Imam Zaid Shakir, one of the founders of America’s first Muslim college, preached in 1992 that a new Caliphate (an Islamic state ruling the world by Sharia) should be created that will wage jihad and “use…weaponry against the enemies of Islam,” audio posted on YouTube on December 18 shows.
The sermon, titled “Failure of the Muslim Political Order,” laments that there is not a single Islamic State that will “undertake the jihad” on behalf of Muslims. Shakir points to the violence in Somalia at that time as something Muslims should intervene to stop. If the Ottoman Empire was still around, he says, the “massacres” of Muslims would be “unthought-of” (8:30 minutes into the recording).
Shakir criticizes the Muslim world for not having a country equivalent to Israel, which he says dispatches the Mossad intelligence service around the world to protect and avenge Jewish lives. “Jews know, you kick my cat, we gonna blow up your dog, an eye for a head, or a whole body,” he says (10:20).
“As Muslims, we have more weaponry than any other group on earth,” Shakir says, mentioning huge U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (10:59).
“Is there a political will to use that weaponry against the enemies of Islam? There’s no political will. That is what we mean by the breakdown of the Islamic political authority,” Imam Shakir states.
They [the political rulers of an Islamic country] can be tyrants, they can be corrupt, but what is the task?... to determine if this state is still pursuing an Islamic policy … The internal task is to maintain order … and externally they undertake the jihad [emphasis added]. There’s no Muslim country on the face of the Earth that meets the task, that passes the test.” (11:46)
He warns the audience that Muslims are on their own and must band together and not trust either then-President George H.W. Bush or Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton. He says that Clinton will say anything to win votes, joking that he’d promise to resurrect the [Islamic] Caliphate or change his name to Abdul Clinton and be willing to become the Caliph himself in order to be elected.
“We gotta register! Is it too late? When is the deadline?!” Shakir says sarcastically, revealing his and his audience’s desire to bring back the Caliphate.
Referring to the desire by many Muslims to go to Somalia to join the Islamist forces there, Shakir says, “A lot of people want to go fight over there. It takes an organized communal effort. Who’s going to devise the strategy when you get over there?” Shakir urges Muslim-Americans to focus on organizing. Registering voters is acceptable “as part of a thought-out Islamic strategy.” (19:50)
During the Q&A section, Shakir said: “We have to train our children, not like the Jews, because they might end up being Muslim-Jews, with a Jewish mentality. We need to train them with ideas like ‘Palestine belongs to the Muslims’, ‘Bosnia belongs to the Muslims…' " (26:20)
The recording is from 20 years ago but this ideology, spoken at a time when the spotlight on wasn’t so intense, lines up with Shakir’s preaching over the years. He is more careful in choosing his words, as any American Islamist would be in a post-9/11 environment, but the essential message remains the same.
Shakir has become one of the most prominent leaders in the Muslim-American community. He speaks at the largest Islamic conferences and is one of the founders of Zaytuna, America’s first Muslim college. His website says he is “amongst the most respected and influential Islamic scholars in the West.”
The articles below document more of Imam Zaid Shakir’s preaching:
