Maryland Imam Calls for Blood

And he will likely get it.

An imam in Alabama, Ragab Abdelmoneim of the Islamic Academy of Huntsville, openly told his audience that Muslims must be ready to sacrifice their lives through jihad in order to establish “the religion of Allah” in the United States.
He claimed that victory over America is… pic.twitter.com/Jtb5NcaKBl

— Yossi BenYakar (@YossiBenYakar) June 25, 2026

Ragab Abdelmoneim is not an “extremist.” According to Alabama’s 1819 News, he is “now the Imam and ‘Resident Scholar’ at the Islamic Center of Maryland.” Before that, he was an imam at the Islamic Academy in Huntsville, Alabama and, “according to a university source, former part-time lecturer at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).” And now this respectable citizen, this faith leader, is demonstrating how confident Islamic jihadis have become in the United States a quarter-century after 9/11.

1819 News reported Monday that Abdelmoneim is “demanding Muslims ‘sacrifice their blood’ to spread Islam throughout America.” And any American officials who may have gotten wind of what he said will be far too concerned about appearing to be “Islamophobic” to do anything serious about it.

Once again, it must be emphasized that Abdelmoneim is not some wild-eyed fanatic, or some ignorant nut who is twisting and hijacking the beautiful teachings of the Religion of Peace. He was the Islamic Academy’s “first full-time imam,” a distinction he richly deserved, as he had an impeccable background: he “began his religious career as a cleric at the Liverpool Islamic Academy in 2009. In 2013, after teaching and graduating from Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, Abdelmoneim relocated to the academy in Huntsville.”

Al-Azhar is the most respected institution in Sunni Islam. It is as if Abdelmoneim graduated from the Islamic world’s Harvard and Yale rolled into one, only more so. Al-Azhar doesn’t turn out al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorists; it provides the intellectuals of the Islamic world. And yet at the same time, it is an orthodox Sunni institution. And so it does teach jihad warfare against non-Muslims. And so, therefore, does Ragab Abdelmoneim.

“In a now widely circulated video on social media,” says 1819 News, “Abdelmoneim called for Muslims to expand Sharia law by any means necessary, including through bloodshed. ‘We need to… have some people to love their religion and to sacrifice for their religion, sacrifice their money and their blood and their wealth for the sake of Allah,” he said.

Sacrifice their blood. Does Abdelmoneim envision this bloodshed taking place in the United States? Why not? The U.S. is where the man lives and carries out his duties as an imam. When he calls for Muslims to sacrifice their blood, he is merely reflecting the teaching of the Qur’an, which calls on believers to wage violent jihad: “Those of the believers who sit still, other than those who have an injury, are not equal with those who wage jihad in the way of Allah with their wealth and lives. Allah has conferred on those who wage jihad with their wealth and lives a rank above the sedentary. Allah has promised good to each, but he has bestowed on those who wage jihad a great reward above that of the sedentary, degrees of rank from him, and forgiveness and mercy. Allah is always forgiving, merciful.” (Qur’an 4:95-6)

Then there are the verses that direct Muslims to “kill them wherever you find them” (2:191, 4:89, 4:91, cf. 9:5) and to “strike the necks” of the unbelievers (8:12, 47:4).

This (and much more) is simply what the Qur’an says, but Abdelmoneim would likely look askance at any non-Muslim who dared quote such passages. “Corrupt and wicked politicians, leaders, and officials,” he complained, “they propagate and perpetuate this kind of hatred in their discourse, in their rhetoric, in their communication in the media, just to demonize and to put people down and to stigmatize Muslims and minorities.”

This has led, he claimed, to “Islamophobia”: “The [American people] developed a lot of attitudes, including hatred, animosity, against the Muslim Ummah, against the community, and against Islam itself…You can see what happened to our brothers and sisters in Dallas. They have a project, and they have a lot of challenges, legal challenges, because it will be the Sharia area.”

In the fact of all that, Abdelmoneim exhorted Muslims to fight back: “Allah told us about how to protect yourselves from their thinking, how to expose their plans and their plotting, how to be against them and stand against those people.” Expect many more American Muslims to be standing against the perceived “enemies of Islam” in the near future.