The Council on American-Islamic Relations again condemned comments U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, made about Islam.
CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, criticized Tuberville for calling Islam a “death cult.” The organization said his rhetoric could increase the risk of violence against American Muslims.
“Senator Tuberville’s shameful and inflammatory attack on Islam is setting the stage for violence against ordinary American Muslims,” CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw said. “When an elected official falsely labels the world’s second-largest religion a ‘death cult,’ he gives legitimacy to the same anti-Muslim hatred that fuels discrimination, harassment and acts of bias-motivated violence.” CAIR published McCaw’s statement Wednesday.
Tuberville made the comments during a Wednesday Senate floor speech in which he warned about what he described as Islam infiltrating the United States.
“I’ve come to the floor several times over the last year to warn about the looming threat [of] Islam, [which is] infiltrating the United States of America,” Tuberville said. “You know, I know there are people sometimes [who] roll their eyes when I talk about this. But I express serious concerns about what Islam teaches and how it’s incompatible with our Judeo-Christian values. This is why I say that Islam is not a religion. It’s a death cult.”
McCaw described Tuberville’s comments as an attack on religious freedom and urged elected officials to condemn them.
“Instead of helping uphold the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, Senator Tuberville has chosen to pour gasoline on the fire of anti-Muslim bigotry,” McCaw said. “Every elected leader who believes in the First Amendment and equal justice should condemn these hateful remarks. Muslim families deserve the same dignity, safety and constitutional protections as every other American.”
During his speech, Tuberville stood before a sign reading “Europe Has Fallen” and highlighted a June report from the United Kingdom titled “The Rape Gang Inquiry Report.” The report concluded that Pakistani Muslim men were disproportionately represented among people involved in group-based sexual abuse.
British Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe and sexual assault survivor and activist Sammy Woodhouse wrote the report. Lowe founded the Restore Britain Party, a right-wing political party that has called for mass deportations and a nearly complete halt to immigration into the United Kingdom.
“This is a takeover, a hostile takeover, and I’ve said it many times: Europeans have the right to fight back in the streets to take their countries,” Tuberville said. “They gotta fight back. To be clear, I’m not advocating for violence. But this will soon be the reality in every European country if they don’t start sending foreigners back to their home countries as soon as they possibly can.”
Rape Crisis England & Wales criticized the report’s focus on Pakistani Muslim men. The nonprofit said available police data on ethnicity and religion was not reliable enough to determine who is more likely to commit such offenses.
“In stating that we need better data, we do not seek to minimise the experiences of those individuals who have suffered at the hands of Pakistani Muslim men,” the organization said. “All sexual violence is unacceptable and reprehensible, no matter the circumstances, or who has perpetrated it.”
Tuberville also highlighted an article by the conservative RAIR Foundation that alleged ties between the Birmingham Islamic Society and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The article said federal court records from the Holy Land Foundation case identified Raed Awad, a former imam at the Hoover Crescent Islamic Center, as a Muslim Brotherhood member.
Awad raised money for the Holy Land Foundation before moving to Birmingham. Federal prosecutors did not charge him in the case against the nonprofit, whose leaders were convicted of financing Hamas. Awad moved to Malaysia in 2011 and later died there.
Tuberville called for the federal government to ban the Muslim Brotherhood from operating in the United States and to prohibit Sharia law nationwide.
“The disease of Islam has been allowed to fester and spread in our country for a long time,” Tuberville said. “The mullahs are just waiting until they’re in the majority to take our country and force Sharia law on everybody that lives in the United States of America.”
CAIR has previously criticized Tuberville’s comments about Islam. The organization’s Alabama chapter urged him in January and at least twice in 2025 to visit a mosque and speak with Muslim Alabamians.
Tuberville did not respond to those invitations.
APR sought comment from Tuberville’s chief of staff and communications director about CAIR’s latest criticism but did not receive a response.
