During a June 12 Friday sermon at the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi claimed that American patriot Patrick Henry drew his famous declaration, “Give me liberty or give me death,” directly or indirectly from Imam Hussein.

Elahi linked Henry’s words to a saying attributed to Hussein during the Battle of Karbala: “Death with dignity is better than a life in humiliation.”

The cleric then turned his sermon against Israel, alleging that whenever President Donald Trump discusses peace, he receives pressure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the pro-Israel lobby because Israelis are “the enemies of peace.”