Senator’s bigoted comments come as CAIR calls on public officials to repudiate anti-Muslim hate after Utah Muslim was stabbed multiple times due to his faith
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today said Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R) is setting the stage for violence against Muslims after he falsely claimed on the Senate floor that “Islam is not a religion. It’s a death cult.”
Video: Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville says ‘Islam is not a religion. It’s a death cult.’
In a statement, CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw said:
“Senator Tuberville’s shameful and inflammatory attack on Islam is setting the stage for violence against ordinary American Muslims. 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.
“Instead of helping uphold the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, Senator Tuberville has chosen to pour gasoline on the fire of anti-Muslim bigotry. 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.”
McCaw noted that yesterday, CAIR called on elected officials and other public and community leaders to unequivocally repudiate anti-Muslim rhetoric and to reject those who promote it following the allegedly hate-motivated stabbing of a Muslim man in Utah.
SEE: Valley Fair Mall employee stabbed by man allegedly targeting Muslims – KSL
SEE ALSO: Muslim man stabbed multiple times in Utah over his religion, police say – Reuters
Utah man arrested after allegedly targeting Muslim kiosk worker in stabbing – Al Jazeera
Muslim rights group CAIR condemns attack, calls on leaders to ‘reject anti-Muslim hate’ – Anadolu Agency
CAIR has repeatedly condemned Tuberville’s anti-Muslim bigotry and that of other elected officials.
In an op-ed earlier this year CAIR noted, “When Senator Tuberville talks about excluding Alabama Muslims from the constitutional rights guaranteed to all Alabamans, he sounds like a politician who studied George Wallace standing in a schoolhouse door and decided that Wallace’s problem wasn’t the bigotry, just the target.”
CAIR designated Tuberville an anti-Muslim extremist in late 2025.
Washington, D.C., based CAIR has repeatedly condemned anti-Muslim rhetoric by public officials and has tied that spike in hate to growing acts of violence targeting American Muslims, like the recent deadly terror attack on a San Diego mosque.
In recent weeks, CAIR chapters nationwide have responded to a disturbing series of anti-Muslim hate incidents.
CAIR’s New York chapter (CAIR-NY) recently welcomed the arrest and federal charges against a suspect accused of carrying out a series of allegedly hate-motivated firebombing attacks.
CAIR-NY also joined a call for members of the public to provide any information that may assist law enforcement in identifying the individual responsible for a series of anti-Islamic graffiti incidents in Brooklyn and called for a hate crime investigation into a violent threat targeting the Sunnyside Muslim Center.
Earlier this month, CAIR’s Pittsburgh chapter welcomed the federal indictment of a Pennsylvania man who allegedly identified himself as a Nazi and made threats to carry out a mass shooting targeting Muslims, Democrats, Jewish people, African Americans, and other minority groups.
CAIR’s Philadelphia chapter also offered a reward for information on an arson attack on a mosque.
Washington, D.C. based CAIR’s latest civil rights report documented 8,683 anti-Muslim bias complaints in 2025 – the highest number ever recorded by the organization since it began publishing civil rights reports in 1996.
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CONTACT: A. Britton O’Shields, Staff Attorney – Alabama Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Alabama), [email protected], 205-206-6399, 205-616-0733; CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, [email protected]; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, [email protected]