What is Straight Way of Grace Ministry?
Straight Way of Grace Ministry is an anti-Muslim organization founded by Usama K. Dakdok that demonizes and vilifies Islamic practices and beliefs, and spreads lies about Muslims in America.
The Ministry has promoted anti-Muslim sentiment and Islamophobic remarks in a self-proclaimed effort “to warn all Americans about the deceptive methods being used by Muslims that lead so many into the cult of Islam.”
Anti-Muslim Activities
Dakdok leveraged his goal of Christian enlightenment as a tool to disseminate misinformation and hate for Muslims, consequently fueling Islamophobic rhetoric online.
Misinformation spread by Dakdok includes the following examples: “the true face of the ISIS” is Islam, the true goal of Islam is ‘world domination,’ and Allah is synonymous with Satan.
The Ministry operates an online course titled “Revealing the Truth about Islam,” hosted by Usama Dakdok. The course heavily relies on translations produced by Steven Emerson’s anti-Muslim Investigative Project on Terrorism and Middle East Media Research Institute to portray Islam as a violent religion and that Muslims “have a duty to behead… the throat must be slaughtered.”
Dakdok makes numerous anti-Muslim remarks in his sermons, including hateful claims that: “When a Muslim woman is covered, and a man grows a beard, it is 100% they are a jihadist,” and a Muslim is in a perpetual state of war until “Islam takes over the world.”
The Ministry also created an English translation of the Qu’ran to distort the message of the holy book as a “hateful” ideology. Dakdok – despite having no Islamic theological education or training – writes in his introductory chapter that goal of the translation was aimed at “those who do not know the truth about Islam from its original source of corruption and hate may know the truth that will set them free.” In addition, Dakdok’s self-publishing company purports that “the Qur’an itself is the source of terror.”
The Ministry employs an additional method to propagate anti-Muslim rhetoric through their website’s FAQ section. A notable example arises from a question featured on the site: “Do Muslims in Islam worship God or Satan?” To which the Ministry retorts, “Muslims worship Satan by the name of Allah.”
In 2014, Dakdok said, “With the wisdom God gave me I know how bad the disease of Islam is.” According to the St. Cloud Times, in 2016 Dakdok “called Islam a ‘savage cult’ that teaches its followers to kill non-believers.”
Influence
Usama Dakdok remains moderately active, delivering speeches and conducting church tours in parts of the United States. During a 2022 speaking engagement held in Wisconsin, Dakdok said, “first-hand knowledge of the Islamic system of belief and strives to expose the motives and teachings that pose a threat to [America’s] way of life.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that Usama Dakdok has past association with the Tea Party and its members. In an event sponsored by the Mansfield North Central Ohio Tea Party, Dakdok called Islam a “wicked cult” and claimed that American Muslims “will kill your children” and that “we are in war with Islam.”
Some hate-filled claims made by Dakdok during his presentation include:
- “The day will come and Muslim in America will have the upper hand, and they will kill your children for not eating what is liked. For not eating the lawful foods.”
- “What happened to the women and the children? They were raped. By who? By Muhammad and his followers. And they got pregnant, and they had babies, and the baby was born by the name Fatima, and Khadija, and Obama, and Hussein, and Barack, and all those wonderful Muslim names.”
- “[W]ithout Allah they will die and for sure they would spend eternity in hell with Muhammad and with all previous Muslims, and Baptist, and Presbyterian, and Catholic, and everyone who’s think by going to some church will make it to heaven.”
- “Killing you is a small matter [for Muslims].”
- “We were not in war with Bin Ladin, we are in war with Islam.”
- “[T]hen you have a revival in America among the Muslim, and that’s when they start beheading your children and your grandchildren.”
- “So they say this month two and a half percent of the profit [American banks] made will go to Egypt. To help to get rid of illiteracy. What do they mean by illiteracy? They meant Christian. We are gonna kill some Christian. Or this month we are gonna get rid of some AIDS. What is AIDS? That is the Jews.”
