President Donald Trump sat atop a White House ceremony to mark the start of the National Day of Prayer, where he was accompanied by spiritual figures of all stripes—Christian pastors, Hebrew priests, Hindu swamis, Buddhist priests, and Muslim sufis.
What started out as a carefully choreographed time of religious unity quickly veered into plan trail chaos as he delved into an unplanned anecdote involving imams, death, and what he falsely called “38 virgins” in normal Trump fashion.
” I adore them. They were fantastic, Trump said, drawing attention to a 2024 plan meet with Michigan leaders. They reportedly said,” We don’t want to die.” I said,” You want to death?” They said,” We don’t want to die,” they said. What about the 38 girls, I asked? They responded,” That’s nonsense.”
The series caused a pattern of mocking online. ” It’s 72 virgins, never 38″, one X person deadpanned. Trump’s mathematics is “working in enigmatic way.” Another joked that the drop represented the most recent instance of the former president’s renowned ability to make deals, “negotiating sanctuary down by 47 %.”
The “72 virgins” idea itself is a frequently misrepresented and frequently misunderstood theme. Most major Islamic scholars view it as symbolic, fictitious, or even comedy, no ideological philosophy because it comes from a contested scriptures in some feudal Islamic texts and is not mentioned in the Quran. However, extremists have used the notion as a crude stereotype to portray Muslim beliefs as intrinsically harsh or immoral.
But behind the joke outlines, there is a much bigger truth: Trump’s growing appeal to Muslims, particularly in Michigan’s Arab-American areas. Some pundits had predicted that there would be a political reconfiguration, which would have helped turn a crucial battleground state in his favor.
Some Arab and Muslim American voters, especially those in Michigan’s battle, made a shocking turn toward Donald Trump earlier in the 2024 election. Trump won 42 % of the vote in Dearborn, a city with one of the nation’s largest Muslim populations, a remarkable increase over the 26 % he received in 2020.
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris received only 36 %, while Green Party candidate Jill Stein received 18 %, which is burdened by the Biden administration’s handling of the Gaza conflict and wider Middle East policy. Trump’s campaign promises to “end the wars,” his deliberate engagement to Muslim leaders, and his emphasis on religious liberty piqued the interest of voters who were opposed to his liberal ethnic and foreign policy agendas.
Trump’s system, while weak, felt more in line with the priorities of several Muslim Americans, especially in Yemeni and Israeli communities, than the Political status quo. In a small position like Michigan, it made a calculated, interest-based ballot rather than an support of his persona.
