In his October 11, 2024 sermon in Central Florida, Imam Muhammad Musri stated that hurricanes Helene and Milton were "no accident" and they hit MacDill air base, which is used by CENTCOM, United States Central Command, as a warning to American military leaders to stop what they are doing before it is too late. Muhammad Musri is the president of American Islam and Chairman of the Board of the Islamic Society of Central Florida. The sermon was uploaded to the YouTube channel of American Islam. American Islam is described as a "national organization representing and working to empower moderate Islam" on its website. According to his biography on the American Islam website, Muhammad Musri serves as an advisor on Islam and Muslims to various U.S. government agencies, and he is a member and past co-chairman of the Interfaith Council of Central Florida.
Muhammad Musri: "Some people think it is an accident, or just by chance, that we have two hurricanes back-to-back, Helene and Milton. And both of them came by Tampa. And in Tampa [there] is CENTCOM, Central Command, that oversees the entire Middle East. Our military divided the world into regions, and this the region controlled from here, Tampa, from McDill air base.
"This is a warning to those military leaders. When they operate like 'nobody is stronger than us... who is stronger than us?' And Allah said: 'I am stronger than you. What can you do if I make a storm. A hurricane. Can you stop it? No.' It was heading right to them. That base is literally at the water now. It would be drowned. I am sure they sustained a lot of damage.
"But that's just a warning. That's not an accident, my brothers. Nothing in this universe happens by accident. We don't believe in accidents. Some people say: 'well, it happened to be a storm.' A storm? A storm that just went straight... After Helene passed by and caused damage, this comes straight at them.
"To say what? To say stop before it is too late. Some estimates say the damage from these hurricanes exceeded already 70 billion dollars. Do you know how much is 70 billion dollars? That's a bunch of countries. That's a lot of money. That's as much money as was sent over in weapons and bombs to kill innocent people.
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"This military cannot tell other militaries not to kill women and children, because our military did it in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is documented. So they do not have the moral high ground to be dictating to others not to do it.
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"When our government, when the multinational corporations, when the oil companies are doing things and we do nothing about it, then we are assisting in this process. Especially if we work directly for them. If you are employed by some companies... There are Muslim engineers who are involved. They work at Lockheed Martin, they work at the oil companies. They are directly responsible. They are earning money from that. We have to ask ourselves, what is our role as Muslims? Just to sit and watch and pray while the storm comes? Or should we be change agents, to change our environment, change our world, and put pressure on our government to change its ways?"