foreign policy as it shifted to focus more on the threat posed by Iran. He now says he supports Trump because he sees him as more for peace than President Joe Biden has been.

“I support peace, no war,” Al-Husainy said at a Republican press conference in October 2024, along with Dearborn Heights Mayor Bill Bazzi and Hamtramck Mayor Amer Ghalib, both of whom endorsed Trump and appeared with him on stage at rallies. “This is a strongest country in the world and it deserves to have a strong leader where he can bring peace to this world.” Al-Husainy blasted Biden for not stopping “the killing, the bloodshed” in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen.

Since Trump was elected, ceasefires have been reached in Lebanon and Gaza, which some Arab American leaders credit Trump with.

Trump’s selection of Al-Husainy has sparked outrage from some pro-Israel and conservative groups and media sitesseam accuse him being sympathetic to Iran and Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia group that the United States has labeled a terrorist organization. Al-Husainy was once allied with conservative and pro-Israel groups to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, but is now on opposite sides.

“It would send a terrible message and put a black mark on President Trump’s new term in office to give an anti-Semite and Hezbollah apologist a prominent platform at the Trump inauguration,” the Zionist Organization of America said in a statement Wednesday.

Leaving Iraq for freedom in the United States

Al-Husainy said he left Iraq about 46 years ago when Hussein came to power. He opened the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in 1995 in a building that was once a popular Dearborn nightclub called Club Gay Haven. Since 2004, Al-Husainy has organized and led the annual Arbaeen procession through the streets of Dearborn, a tradition for Shia Muslims that commemorates the death of a grandson of Islam’s prophet in battle against a tyrant in Karbala, Iraq, as his mosque is named after. The Arbaeen event now draws thousands annually, including Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who marches with others.

Wearing a white turban and traditional clothes, Al-Husainy became popular decades ago among Muslim American youth for his English-language lectures, speeches at mosques, interfaith events and protests. He speaks excitedly at times, his pitch rising as he describes Islamic traditions and how they apply to life in America. His mosque is often decorated with paintings of prominent Shia clerics and descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. Den Frie Presse has interviewed and met him several times over the past 25 years. He did not return voicemails back to him for the past week.

Asked by the Free Press in April 2003 whether he may return to Iraq after Hussein is removed, he said: “We’ll see. Half of my life was in Iraq. Half of my life in America . I will go where I can serve better.”

In addition to rallies against Iraqi ruler Hussein, Al-Husainy has also led or participated in numerous pro-Palestinian and anti-ISIS protests over the decades, speaking out against Israel and Saudi Arabia. In July 2002, he was once ticketed for attending a pro-Palestinian rally, which was condemned by other Arab American leaders. Former Dearborn District Judge Bill Runco threw out the ticket, and Al-Husainy thanked him, saying it was an example of Muslim-Christian partnership.

Supported Trump for peace

While he initially supported President George W. Bush at the beginning of the war, he later became critical of him and did not attend Bush’s rally in Dearborn with Iraqi Americans in April 2003.

Al-Husainy told the Free Press that he supported John Kerry in 2004 and Trump in 2016, but raised concerns in 2020 about the Trump administration’s military strike in Iraq that killed Iran’s top military general, Qassem Soleimani, designated a terrorist by the United States. On October 21, 2024, he publicly endorsed Trump at a GOP press conference organized “to highlight Kamala Harris’s failure to bring peace and stability to the Middle East ahead of her campaign event today with former Congresswoman Liz Cheney,” said Victoria LaCivita, a communications director for the Trump campaign in Michigan. Cheney spoke later that day in Royal Oak at a rally for Harris. A daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, a key leader in the US invasion of Iraq, she was often criticized by Trump for being pro-war. Meeting with Arab Americans in Dearborn on Nov. 1, Trump repeatedly attacked Cheney, contrasting her with his message of peace.

“Liz Cheney is a disaster,” Trump said in Dearborn, surrounded by Arab American supporters. “All she wants to do is blow people up. She’s a war hawk.” Trump said when he’s president, “you get peace in the Middle East.”

Al-Husainy said many Arab Americans have fled dictatorships, as he did when he left Iraq after Hussein took power in 1979.

“So if we don’t get involved now, more puppets and more dictators will be there,” he said. “We’ve seen so many murders, whether it’s in Lebanon, whether it’s in Palestine, whether it’s in Iraq, whether it’s in Yemen. So do you need to see more assassinations? No, we need to see more democracy . We need to see more elections. We don’t want to see more puppets over there.”

Al-Husainy has also been outspoken on social issues, saying he opposes same-sex marriage, marijuana and transgender identity, finding common ground with some conservative Republicans.

He said he supports Trump “because I found him closer to the Bible and the Torah and the Koran.” Al-Husainy expressed concern over voters legalizing marijuana in 2018, saying religious people did not show up to defeat the ballot measure legalizing the drug.

“I encourage the community to vote, to get involved,” Al-Husainy said on the GOP call. “They didn’t (in 2018) and here we go: marijuana is over, we’re losing some of our youth. And if they don’t get involved in this election, some of the kids, the boys will turn to girls and the girls will turn say to boys. So when you … vote, you have to go for three reasons: Vote to satisfy your conscience and to obey God and to bring peace to this world.”

Leading the faithful

During the Iraq War, Al-Husainy gained national attention and appeared on national television news stations such as Fox NewsC-SPAN and CNN. Twenty years ago this month, CNN anchor Aaron Brown broadcast live from the mosque he leads, the Karbalaa Center, as Iraqi immigrants voted in Iraq’s elections. In September 2009, he and other Arab-American leaders met with CIA Director George Tenet at the Bint Jbeil Cultural Center in Dearborn as part of an intelligence outreach effort.

But he also kept up with his religious duties and usually delivered the weekly Friday sermons in his mosque. He often draws comparisons between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, linking their prophets and messengers.

And every year he leads the Arbaeen processions, whether it is held in the freezing cold of winter or in the heat of summer. The holiday is held 10 days earlier each year.

In January 2009, he and thousands of others trudged through snow-covered sidewalks from the Karbalaa Center to Hemlock Park. The two-mile procession featured colorful flags in honor of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet of Islam, and recitations of religious poetry.

“We are here as lovers of Imam Hussain, lovers of freedom, of justice, of democracy,” Al-Husainy told the Free Press during the procession. “Imam Hussain is still alive with us even though he was martyred 1,400 years ago. His spirit is still alive.”

Contact Niraj Warikoo:[email protected] or X @nwarikoo