A Muslim U.S. Soldier Says She'll Disobey Commands to Fight Muslims. Now What?

Will Fariah Brewer be disciplined? Will she be thrown out of the military?

Wearing a hijab, Brewer on Monday recorded a video that quickly went viral. In it, she happily admits that if she is commanded, as a member of the U.S. military, to fight other Muslims, she would disobey the orders. She makes this clear in the context of a discussion of the conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Will the Army take action? Or would doing anything to call Brewer to account be “Islamophobic”?

It’s axiomatic: a soldier in the U.S. military should be loyal to the United States. But in a lengthy discussion of Islam and nationalism, the Islamic site The Message International laments the division that national boundaries have brought to the international Muslim community, and states that “since Muslims too often have put their national loyalty before their faith, the results are plain for all to see.” The article decries “divisive nationalist sentiment” and calls for Muslims to become “a united ummah” that “cuts through all artificial boundaries arising out of race, ethnicity, or culture.”

What that means is that if there is a conflict between one’s loyalty to Islam and one’s loyalty to the U.S., a knowledgeable and observant Muslim will choose Islam. This is not the same as Christians or members of other faith groups putting their faith first, because Islam is political, supremacist, and expansionist in a way that Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism are not.

We have seen before what putting the umma, the global Muslim community, above loyalty to the U.S. means in practice. In April 2005, a Muslim serving in the U.S. Army, Hasan Akbar, a convert to Islam from a leftist family (his original middle name was “Fidel” — his name was Mark Fidel Kools), was convicted of murder for killing two American soldiers and wounding fourteen in a grenade attack in Kuwait. In the midst of his grenade and small-arms attack on March 22, 2003, he screamed: “You guys are coming into our countries, and you’re going to rape our women and kill our children.” 

Even though Hasan Akbar was an American, when he became a Muslim, any allegiance he may have had to America was gone. His allegiance lay solely with the umma. 

Similarly, on Nov. 5, 2009, in Fort Hood, a Muslim U.S. Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, murdered thirteen unarmed soldiers and wounded over forty others while screaming “Allahu akbar.” Before his murderous jihad rampage, Hasan had raised eyebrows with his Islamic proselytizing, which he carried on even when he was supposed to be conducting medical briefings. Yet he kept on being promoted: the army brass was happy to have a Muslim soldier; his presence proved that they weren’t “Islamophobic.” Anyone who might have questioned Hasan’s loyalty would have been under suspicion of “Islamophobia” himself. 

In July 2011, another Muslim soldier, Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo, was arrested for plotting to explode a bomb at a restaurant near Fort Hood frequented by military personnel. As he was led out of a federal courtroom a day after his arrest, Abdo shouted out the name of his hero and role model: “Nidal Hasan Fort Hood 2009!”

Then there was John Thomas Booker, another convert to Islam who changed his name to Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, apparently because he admired Nidal Hasan. Hassan, according to the alert that the FBI and U.S. military distributed, Hassan was “recruited by the U.S. Army in Kansas City, Mo., in February 2014 and was scheduled to report for basic training on April 7. But he was discharged last week, apparently after law enforcement authorities learned of his alleged plan.” His plan was to stage a Fort Hood-style jihad massacre of his own. He wrote on Facebook (spelling and grammar as in the original): “Oh those of the ummah of the Prophet Muhammad(S)j. I will soon be leaving you forever so goodbye! I am going to wage jihad and hopes that i die." 

Another convert to Islam in the U.S. military, Nicholas Teausant/Ased Abdur-Raheem, was a member of the Army National Guard who wrote on Instagram: “don’t get me wrong I despise america and want its down fall but yeah haha. Lol I been a part of the army for two years now and I would love to join Allah’s army but I don’t even know how to start.” 

Related: The 'Holy Month' of Ramadan Is Ending, and Here's the Death Toll

Fariah Brewer is yet another convert to Islam in the U.S. military. She was wearing what the Salty Soldier describes as “Army Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP) uniform, with a U.S. flag patch clearly visible” when she affirmed that she would disobey an order to fight fellow Muslims. Not The Bee reported Thursday that Brewer “states on social media that she ‘revert[ed] to Islam’ in December 2023,” and “reportedly laughed about joining the Army for the benefits.” Not The Bee adds the eyebrow-raising fact that “Brewer’s father is reportedly in prison for murdering a veteran in 2011.”

So what happens now? Will Brewer remain in the military? Will Secretary of War Pete Hegseth deal with the issue of the divided loyalty of Muslims in the military? Or will this ongoing problem continue to be ignored?

https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2026/03/27/a-muslim-soldier-says-she-will-disobey-commands-to-fight-muslims-now-what-n4951129