‘Kill Them One by One’: Detroit Mosque Compilation Highlights Death Prayers and Federal Funding

The Middle East Forum has published a compilation of 44 clips that it says document violent prayers and extremist rhetoric at the Islamic Center of Detroit, including repeated appeals for people’s deaths. Its accompanying report also alleges that the institution has received more than $45 million in federal funding since 2017, a total that has not been independently reconciled.

The video circulated on October 21 after Eitan Fischberger shared it on X, highlighting a prayer translated in the compilation as: “O Allah, count them, kill them one by one, and leave none of them.”

Fischberger also drew attention to the mosque’s connection to Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate candidate. The Washington Free Beacon previously reported that El-Sayed attends services there while traveling, citing an unnamed source familiar with his attendance.

Recordings Collected Across Three Years

The Middle East Forum says its excerpts come from recordings published by mosque officials over the past three years. Its report, dated October 20, describes sermons, lectures and prayers, mostly in Arabic, featuring appeals for death and support for jihadist fighters.

The organization says the compilation represents a selection from more than 400 examples it collected. Those counts are the Forum’s findings; 44 clips should not be read as 44 different speakers or separate sermons.

In the opening example identified in the supplied research, the subtitles name Benjamin Netanyahu, his soldiers and his associates before the prayer asking God to kill them. The wording is a prayer seeking their deaths. Its form and stated target matter when describing the passage accurately.

The translations remain those supplied by the compilation’s publisher. The research accompanying this article did not independently authenticate every excerpt against its complete original recording or provide an independent Arabic transcription.

The Funding Behind the Headline Figure

The Forum attributes most of the claimed federal assistance to Agriculture Department programs administered through Michigan, with smaller amounts from the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services.

It highlights a roughly $31 million entry associated with a Michigan-administered USDA award. The overall figure should remain attributed to the Forum: the research supplied for this article identified repeated subaward entries and did not establish more than $45 million in nonduplicated cash payments.

An official Michigan record independently documents substantial payments to the center. A January 2021 report from the state’s Office of the Auditor General includes an unaudited expenditure schedule listing $6,513,819 paid to the Islamic Center of Detroit for meals and administrative expenses between March 10 and August 31, 2020. That amount cannot simply be added to the other funding figures because the records may overlap.

The funding documentation concerns service programs. It does not establish that public money financed the sermons.

El-Sayed’s Connection to the Center

The Free Beacon’s September 29 report described El-Sayed’s attendance and cited earlier speaking appearances at the center. Its claim about worship attendance depended on an unnamed source. Those connections do not establish that he attended the recordings featured in the compilation or endorsed their contents.

The compilation places the speakers’ recorded language before a wider audience. Establishing the full institutional response and an accurate accounting of the public funding requires answers beyond the edited video.