ASRA NOMANI: Muslim reformers reject ‘fire will rise’ warning if El-Sayed loses as 'Jihad First'
American Muslim reformers are torching political commentator Wajahat Ali after he warned that "the fire will rise" and people will be "radicalized" if Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed loses his Michigan...
By Fox News · Fox News
American Muslim reformers are torching political commentator Wajahat Ali after he warned that "the fire will rise" and people will be "radicalized" if Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed loses his Michigan Senate bid, saying his language echoes a "Jihad First" intimidation rhetoric used by religious tyrants before elections in the Middle East. On Monday, Ali drew fire on X when he wrote: "If, God forbid, Abdul loses, this will be a watershed moment in Democratic politics. The fire will rise. It’s over. People will be radicalized against corporate, pro-Israel Dems. There will be a reckoning. If, when, he wins, it will be a watershed moment. And that reckoning will still come." After facing backlash, Ali posted another message Tuesday morning, expressing no regrets and instead scolding critics for alleged bigotry. "Ah, that Islamophobia and anti-Arab bigotry are so pure and naked," Ali wrote. "People are just coming out in the open about how they’ve always felt. Great. Please, be honest. Just share the ugliness with the world so we can all see." Ali didn't respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. Reform-minded Muslim leaders aren't buying Ali's rhetoric. The divide with Muslim reformers reflects a broader fissure within American Muslim politics: between establishment organizations and leaders who accept political Islam, or Islamism — the idea that religion should shape government and political life — and reform-minded critics who challenge orthodoxy, reject anti-Israel and anti-Western rhetoric and support secularism, including the separation of mosque and state. "What Wajahat Ali said on the eve of elections is actually the language we’ve seen Islamists use before elections in countries in the Middle East, including Egypt," Dalia Ziada, an Egyptian Muslim reformer and critic of political Islamism , told Fox News Digital. "The threat is usually: If you don’t choose us, this will…