Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was seen with a new tattoo earlier this week while visiting U.S. troops in Hawaii. And it's causing a stir among the Muslim community due to what some view as an implied message.
The Daily Beast reported Thursday that Hegseth first showed off the new tattoo on his left bicep when training with sailors at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickman on Tuesday. Hegseth's tattoo is known as a "kafir (كافر)," which translates to "infidel" or "disbeliever" in Arabic. Journalist Tam Hussein, who is Muslim, observed that the kafir tattoo is directly under his "Deus Vult" tattoo, which is a slogan from the Crusades that translates to "God wills it."
"To the Muslim world the tattoo will be seen as an open declaration of Hegseth’s enmity towards them," Hussein tweeted.
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However, journalist Dilly Hussain, of the United Kingdom-based 5 Pillars outlet that covers Muslim issues, opined that Hegseth's tattoo tracks with what he viewed as outwardly hostile American sentiment toward Muslims around the world.
"Muslims should not be offended or shocked at Pete Hegseth’s new 'kafir' tattoo or his crusader 'Deus Vult' tattoo. He’s merely displaying America’s foreign policy and mindset to Islam and Muslims," he tweeted. "Where have you been for the last 25 years?"
The defense secretary's tattoos have gotten him in trouble in the past. When he was in the National Guard in 2021, he was removed from duty at former President Joe Biden's inauguration over the "Jerusalem Cross" (also known as the "Crusader's Cross") tattoo on his chest, which is a Christian nationalist symbol that features one large cross surrounded by four smaller crosses. The large cross is meant to represent the strength of Christianity, while the four other crosses represent the spread of Christianity to the four corners of the earth.
"Members of my unit in leadership deemed that I was an extremist or a white nationalist because of a tattoo I have, which is a religious tattoo," Hegseth told Fox News last year.
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Click here to read the Beast's report in full (subscription required).