An imam who had been scheduled to deliver a benediction at President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday did not participate in the ceremony, after reports surfaced regarding his support for Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
Husham al-Husainy, 70, from Dearborn, Michigan, was set to be the first Muslim leader to speak at the main inauguration ceremony of an American president. But he did not appear on stage during the ceremony, and neither he nor Trump’s team replied to questions about the no-show by several media outlets.
According to a report by the Middle East Forum, in 2006 al-Husainy spoke at a rally supporting the Lebanese terror organization and “held the picture of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah aloft on the stage.”
A year later, he appeared on the FOX News show “Hannity & Colmes,” where he refused to call Hezbollah a terror organization.
The report also outlined a documented history of antisemitism. At a rally in 2015, hosted at the imam’s Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center in Dearborn, he wished death upon Saudi Arabia and denounced Saudis as “agents of the Jews” whose “Zionist” planes “rain down” death upon the people of Yemen.
Citing al-Husainy’s record, critics were dismayed that he had been invited to participate in the benediction at Trump’s inauguration.
An American Muslim woman, Dr. Debbie Almontaser, read Koran verses at a virtual inaguration prayer service that then President Joe Biden attended on January 21, 2021, a day after the main ceremony.
At Trump’s inauguration, benedictions were given by Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, Senior Pastor Lorenzo Sewell and Reverend Father Frank Mann.
Berman, the president of New York City’s Yeshiva University, prayed on stage for the Israeli hostages in Gaza, peace in the Middle East and for God to “guide our schools and campuses, which have been experiencing such unrest, to inspire the next generation.”
He also prayed for Trump and Vice President JD Vance, that they might “choose the right and the good, unite us around our foundational biblical values of life and liberty, service and sacrifice, and especially of faith and morality.”
