Video shows Muslims in Dearborn marching, but not to ‘demand Sharia’

On Nov. 3, Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed made history as the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate, resulting in numerous claims focusing on his religious identity. Footage spread online claiming to show Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, demanding the implementation of Sharia, or Islamic law, in the United States.

The footage appeared on Facebook and X with captions calling it “an invasion” by Muslims. One post stated: “Thousands of Shia Muslims marched in Dearborn demanding Sharia in Michigan and rejecting American law. Now that they have a Muslim senator, they will become more emboldened than ever.”

The footage in question was not taken after the Nov. 3 elections. A local Dearborn news agency shared it on Instagram on June 28 with a caption saying that it showed Shiite Muslims observing the holy day of Ashura, which has nothing to do with implementing Sharia. As such, we rate this claim miscaptioned.

Details indicated that the footage was not shot in November, including the facts that all the people marching are wearing T-shirts and the leaves on the trees are green. In November, Dearborn is cold and leaves have changed color and fallen.

Using Google’s reverse image search tool, we found what appeared to be the original source of the footage. On June 28, the Instagram and TikTok account for local news organization dearborn.org, which focuses on immigrant Arab and Muslim news, posted the same footage in a reel (archived) with the caption, “From the Annual Ashura march in Dearborn.”

A local newspaper, the Detroit Free Press, also covered the same march, posting photographs of the same men in black shirts, green vests and black-and-red vests.

As we have previously reported, Ashura is a holy day for Shiite Muslims. The reel shows a group of men participating in a religious ritual during Muharram, the first month of the Muslim calendar. The month is an important mourning period for Shiite Muslims in particular as it marks the anniversary of the seventh-century Battle of Karbala (in present-day Iraq) and the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein.

It is common practice for Shiite Muslims to observe the period by wearing black, crying and beating their chests, particularly on Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram.

Similar footage of another procession went viral after Zohran Mamdani, who is a Shiite Muslim, became the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor in 2025. The footage spread with miscaptioned text claiming that the procession was taking place in New York City because of Mamdani, when it was actually from Azerbaijan.

For more reporting on El-Sayed, we have previously covered the claim that he would force Michigan students to learn Arabic numerals (they already do), the true claim that he called Michigan “the capital of Arab America” and a false rumor that he said it was acceptable for young girls to see male genitals in their locker rooms because “they are going to see them on the internet anyway.”

Sources