RFK Jr. Claims Arabs Produce No Science at Michigan Rally
WHO:
Al Jazeera - Peter Medawar was born in Brazil to a Lebanese father.
Al Jazeera - Michael Atiyah was born in London to a Lebanese father and Scottish mother.
Al Jazeera - Moungi Bawendi was born in France to a Tunisian father and was based in the United States.
NBC News - Peter Hotez said his late colleague, Nobel Prize winner Ahmed Zewail, “would disagree” with Kennedy’s comments.
NBC News - Cole Wozniak, a spokesperson for Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign, said Kennedy’s remarks were an attempt to influence voters.
NBC News - Senator Chris Murphy criticized Kennedy’s comments, saying, “I really think everyone needs to pay attention to this coordinated campaign to delegitimize Muslim Americans — not just as citizens but as humans.”
Al Jazeera - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) was identified as the United States health secretary and made remarks about Arabs’ contributions to mathematics, science and literature.
Al Jazeera - Kennedy campaigned for Republican nominee Mike Rogers, who was contesting Michigan’s Senate seat against Arab-American Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed.
Al Jazeera - Critics described Kennedy’s comments as racist, Islamophobic and factually inaccurate.
Al Jazeera - The Council on American-Islamic Relations called for Kennedy’s removal and said his remarks dehumanized “half a billion people” and millions of Muslim and Christian Arab Americans.
Al Jazeera - Vaccine scientist Peter Hotez said Arab scientists of the Middle Ages preserved the works of Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen for transmission during the Renaissance.
Al Jazeera - Broadcaster Mehdi Hasan called Kennedy’s comments “racist” and cited Palestinian-American Nobel laureate Omar Yaghi.
Al Jazeera - The article identifies historical and modern Arab or Arab-descended scholars and prize winners including al-Khwarizmi, Ibn al-Haytham, al-Zahrawi, Fatima al-Fihri, Ibn al-Nafis, al-Mutanabbi, al-Idrisi, Peter Medawar, Michael Atiyah, Naguib Mahfouz, Elias James Corey, Ahmed Zewail, Mohamed ElBaradei, Omar Yaghi and Moungi Bawendi.
WHAT:
NBC News - Kennedy said the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood had “created stagnant societies.”
NBC News - The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NBC News - Kennedy promoted funding for Detroit’s health department and said hospitals had agreed to offer healthier food.
NBC News - Protect Our Care described Kennedy’s comments as a “wildly racist tirade.”
Al Jazeera - The article says numerals 0–9 originated in ancient India and were adopted by Arab mathematicians, who spread them worldwide, displacing Roman numerals.
Al Jazeera - Arab and Persian mathematicians studied zero in Baghdad during the 8th century, before Europeans.
Al Jazeera - Fatima al-Fihri founded al-Qarawiyyin University in Fez in the 9th century; it is often cited as the oldest continually operating university.
Al Jazeera - Peter Medawar won the 1960 Nobel Prize in Medicine for work on acquired immune tolerance, which underpins organ transplantation.
Al Jazeera - Michael Atiyah received the Fields Medal in 1966; he was educated in Egypt and spent much of his childhood in Cairo and Khartoum.
Al Jazeera - Elias James Corey received the 1990 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing retrosynthetic analysis.
Al Jazeera - Ahmed Zewail received the 1993 Wolf Prize in Chemistry and the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering femtochemistry.
Al Jazeera - Mohamed ElBaradei shared the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which he led.
Al Jazeera - Omar Yaghi received the 2018 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, shared with Makoto Fujita; PACBI condemned his acceptance because the award is given by an Israeli foundation.
Al Jazeera - Moungi Bawendi received the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.
Al Jazeera - Naguib Mahfouz remains the only Nobel Prize in Literature winner who wrote in Arabic.
Al Jazeera - At a campaign event, Kennedy said: “There’s five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don’t produce science. They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t win the Fields Prize. They don’t win the Wolf Prize. They don’t produce literature.”
Al Jazeera - The article describes Arab contributions including the spread of Hindu-Arabic numerals, scholarship on zero, algebra, optics, surgery, pulmonary circulation, universities, poetry and cartography.
Al Jazeera - It reports Arab or Arab-descended recipients of Nobel, Fields and Wolf prizes, including Mahfouz’s 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature, Zewail’s 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Yaghi’s 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
WHERE:
Al Jazeera - Kennedy made the remarks at an election campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Al Jazeera - The article places the Senate contest in Michigan and describes the historical scholarship as spanning places including Baghdad, Fez, Cairo, Basra, Morocco and Andalusia.
WHEN:
Al Jazeera - Kennedy made the remarks on Monday during campaigning for the Michigan Senate race.
Al Jazeera - The article says the midterm election was “next week.”
Al Jazeera - The Islamic Golden Age is dated approximately 750–1258.
WHY:
NBC News - Republicans claimed, without evidence, that Abdul El-Sayed had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood; El-Sayed publicly disavowed the group and denied any connection.
NBC News - El-Sayed’s campaign spokesperson said Kennedy’s remarks were racially charged and intended to influence voters.
Al Jazeera - Kennedy made the comments while supporting Rogers in a closely contested Senate race against El-Sayed.
Al Jazeera - CAIR said the remarks could fuel anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate.
HOW:
Al Jazeera - Al-Zahrawi wrote a 30-volume medical encyclopedia and designed and illustrated surgical instruments.
Al Jazeera - Al-Khwarizmi treated algebra as a separate mathematical discipline in *Al-Jabr*; Ibn al-Haytham explained light’s role in vision; and Ibn al-Nafis described pulmonary circulation.
Al Jazeera - Yaghi’s prize-winning work concerned metal-organic frameworks, materials that can store gases, harvest water from air and trap pollutants.
Newsweek - Its article describes Kennedy as making sweeping remarks about Arabs and Muslims while campaigning for Republicans in Michigan.
(UPDATED October 28, 2026 13:05 UTC)
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drew condemnation after claiming that Arabs do not produce science, win major prizes or produce literature at a campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he was supporting Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. Critics, including Senator Chris Murphy, scientist Peter Hotez and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called the remarks racist and factually wrong, while El-Sayed’s campaign said they were aimed at influencing voters. Arab and Arab-descended scholars have made major contributions across fields, from the spread of Hindu-Arabic numerals and advances in algebra and medicine to Nobel-winning work by scientists including Ahmed Zewail and Moungi Bawendi, and literature by Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz.
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(UPDATED October 28, 2026 02:03 UTC)
At a campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed Arabs do not produce science or literature and do not win major prizes, prompting critics to call his remarks racist and Islamophobic. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called for Kennedy’s removal, warning his comments dehumanized Arabs and could fuel anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate. Arab scholars and scientists have made lasting contributions, from advancing algebra, optics and medicine to founding a university, while Arab and Arab-descended figures have won Nobel, Fields and Wolf prizes.
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(UPDATED October 27, 2026 22:14 UTC)
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drew condemnation after saying at a campaign event in Grand Rapids that Arabs do not produce science or literature and do not win major prizes, while backing Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called for Kennedy’s removal, warning his remarks could fuel anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate, and other critics described them as racist and factually inaccurate. Arab scholars and scientists have made major contributions to mathematics, medicine, literature and other fields, and Arab or Arab-descended figures include Nobel laureates Naguib Mahfouz, Ahmed Zewail and Omar Yaghi.