Egypt attacked a Qatari fatwa that called upon all Muslims and Islamic countries to wage jihad against Israel.
By Rachel Avraham
According to a recent report in MEMRI, “On March 31, 2025, the Qatar-based and funded International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) – an arm of the Qatari regime that disseminates anti-West extremist Islamic terrorist ideology – issued a fatwa (religious ruling) calling on all Muslims and all Islamic countries to wage jihad against Israel, and presenting this as a duty incumbent on every Muslim.”
MEMRI added: “In response to the fatwa, on April 7, 2025, Dar Al-Ifta, Egypt’s official fatwa-issuing body, published a statement harshly attacking the IUMS fatwa and declaring that it contradicts sharia law. No element or organization, it said in the statement, is entitled to issue religious rulings on a sensitive matter such as jihad in a manner contradicting Islamic sharia law and endangering the stability of the Muslim countries and societies. It added that it is only the ruler and the country that may make decisions about war – not any entity or association lacking legitimate authority, and went on to assert: “A call to wage jihad, without taking into account the capabilities of the ummah [Islamic nation] and its existing political, military, and economic situation, is an irresponsible call, which contradicts the principles of sharia.””
MEMRI stressed, “Dar Al-Ifta further stressed in the statement that Islamic sharia law warns against hasty decisions that do not take the public interest into consideration and are likely to increase the damage that will be done to the Muslim ummah (nation) and to society. It also said: “Whoever calls for waging jihad must, first and foremost, stand himself at the head of the ranks, just as the Prophet Muhammad led the battles.”
Egypt issued its fatwa against the Qatar-backed fatwa calling for all Muslim countries and Islamic countries to wage jihad against Israel, after an increasing number of Palestinian journalists called upon Hamas to dismantle its military wing and hand over the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority. It also came after residents of the coastal strip protested en masse against Hamas, until Hamas started to brutally repress them.
According to a report in Palestinian Media Watch, “Hamas kills Jews for being Jews and kills Palestinians for wanting to live. Uday Al-Raba’i wanted to live, so Hamas fixed him.
This is his story. Uday used social media to criticize Hamas and its war. In response, Hamas took him and dragged him alive through the streets tied to the back of a car. Hamas then returned him to his family as he took his last breaths. After he died, some Gazans who were sick of Hamas chanted “Hamas, out, out!” at his funeral. Uday’s family was livid and called for immediate retaliation against Hamas.”
Uday Al-Raba’I’s last words were as follows: “I of course am done with this war, and now Hamas is attacking us. They want me, they want to shoot me. Before they wanted me and wanted to shoot me, they came to me recently also by surprise. A short while ago, they also shot my brother, and we still do not know who shot him. Masked men came to him – I figure they’re from [Hamas’] Qassam [Brigades], God knows – they shot him, and I’ve been running away since this morning… And here Gaza is a ghost town, and I am running away through the streets. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what exactly they want from us, I don’t know. They’ve brought us to annihilation. They’ve brought disaster on us, and I don’t know what they want from the young people, what they want from them – they all have metal pins in their legs [are injured]. I swear to Allah, none of us knows what to do. May Allah save us, and that’s it.”
Uday’s family told the Fatah-run Awdah TV: “A rogue group from [Hamas’] Al-Qassam Brigades, a group of sinners, kidnapped my unjustly murdered son, Uday Al-Raba’i, under despicable and false pretexts. They dragged him and tortured him to death with everything they had, without caring about the sacred prohibitions — nor about his mother nor about the family’s feelings. They took him treacherously, and murdered him. Therefore, they must be struck with an iron fist, these evil criminals who took this man, a Muslim, and murdered him unlawfully… Retaliation against the murderers. The only consolation will be retaliation against these evil murderers, even if it takes time. We ask Almighty Allah to inflict suffering upon them and to punish them severely… We demand that all human rights [organizations] and institutions stand in support of the residents of Gaza against [Hamas] these criminal evildoers.”
Photo from Palwatch: https://palwatch.org/page/37073
