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In an August 9, 2019 Friday sermon, Egyptian-American Imam Shaker Elsayed of the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Fairfax County, Virginia – where Anwar Al-Awlaki had been imam during 9/11 – criticized Arab regimes for working with Israel to erase Palestine, for being weak, for fighting over trivial issues like borders and resources, and for imitating the West and "scavenging" like an "unwanted dog at the dinner table." Imam Elsayed went on to say that all powers that interfere with the Arabs' aspirations for glory must be removed by all means possible, and he added: "We cannot continue to have peace with repressive regimes… We have to remove the source of our misery, [which is] these governments." He cited an Arab poem that says that the door to freedom is stained with the blood of the hands that have knocked on it, and he said that the Arabs need people who are willing to "take initiative" and be "ingenious" like the Palestinians in Gaza and like the Afghans in the 1980s. Imam Elsayed concluded with a prayer asking Allah to grant victory to the mujahideen throughout the world. The sermon was uploaded to the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center's YouTube channel, and it was the ninth installment of a series of talks titled "The Crisis of Our Ummah." In the past, Imam Shaker Elsayed has been the subject of criticism and censure for antisemitic statements and for statements that have been in support of Jihad and female genital mutilation (see MEMRI TV Clips No. 5989, No. 6043, No. 6057, and No. 6378). According to the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center's website, Imam Elsayed is the Secretary-General of the Muslim American Society (MAS), which has also recently been the subject of criticism surrounding a pro-Jihad children's event at a MAS-affiliated school in Philadelphia (see MEMRI TV Clip No. 7194).
Following are excerpts:
Imam Shaker Elsayed: [The Arab regimes say:] "We try to erase Israel from the map and put Palestine [instead]." So the word "Palestine" may appear on the Arab maps, but, in reality, we are working with Israel to erase what we put as a word on the map. This is as miserable as it can get.
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We are fighting over the most trivial of issues. We are fighting over borders, we are fighting over resources… Recently, two or three Middle Eastern countries – maybe four – who do not constitute real countries, right… In terms of population, education, power, GNP, economy, military – nothing… Even combined together, they have nothing to stand on. They are fighting the weakest of Arab countries for dominance, and, most probably, for more wealth. The [United Arab] Emirates and Saudi Arabia are fighting Yemen.
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We must remove – by all means possible – all powers that stand against our yearning for education, for glory, and for a future for our children. We cannot continue to have peace with repressive regimes. They have rendered our nation to the bottom of the bottom.
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We have to remove the source of our misery, [which is] these governments.
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Some of these [Arab] nations have defined Islam itself as their enemy and they have started to adjust to corruption. So how do we fill those holes and replace those vacuums? We resort, as people, to imitation. So our people are looking for sports stars, electronic games, Western haircuts, Western clothing, Western style, Western this, and Western that, until the West itself says: "These people are just scavenging under the table – keep them far." It is like an unwanted dog under the dinner table at a family house. How long are we going to continue to accept eating the crumbs that aren't even available?
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One Arab poet once said: "The door to freedom is stained red with the blood of all the hands that have knocked on it." Freedom has a red gate that you have to go through. You have to keep knocking on that gate until it opens widely. We need people who are willing to take the initiative and defy their difficult realities like the Afghans did [in the 1980s]. We need people to have the will like the Palestinian people in Gaza – the more the siege becomes difficult, the more ingenuity you see them coming up with.
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We give too much power to governments and they abuse it. They abuse us. They abuse our resources. And what do we say? And we say: "Who is going to become the President? Nasser – who else? Who is going to replace Al-Sisi? We don't have anyone to match. Who is going to replace Yasser Arafat? Who is going to replace Saddam?" Time and again, Allah is showing us that those people definitely are disposable and useless. In many, if not all, cases, they are harmful to your interests, but we continue the suckling of our own blood being sucked out of us.
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[May Allah] grant victory to His servants, the mujahideen, wherever they are.
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