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On May 29, 2020, a Friday sermon by Atlanta Islamic scholar Soleiman Hamed was uploaded to the Masjid Al-Islam Facebook page. In the sermon, Hamed reacted to the protests following the death of George Floyd and he said that he will continue talking about revolution until the Muslims "achieve having the world look like Allah would have it." Saying that he does not "necessarily" advocate the violence in the recent riots, Hamed elaborated that Muslims are not "kumbaya" pacifists and that in revolutions, they should follow the Quranic examples of Abraham and Muhammad, who employed destruction and violence against polytheism and false worship. He added that this is the model that Muslims use when they "take over the world."
Soleiman Hamed: "So no one should be fooled, and no one should be beguiled, to think that Muslims are to be sitting around [all] pacifist [and] kumbaya when the revolution comes. That's not Quranic. 'Oh, there you go talking about revolution again, imam.' Well, you all know me and I am going to keep talking about it until we achieve having the world look like Allah would have it. So you don’t be afraid of that, because I am not afraid of it.
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So they say: 'Well, imam, are you advocating violence?' That is what they ask me, talking about the riots and all that. 'Are you advocating violence, imam?' And I answer them: 'Not necessarily.'
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"It irks me a little bit when they say: 'How could people be engaged in acts of destruction?' 'How could you be engaged in acts of violence?' 'Is that a religious thing?' Let me show you something, that I know we don't look at it like this. I want to first bring to your attention that the worst form of oppression is what? Polytheism, false worship.
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"Let's talk about these acts of destruction that everybody is up in arms about. You look at Abraham. I know some of you... Because we read Quran like a fairy tale and we don't see the practical application int these things. This might go over my head. But look at Abraham and even Muhammad the Prophet, when they witnessed this form of oppression, polytheism and false worship, they engaged in an act that the 'kumbayas' and the people who don't understand that aggression and things like this happen in these cases - what did they do? They would both be guilty, by these people's standards, of engaging in acts of destruction and violence. Is that right? I am just showing you that in the midst of revolution, change - and take that word in the biggest sense of it - that sometimes, those things happen.
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"Yes, it is what Quran says. Yes, it is what Muhammad did. That is the model. That's the model that we are using when we go out and engage in the world and take over the world and make the world like Allah wants it to be."
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