Abdul El-Sayed Just Made a Ridiculous Claim About Slavery and Who Built the Nation

Sep 03, 2026 8:00 AM
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Abdul El-Sayed Just Made a Ridiculous Claim About Slavery and Who Built the Nation
AP Photo/Paul Sancya

There's been this weird and ahistorical push on the Left to claim Muslims somehow built America. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu claimed Somali Muslims built Boston, even though the first Somalis didn't show up in New York until 1920 — long after Boston was established as a major American city. It's a lie, of course.

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But the Left has to rewrite our history so they can destroy America and rebuild it in accordance with its socialist utopia vision. So this old video of Abdul El-Sayed, from a CAIR speech in 2019, shows how deeply this rewriting goes. El-Sayed is arguing that half of American slaves were Muslims so Muslims built the country.

"I've been reading our history. Muslims have been in this part of the country since 1527," El-Sayed said. "Estevanico of Azador, probably a name you've never heard. Probably the first recorded Muslim to touch ground on what is now these United States of America."

Estevanico of Azador explored southern America for a few years and died in 1539, contributing nothing to the founding of this nation.

"Estimates suggest up to 50 percent of people who were brought here against their will as slaves were Muslims," he continued. "Literally built this country."

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If this is true — and we'll get to that in a moment — it's because Muslims and Africans in Africa sold them into slavery. Weird how the role of Islamists and Africans never gets mentioned in the slave trade, or how parts of the Islamic world still use slavery to this day.

Legitimate scholars think that at best, perhaps 20 percent of slaves came from Muslim regions. But if you know your history, and El-Sayed does not, America didn't truly become prosperous until the Industrial Revolution hit the North — after slavery had ended. The South remained poor for almost a century after emancipation.

So Muslims built, at best, next to nothing.

But this is meant to give them a claim to this land to enact Islamic Sharia law.

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Funny how El-Sayed doesn't mention that bit of history.

"There are no borders."

"This is stolen land."

"Actually, Muslims were here first and built the country."

Realize what the game is here.

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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