Abdul El-Sayed is running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan. The 42-year-old has stirred plenty of emotions on both sides of the political aisle. If he wins, he will make history as the first Muslim Senator in the U.S. While he’s on national television every day, not much is known about his family. Here’s all you need to know about his wife and two children, and why he felt like a “supporting actor” when his daughters were born.
While Abdul El-Sayed, born in October 1984 in Rochester Hills, Michigan, has largely kept his family life private, his writings and past comments have offered glimpses into the complicated family history behind the politician.
As the Michigan politician has taken the spotlight, both in his state and, perhaps most importantly, nationwide, interest in his private life has increased. So, let’s take a closer look at his family, his wife and two children.
According to his campaign, Abdul El-Sayed was raised by his father, Mohamed, who immigrated to the United States from Egypt, and his stepmother, Jackie, whose family comes from Gratiot County, Michigan.
His biological mother, Dr. Fatten Elkomy, is a nurse practitioner in Missouri. However, El-Sayed has said that he did not grow up with her and is estranged from her.
His father, Mohamed, 74, worked as an automotive engineer and previously taught at Alexandria University in Egypt.
He left the country in his 20s during political unrest under President Anwar Sadat. At the time, the Egyptian government was cracking down on militant students and professors following Sadat’s peace agreement with Israel in the late 1970s.
Abdul El-Sayed’s Parents: Mohamed El-Sayed and Fatten El-Komy
In his 2020 book, Healing Politics: A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic, El-Sayed explained that his father had become a target because of his political activism and his connections to young people.
“His political agitation against Egypt’s increasingly brutal military dictatorship coupled with his proximity to young minds, made him a threat to the regime. He had to leave. There were few options,” he wrote.
Mohamed eventually settled in the United States, where he pursued a PhD in mechanical engineering at Wayne State University in Detroit.
According to Ahmed’s book, his father was drawn to America because he believed people should be judged on their character rather than their name, skin color, or religion.
“His name, the color of his skin and how he prayed shouldn’t matter,” El-Sayed wrote about his father’s dreams of a new life in the U.S. “America was also the home of democracy, that thing he had so wanted for Egypt.”
Estranged(?) mother
While El-Sayed has spoken openly about his father’s journey, questions have also been raised about his relationship with his biological mother.
In a conversation with NBC News, he was asked about claims concerning his mother’s alleged connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed strongly rejected any suggestion that he or his family had ties to the organization.
“Are you serious?” he responded. “I have no ties. We have no ties.”
In Healing Politics: A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic, El-Sayed also offered a more personal description of his mother, calling her “smart, warm and charismatic.”
While El-Sayed’s campaign has said that he is estranged from his mother, reports suggest that the two have had some contact over the years.
The NY Post reported that El-Sayed’s mother attended his medical school graduation in 2014. Also, he mentioned visiting her in a 2021 column published on his Substack, per CBS.
“Off to Columbia, MO to visit my mother for the [Thanksgiving] holiday,” he wrote then.
In a polarized era in the U.S., Abdul El-Sayed has often been criticized, not least because of his faith. The fact is, he could become the first-ever Muslim Senator, although El-Sayed has strongly made it clear that he doesn’t care about what you believe in, as long as you have the right to believe in it.
Is Abdul El-Sayed A Doctor?
During a rally in October, El-Sayed stated, “I’m not running to be a Muslim senator. I’m running for U.S. Senate and happen to be Muslim,” per CBS.
He added that if he wins, he will swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States of America, which the politician said guarantees him and others “the right to pray as I choose to pray or not pray at all.”
While his opponent, Mike Rogers, and others have claimed that Abdul is in fact not a doctor, his past studies say otherwise. El-Sayed graduated from the University of Michigan with the highest distinction, where he also played lacrosse for the Wolverines men’s team.
He later earned his medical degree from Columbia University through a National Institutes of Health (NIH)- funded fellowship. However, his academic achievements did not stop there.
As a Rhodes Scholar, he went on to complete a second doctorate at the prestigious University of Oxford in England.
During his time at the University of Michigan, Ahmed El-Sayed found his one and true love, Dr. Sarah Jukaku. In fact, the couple even married while still studying.
El-Sayed and Jukaku met at the University of Michigan and were featured in a 2006 article in the college’s student publication, The Michigan Daily.
Who Is Abdul El-Sayed’s Wife, Sarah Jukaku?
She told The Michigan Daily that they got engaged when she was a freshman. At the time, El-Sayed told the newspaper that being “so willing to commit to marriage is a byproduct of this general self-control” taught by their religion, Islam.
“When he proposed to me, I was a freshman,” she explained to The Michigan Daily. “I was young, and one of the things he said was, ‘We’re still growing, now we can grow together.’”
El-Sayed added, jokingly, “I’m romantic.
“Being able to grow with your significant other is an experience that a lot of people miss out on. (Sarah and I) are happy and lucky to have the opportunity, thank God.”
El-Sayed further told The Michigan Daily, “I was going to meet one girl and I was going to marry her. In some senses, I feel like that’s the purest form of a relationship with someone. It cuts out all the B.S.”
In Healing Politics: A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic, El-Sayed also shared some personal details about his wife, Sarah. He wrote that her parents had immigrated to the United States from a village in India and described her as having a “quiet confidence.”
El-Sayed reflected on how differently they approached their emotions, admitting he had struggled to understand himself.
“I struggled to learn who I was,” he wrote. “Sarah did not. She danced with her emotions. I wrestled with mine. And in time she would teach me to dance, awkwardly, with mine too.”
Sarah Jukaku appears in husband’s campaign
He also suggested that her calm, caring nature made her well suited to become a psychiatrist. Abdul wrote that it “makes sense” she chose a career helping people through some of life’s most difficult experiences.
As her husband has been campaigning for the Senate seat, Jukaku has also appeared in some of her husband’s campaign materials.
For example, in one video, Sarah spoke about the support she got from her union after she experienced medical complications after childbirth.
“You don’t realize you need the union until you need it,” Dr. Sarah Jukaku said. “In my case, having that advocate was really important when I wasn’t sure where to turn.”
Abdul El-Sayed has praised his wife in both interviews and on social media. For example, on Mother’s Day in May, he shared a post praising his wife.
“Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, and especially to my brilliant life partner, Sarah. Sarah, you are my rock and the greatest mother to our daughters. We are so blessed to have you,” he wrote on X.
Does Abdul El-Sayed Have Kids? Meet His Daughters, Emmalee and Serene
Abdul El-Sayed and his wife Sarah have two daughters: Emmalee and Serene. However, he has largely kept them private, far from cameras. When they have appeared in campaign videos, they have done so without showing their faces.
However, it still offered a rare glimpse into his family life. In late October, Abdul shared a video on Facebook named “bedtime duties,” which followed him into his home and showed how he spent time with his daughters after coming home from the campaign trail.
The video showed glimpses of Abdul’s life at home with his children, and he said it’s “bittersweet” to get home.
“It’s nice, it’s bittersweet,” El-Sayed said. “When you’re gone, you are focused on what you’re doing. And then you get back, and you realize how much you missed. So that’s not great. “
“But it’s so nice to see them, and especially the older one. Emmalee is curious about the whole thing, but the younger one is like blissfully ignorant. So that’s lovely because she’s the only person in my life who doesn’t ask me about the race”
He continued, “Your relationship with your kids evolves over time. You know, as soon as they’re born, they’re going to be the most important people in your life. And I think there is this thing that happens with dads in particular: you get so excited for them to be born and then you realize, like, for the first six weeks, they give you very little, and you’re just trying to be a really good supporting actor. And then they smile for the first time, and it changes your life. “
El-Sayed admits “sadness” about missing moments with daughters while campaigning
In an interview with ABC News, he said the most challenging part of being away from his family on the campaign trail is not necessarily missing “the headline moments,” such as games, but “those interstitial moments, the cement between the bricks.”
“And so there’s a lot of sadness about missing some of those moments,” he told ABC, crediting his wife for maintaining normalcy for his daughter at home. She has also helped keep their children away from the negative ads on television.
On Father’s Day earlier this year, Abdul El-Sayed praised his daughters and sent a message to other dads.
“So grateful to be Emmalee and Serene’s Baba. Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers and father figures in Michigan! (And to all those dads missing their babies and children missing their dads today, may this day bring back the best memories.)” El-Sayed wrote on Facebook, alongside a video with his children.
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