“Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” – Jude 3

“See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.” – Jeremiah 1:10, NIV

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It’s been stated before that Jeremiah was called to prophesy the decimation of foul and putrid institutions and establishments that operated contrary to God’s design for peoples and nations. The New Testament “Jeremiah voice” can speak with the same authority – to use divine power to uproot strongholds full of religious pride, corruption, godless rhetoric, deceit and fantasies that stand in obstinate defiance against the intimate knowledge of the One True God, His love, and His character (2 Cor. 10:4-6). One of the most notable strongholds in the world today is the false religion of Islam, along with its counterfeit legal system – Sharia law. Jude was most certainly prophesying about these “wild waves of the sea” in his warnings regarding false prophets (Jude 13).

The date when Islam began was nearly 600 years after the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. But its introductory roots into America happened almost a millennium later.

The first documented Muslim in America is generally recognized as Estevanico (also known as Mustafa Azemmouri), a North African man from Morocco who arrived in 1527 as a Spanish slave. The disastrous Narváez expedition landed on the west coast of Florida near present-day Tampa Bay and trekked eight years through parts of modern-day Texas and Mexico.

The subsequent century brought more Islamic influence to America through the African slave trade: approximately 10% to 30% of enslaved West Africans brought to America were Muslim. Many of these converted to Christianity, but some retained their religion, often in secret.

The first Muslim to acquire territory in the New World was Anthony Janszoon van Salee (“Anthony the Turk”), who acquired a farm named “Wallenstein” in 1638 on the island of Manhattan.

Just after the birth of the United States of America in 1776, Jefferson, who owned a Koran and studied it, was sure to include “Mahometans” (Muslims) in his vision for religious liberty in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786), because he felt that they should not be denied civil rights in the new nation. About the same time, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams wrote a letter to Congress in 1786 that expressed their naïve astonishment at their interactions with a Muslim diplomat from Tripoli and their first encounter with Islamic Jihad:

“The Ambassador (of Tripoli) answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their profit, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, & to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise—… [the ambassador] verily believed the Devil assisted his Countrymen, for they were almost always successful…”

Not surprisingly, the first major international conflict arose between the early United States and Tripoli (with other Islamic entities – Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco) — the First Barbary War (1801–1805). The semi-autonomous states under the Ottoman (Muslim) Empire joined in the naval and land war against America. The provocation initialized in 1801, when the Pasha of Tripoli, Yusuf Karamanli, declared war on the United States, forcing America into its first foreign battle that necessitated building the US Navy to avoid paying tribute to their adversaries. The United States capture of Derna, Libya marked the first time the American flag was raised in victory on foreign soil, an event memorialized in the Marine Corps Hymn as the “shores of Tripoli.” In the Second Barbary War (1815), or U.S.–Algerian War, the U.S. Navy defeated Algiers, effectively ending the practice of paying tribute to the Ottoman states.

In a later historic first, the Bilali Document (also known as the Ben Ali Diary) was crafted — a 13-page handwritten Arabic manuscript authored by Bilali Muhammad in 1829 on Sapelo Island, Georgia. It is widely considered the first book of Islamic jurisprudence written in the United States–the first indication of a precursor to Sharia Law in America.

The Moorish Science Temple (built in 1913) was founded by Noble Drew Ali in Newark, New Jersey. This movement capitalized upon the wound of American slavery and urged Black Americans to reclaim their heritage as “Moors” (which is identifiably false) and adopt Islam, distancing themselves from Christianity, which was (by him) associated with slavery.

One of the earliest known established mosques in the U.S., though it is no longer in operation, was built in Biddeford, Maine in 1915. However, the Mother Mosque of America, located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is the oldest surviving purpose-built mosque in North America. It was completed on February 15, 1934.

Emerging in the 1930s, the Nation of Islam was established in Detroit, Michigan. This movement emphasized black empowerment, economic independence, and pride. Malcolm X, joined as a prominent spokesperson, and preached black nationalism and self-empowerment, highlighting the systemic oppression of black people, before later embracing orthodox Sunni Islam. Cassius Clay (aka Muhammed Ali) converted to Islam and became part of the Nation of Islam. After 1975, Warith Deen Mohammed (Elijah Muhammad’s son) assumed control of NOI and directed the majority of NOI members into mainstream Sunni Islam.

In following decades, other prominent Black Americans embraced the false spirit of Islam, such as Mike Tyson, who openly mocked Jesus on Conan O’Brien’s show and publicly boasted about Islam and his god. Tyson had converted to Islam in the early 1990s while serving a prison sentence at the Indiana Youth Center and publicly announced his conversion and adopted the name Malik Abdul Aziz. Tyson was later defeated in an upset win by Evander Holyfield. In 1996, Holyfield entered as an underdog but dominated, stopping Tyson in the 11th round. Holyfield knocked Tyson down in the 6th round—the first time Tyson had been floored since 1990 and then secured a stunning 11th-round TKO. Holyfield was extremely emphatic in the post-match interview that Jesus Christ be given glory for his victory. The reporter (at least 3 times) tried to purposely steer him away from talking about faith, but Holyfield again and again gave God glory, as the “only true God,” in contrast to the false idol of his opponent–Allah. It was Holyfield’s claim that God would not be mocked, referring to Tyson’s arrogant display and mockery of Christ.

Today we are faced with a much more elaborate and systematically-intrusive form of Muhammadanism: one that has established spiritual strongholds in Dearborn, Michigan where 40% of the population is Arab-American, many of them Muslim. Hamtramck, Michigan is the first city in America with a Muslim-majority city council. Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis has a high Somali, Muslim population, where cultural and religious life centers around mosques and community centers. Brooklyn, New York (especially Bay Ridge) has a very visible Muslim community, including Palestinian and Egyptian Americans. Zohran Mamdani has arisen as New York City’s first Muslim mayor, being the first mayor to swear in on a Koran while assuming office.

However, many Christians are shining the Light and pushing back the darkness by sharing their faith with Muslim neighbors and with legislative, social, and spiritual action aimed at strengthening the Judeo-Christian roots of America and overcoming this demonic, religious agenda that has been snaking its way in since the foundation of our country. They continue to affirm:

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD (Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)” – Psalm 33:12

“For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong.” – Psalm 125:3

Lord, as you have commissioned your Ekklesia in 2 Corinthians 10:1-5, we take up our spiritual weapons to actively engage with the powers of darkness and the strongholds in our nation, especially the tap root of Islam and its stronghold in the African American community. Our weapons have divine power to demolish these strongholds: the arguments for the continuation and persistence of Islam in our nation, and the pretensions that have boasted against the knowledge of You, the one true God – Jesus the Messiah – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We take captive every thought that has been embedded in the American psyche, the African American soul, and in the psyche of this generation and bind it under the Supreme authority of Christ. We bring judgment upon “whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God”: these false ideologies, this false religion, this false law, and these false spirits that empower them in the name of Jesus (1 Tim. 1:11). We release the Light of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God all over this nation, as Your Word says – “all the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab. 2:12). Through Your anointing, we destroy the heavy, enslaving, religious yoke of Islam (Is. 10:27). We invite every Black American into an encounter with the Light of Jesus and into submission to Your yoke, which is easy and your burden which is light (Matt. 11:30). We uproot Muhammad’s influence, all the way back to its source in AD 610 and in America in 1527. We condemn and rebuke the influence of the false Sharia law in our land that began in 1829. We invoke the holy name of Jesus, the true law of Moses, the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27), the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the divine order and institutions that you have put in our nation to uphold and preserve it and to make us again a Godly nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the advancement of the Gospel of the Kingdom in all nations – one nation, under God – under Jesus Christ, who is King over all. His Word stands above all culture, ideology, and power. His Kingdom is righteous, just, and unshakable. Not for coexistence with darkness, but for the victory of Light.

Brian Friess is an IFA state co-leader.

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