Husham Al-Husainy will speak alongside a number of religious leaders on January 20 at Trump’s inauguration [Getty/file photo]
A Muslim-American imam is expected to attend the inauguration ceremony of President-elect Donald Trump, set to take place on 20 January.
The ceremony will mark the start of Donald Trump’s second time serving as US president following his election win in November, which saw him beat out current Vice President Kamala Harris.
Husham Al-Husainy, the Iraq-American director of the Karbala Islamic Education Centre in Dearborn, Michigan, will reportedly also speak at the event, The Washington Reporter said on Monday.
The Shia Muslim imam will address crowds alongside other religious leaders, including senior pastor Rev. Lorenzo Sewell of the 180 church, also in Detroit, Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, the president of Yeshiva University in New York, and the Rev. Father Frank Mann, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.
In October, Al-Husainy had voiced support for Trump during his presidential election campaign. Trump held rallies in Michigan, home to a prominent Arab-American and Muslim-American community.
“I lean towards Mr. Trump because I found him closer to the Bible, the Torah, and the Quran. Because I support peace, no war,” he said, adding that the country “deserves to have a strong leader where he can bring peace in this world,” he told Fox News in October 2024.
Al-Husainy, arrived in the 1970s in the US to study aeronautical engineering and has been an active member of the Dearborn Muslim community for over two decades.
A prominent member of the Iraqi community in the US, Al-Husainy made headlines back in 2007 after he reportedly declined to refer to Hezbollah as “a terrorist organisation” during a television interview on Fox News.
“Hezbollah is a Lebanese organisation. And I’ve got nothing to do with that,” Al-Husainy said in his Hannity and Colmes appearance.
Frustrated by the Biden’s administration failure to reach achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, and its staunch military support for Israel and the subsequent war in Lebanon, the state’s Arab-American community shunned the Democrats and largely cast their votes for Trump.
At the time, the Republicans promised to bring “peace and prosperity in the Middle East’, and visited many businesses in the area, and spoke with locals.
During his rally in Novi, Michigan, Trump invited a number of Arab and Muslim-American leaders to speak on stage, in what was interpreted as the community’s endorsement for the presidency.
Imam Belal Alzuhairi of the Islamic Center of Detroit said on stage: “We as Muslims stand with President Trump because he promises peace. He promises peace not war… He promised to end war in the Middle East and Ukraine.”
Staunchly pro-Israel Trump claimed that Hamas’ attack on Israel, which triggered the deadly military onslaught of Gaza, “would never have happened” if he had been president at the time.
Trump has invited a number of world leaders to attend his inauguration in Washington, DC. Invites have been extended to Chinese president Xi Jinping, right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Argentine President Javier Milei and Hungarian leader Viktor Orban – who have been both likened to Trump.
Joe Biden, with a few days left in office, said he would also attend.
