Latest news with #YasirQadhi
Memri
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Memri
East Plano, Texas Sermon By Yasir Qadhi: Israel Is 'Demonstrably More Evil' Than The Nazis; The U.S. Has Been Taken Hostage By Israel And AIPAC
In his July 25, 2025 Friday sermon at the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) in Texas, Islamic scholar and chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America Dr. Yasir Qadhi said that he had visited Auschwitz and Dachau, and that the current regime of Israel is "demonstrably more evil" than anything the Nazis have done. He emphasized that he is "not comparing, each one is evil in its own way," but explained that Auschwitz held "only" 100,000 prisoners at any one time, while he claimed Israel is starving 2,000,000 people in Gaza. Qadhi said that Israel and AIPAC have taken the United States hostage, and that Allah is exposing them through "mini-scandals" such as Jeffrey Epstein's case. Dr. Qadhi is the chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America and a prominent leader of the U.S. Muslim community. The East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) is planning to develop a community-centered residential project in Texas, spanning over 400 acres and featuring more than 1,000 residences, a mosque, a K-12 faith-based school, a community college, and commercial shopping facilities. For more clips of Yasir Qadhi, see MEMRI TV clips 11937, 11965, 10590, 10334, 10117, 9859, 9417, 8433, 8401, 7640, 7451. For more clips of the East Plano Islamic Center, see 6847, 6749. Dr. Yasir Qadhi: "I have visited the death camps of Auschwitz and Dachau. I have visited those very camps [in which] the Nazis perpetrated their crimes, and the tour guide told us that the maximum number – at any one given time – of prisoners In Auschwitz was around 100,000. I'm not comparing, each one is evil in its own way, but the current regime of Israel, starving two million people – it is demonstrably something more evil, in that sense, than anything the Nazis have done. [...] "If they believe that even a fraction of what we are seeing now [in Gaza] is justified by one incident on October 7, then we must ask – what then is justified for the Palestinians, who have suffered, not years, not one incident, for decades? What is justified for them to do? [...] "In this country, the majority of our follow Americans are now anti-Zionists. The majority of them – from the right to the left. Look at all of these commentators, they are now recognizing that our country has been hostage by AIPAC, has been held hostage by Israel. "They know this, and all of those scandals taking place, all of these issues taking place – Allah is betraying them from within their own camp. Their own people are testifying against this reality. And these mini-scandals that are taking place, from the White House all the way down to the prisons cells of Epstein and what not... Yes, by Allah, Allah is exposing their standards, Allah is exposing their tactics, and Allah is exposing their control."
Daily Mail
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE It's America's most feared city, and it's not even built. Now the sick views of 'hate preacher' behind a Muslim enclave have been exposed... and YOU are helping fund it
Taxpayers have for years funded a controversial religious group that plans to build a Muslim city in the Texas heartlands, the Daily Mail can reveal. The city of Plano, Texas, has quietly handed over $220,000 to the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) and its hardline 'hate preacher' Yasir Qadhi, its resident scholar, official filings show.
Daily Mail
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Muslim megacity sparks fury across America
The Islamic group that's building a 'Muslim city' in eastern Texas says its 402-acre megaproject will be a 'diverse, and open community' for Americans of all stripes. But pull the curtain back a little, and it becomes clear gay people, Jewish people, and others might not be as welcome as the marketing brochures suggest. The Daily Mail can reveal the cleric behind EPIC City, Yasir Qadhi, has a decades-old record of preaching hatred, homophobia and holocaust-denial to his followers. Audio files show Qadhi openly calling in the 2000s for the execution of gay people and adulterers - as well as calling the Holocaust a 'hoax.' In one of his chilling diatribes, Qadhi even advances a wild theory Jewish people have infiltrated religious departments of American universities in a bid to 'destroy' Muslims. These damning revelations are the latest blow to EPIC City, a project of the East Plano Islamic Community (EPIC), a busy mosque in the suburbs of northeast Dallas. The group and their landmark development are already under investigation by federal and state officials over alleged racial discrimination and other concerns. Meanwhile, residents of Josephine and other nearby towns say they're worried about ultra-conservative 'Sharia' laws being rolled out in EPIC City and its surroundings. The organizers of EPIC City did not answer a request for comment. On social media, they decry the 'misinformation' spread against them and say they're a law-abiding non-profit. Qadhi, 50, a Pakistani-American who was born in Texas and studied in Saudi Arabia and Yale University, and ranks among the most influential conservative Muslim scholars in the US, has reportedly said he's changed his ways. The case raises tough questions about Texas' fast-growing Muslim population, Islamophobia, and whether the hardline views of clerics put the faith at odds with modern US values. Sam Westrop, a counter-extremism analyst at the Middle East Forum, says Qadhi and his followers are dangerous fundamentalists who want to turn the clock back to the 7th Century. The group has since 2015 run a mosque in East Plano, in Dallas, but was strained by the area's growing Muslim population and decided to build their own community outside the city from scratch . They're planning a neighborhood some 40 miles northeast of Dallas, with 1,000 homes, a mosque, Islamic schools, clinics, stores, parks, and a nursing home on a site across Collin and Hunt Counties. Organizers say the properties sold out fast and have since announced 'ranches' of bigger homes nearby. Construction is set to begin in 2026 or 2027. The group brands itself a 'multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multilingual, non-sectarian, diverse, and open community' with opportunities for men and women that's open to non-Muslims. But when he's behind closed doors and addressing his followers, Qadhi's private comments over previous decades cannot be further from the liberal values espoused by his organization. In one recording, which appears to be of Qadhi preaching in the US in about the early 2000s, about the wide array of vices that mandate executions under Islam. 'This is a part of our religion, to stone the adulterer … and to kill, by the way, the homosexual. This is also our religion,' he says in the recording. His comments recall the atrocities of the Islamic State, which imposed harsh Sharia law in Iraq and Syria in the 2010s and flung gay men off buildings to their deaths. In a particularly revelatory comment, Qadhi tells his followers that his austere version of Islamic law was not suitable in the West. 'This doesn't mean we go do this in America,' he says. 'No, we're not allowed to do this in America, you know? But I'm saying if we had an Islamic State, we would do this now.' In another recording, Qadhi shares his bizarre views about how most Jewish people today are of European descent and have few ties to the Middle Easterners in the Old Testament. 'Look at them: white, crooked nose, blonde hairs. This is not the descendants of Jacob,' he says. Nazi Germany's genocide of six million Jewish people is 'false propaganda,' he adds, and 'Hitler never intended to mass-destroy the Jews.' He urges his listeners to read 'The Hoax of the Holocaust.' He then shares a wilder theory that Jewish people make up 95 percent of the students of Islamic Studies courses in the US — a dastardly plan to spread 'disunity' among Muslims and to 'destroy us.' EPIC did not answer our request for comment about the historic comments, which were reported on in the 2000s by The Daily Telegraph, a UK newspaper, and The New York Times . Qadhi has since described them as an 'error' and a 'one-time mistake,' saying he fell down a 'slippery slope' into extremism when he was 'young and naïve.' He nowadays offers in public a gentler, more polished and tolerant version of the religion of some 2 billion people globally. In recent years, however, Qadhi has spoken out in defense of Afghanistan's ultraconservative Taliban rulers, the Hamas October 7 attacks on southern Israel, and convicted al-Qaeda operative Aafia Siddiqui. Revelations about Qadhi's past comments throw further doubt on the Epic City project, amid a glut of investigations aimed at the organizers by federal and state authorities. Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn has said the housing development is being probed by the Department of Justice, adding: 'Religious discrimination and Sharia Law have no home in Texas.' Texas Gov Greg Abbott, another Republican, has accused the planners of seeking to create an exclusively Muslim community with Sharia law and has directed several state agencies to investigate the group. Abbot suggested it may have violated fair housing and financial laws, and that the Islamic center had conducted illegal funerals in its mosque. Attorney general, Ken Paxton has also initiated a criminal investigation.
Newsweek
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Newsweek
Not All Muslims Are the Same. Radical Islamism in the U.S. Must Be Stopped
Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. There is a grave difference in ideology among persons claiming to be Muslims in America. Islamists are dangerous extremists. Muslims following Islam but rejecting Islamism are nether radical nor extreme. Take Imam Yasir Qadhi, the spiritual leader behind Texas' East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) City housing project. He is an admirer of Yusuf Al Qardawi—the Muslim Brotherhood ideologue. Qadhi also defended convicted Islamist extremist Aafia Siddiqui, who is now serving 86 years in federal prison for providing material support to Al-Qaeda. Aligning with Islamist misogyny, Qadhi dismissed the Women Life Freedom movement in Iran. His speeches indicate he is at least an Islamist apologist, but more accurately a hardcore Muslim Brotherhood Islamist and staunch Hamas supporter. The dome and minaret of the Crescent Islamic Center near Dulles International Airport stands out against the evening sky. The dome and minaret of the Crescent Islamic Center near Dulles International Airport stands out against the evening sky. Getty Images Qadhi has addressed the Islamic Circle of North America and Muslim American Society conferences—both reportedly Muslim Brotherhood organizations—and in these meetings refused to condemn the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. In their own promotion, EPIC City aims to build a mosque, school, kindergarten, and community college and facilities for the elderly—capturing generations of Muslims from cradle to college, isolating them from wider society. Some Muslims state over 75 percent of EPIC City's housing association fees will finance the local mosque, purposefully deterring non-Muslims from moving in—an intrinsically discriminatory practice. Republican Texas Senator John Cornyn has asked the Department of Justice to investigate EPIC City's developers. This is an opportunity to examine not only the EPIC City project but radical Islamism's potential to threaten the fabric of American society. Extensive investigations into the covert activity of America's Muslim Brotherhood have been documented. The cudgel of Islamophobia silences critics since Islamists portray themselves as persecuted Muslim minorities. Islamists—seen through the lens of creed—benefit from the protection of the U.S. Constitution, which enshrines the right to religious freedom for all, failing to recognize Islamist beliefs as political totalitarianism. Yet American democracy is not safeguarded from encroaching Islamism. As an observant Muslim, I have no objection to Muslims building mosques, but developments intended to silo Muslims are certain to result in not parallel but closed societies, fueling Islamism. Segregating society along religious lines is not only un-American, but it is also antithetical to the Quran's pluralism, including the exhortation mankind might know peoples of all tribes. Segregation weakens society, even one as strong as the United States. Islamism—not Islam—corrals both public discourse and political legitimacy over all Muslims. Islamists manage all aspects of any interaction of the Muslim with the wider secular society, seeking to drive a wedge between a religious minority—the Muslims in America—and American society at-large. The Islamist's aim is neither to enhance the lives of Muslims in the United States nor to seek a political coup (as some histrionic observers might claim), but instead to weaponize democratic privileges while seeking to subjugate both American democracy and the lives of pluralist Muslims living full American lives. Western Europe reveals the devastating outcomes of unchallenged Islamism. Elham Manea, a scholar of Islamism, has called significant attention to this danger. In Britain, Sharia courts alongside Jewish halacha courts—Beit Dins—long exist, always in deference to British law. Under Islamist influence, Manea's research shows, Britain Muslim women and girls living in sealed Islamist-dominated Muslim communities are denied knowledge of or access to the British legal system (beyond forementioned Sharia courts) by their own communities. Despite being British citizens, Islamists ensure fellow Muslims are denied the rights Britain accords them in marriage, divorce, custody, or inheritance. In Germany, Islamist Muslims openly demand the democratic right to formulate a Sharia caliphate within Germany. Sweden (known for its generous asylum policy) permitted migrants to reunite with family already settled, allowing migrants to choose their place of migration entrenching rapid ghettoization and environments ripe for incubating Islamism and virulent Islamist antisemitism—Malmo being a notable example. Juvenile gang-related crimes have become rampant. Sweden has itself announced it has lost autonomy over violence. Rich and once powerful democracies are weakened in climates favoring Islamism. France is at an even greater precipice of alienation between its Muslim population and its non-Muslim citizenry. These fissures are where Islamism leaps in to segregate, cohort, and indoctrinate with antidemocratic illiberal Islamist values forming the milieu ripe for radicalization, including terrorism and evolutionary jihad. Muslims who have long warned against Islamism have paid a very heavy price. The consequences can be lethal. Boualem Sansal, Algeria's most acclaimed writer since Nobel Laureate Albert Camus, is now sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing Islamism in both Algeria and France—a victory for Islamists and a warning to Muslims defending themselves and their democracies from Islamists. Knowing the distinction between Islamism and Muslims following Islam is critical, not only in the singular example of EPIC City in Texas, but for policymakers across America to safeguard all citizens, including Muslims, to live free of Islamists' destructive extremism. Dr. Qanta Ahmed, MD, is a life member at the Council on Foreign Relations, senior fellow at the Independent Women's Forum, and author of In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom. Her X account is @MissDiagnosis. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Memri
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Memri
Texas Islamic Scholar Yasir Qadhi at May 2024 Islamic Conference Discusses Anti-Israel Student Protests: 'Victory Is Long Term,' Thousands of Americans Are Embracing Islam; U.S. Freedoms Make Muslims
At an Islamic conference titled Mercy to Mankind, held in Warren, Michigan in May 2024 by the Miftaah Institute, Texas-based Islamic scholar Yasir Qadhi of the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) spoke about Islam's growing presence in America and the role of campus activism in driving conversions. He emphasized that American freedoms allow Muslims to speak openly and organize without fear, stating that 'they cannot shut our voices down,' and that this environment enables Muslims to become 'more powerful than any entity and government on the face of this earth.' Dr. Qadhi, chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America and prominent leader of the U.S. Muslim community, said that thousands of people in the U.S. are embracing Islam, attributing this surge to the momentum of anti-Israel protests and the activism of Muslim students. He shared a personal story about speaking with a student during a protest at MIT and later receiving an email from the university's president informing him that the student had converted to Islam. He also noted that the next generation of Muslim Americans—Gen Z and Millennials—will rise to leadership roles in business and politics, underscoring that 'victory is long term.' Qadhi is one of the leaders of EPIC City, an Islamic housing project in East Plano, Texas. The conference video was posted on the Miftaah Institute YouTube channel on April 14, 2025.
