CAIR Official Dawud Walid: Campus Protests Are An Opportunity For Us To Invite People To Join Islam; In One Encampment, Jewish Protesters Joined Us In Our Prayer; They Need To Be Invited To Islam; This Would Be A Big Conquest For Us

Dawud Walid, the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Michigan chapter, said in an April 26, 2024 Friday sermon at the Medina Activity Center, MCWS (Muslim Community of the Western Detroit Suburbs) that the top priority should be da'wa (Islamic outreach), and that when he visited the encampment at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor encampment, a group of Jewish protesters joined the evening prayers. He said that calling Americans to Islam may be a "big conquest for Islam in America," and he cited a Quranic verse stating that "multitudes" will convert to Islam when Allah's victory and conquest has come. The sermon was streamed live on Walid's YouTube account.

At a May 3 Friday sermon at the Muslim Community Center of San Francisco Bay Area, which was streamed live on the mosque's YouTube channel, Walid said that Islamic outreach "is part of our program" and that Muslims should pray that the liberal Jews and the Zionist counter-protesters have the guidance of Allah. He added that perhaps one day they may pray in the same mosque and even become Islamic scholars and Muslim community leaders.

Dawud Walid: "Our number one priority today is da'wa. We are people al throughout this country who are hurting and who are suffering, and they need this message, they need the goodness of this Islamic nation to help them. Two nights ago, at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, a group of us came to support the students who were there camping out, your needy brother was the first speaker. About half of those people down there are Jewish supporters of Muslims against the occupation of Palestine.

"When the Muslims prayed the evening prayer and we started giving the reminders, a group of them came and started looking. '[This is] strange, something we've never seen before.' We put our hands up and started praying and making supplications. I look to the left, I saw nothing, but a bunch of which Jewish people – women who we wouldn't even think were dressed appropriately – were putting up there hands, and the Muslims said 'amen' and these Jewish people said 'amen.' They need to be invited to Islam.

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"If we invite these people to Islam, this may be a big conquest for Islam in America, and a bigger benefit, not only for us, but for the people of Palestine in the long run. [The Qurans says;] 'When the victory of Allah has come and the conquest, you see the people entering into the religion of Allah in multitudes.'

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"This is our mission, brothers. This is our mission, sisters. Unapologetically, not watering down Islam, give them the real Islam.

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"This is also part of our program. Praying for guidance for the people, including those so-called 'counter-protesters' – may Allah guide them.

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"Perhaps some of these liberal Jewish people, and even some of them who are Zionists, may be in here, one day, praying with you. Maybe one of these people will go and study and become a scholar, and be our leader one day. Only Allah knows. So we have to put things into context. Islam is a love movement. We love what is pleasurable to the Messenger of Allah and his methodology, not neo-Marxism, not acting out of anger or rage. None of that."