An open letter to scholars and leaders in times of genocide | Dr. Asim Qureshi | Islam21C | 19 Mar 2025
Dearest Ulamā,
al-Salāmu ‘alaykum wa Rahmatullāhi wa Barakātuh.
Ramadan Mubarak to you and your families — may He (subḥānahu wa ta’āla) draw us all closer to Him in this month, and make us among those who stand for what is right, āmīn.
For the first time in history, we are witnesses to a live-streamed genocide. If we don’t see the violence immediately, we witness it seconds after the destruction is uploaded.
My thoughts, to this moment, are consumed by the dismembered body of a young girl, blown through a building, but caught on a metal rod so that she hung lifeless, for the world to see.
As I write this on 18 March 2025, the Zionists have once more broken their agreements, and my social media feed is once more filled with the sight of murdered Palestinians.
As I write and try and keep up with the state of devastation taking place, a young Palestinian journalist posts on X:
My family and I had some stale bread for suhūr.
The Muslim world has been posting and bragging about their meals throughout the Ramadan blockade.
Now, they are watching us being killed and starved and continuing their hot, delicious meals.
What’s Islam for them, sorry?” [1]
These words should haunt us.
Especially as we witness the collapse of a world rules-based order that has portended to operate for the sake of the collective good, only to be exposed as toothless in the face of extreme violence by a small, but well-protected Zionist entity — protected by the US and its Arab neighbours.
In an alternate world, thousands of young Muslim men from all over the world would have travelled through Egypt or Jordan to enter into Palestine to fight for their brothers and sisters.
However, in this world, those two countries have played the role of jailing and isolating Palestinians, more than they have of providing supply lines for the Palestinian people to defend themselves, or allowing others to come to their aid.
Scholars as inheritors of the prophets
I write now, to you, out of concern over some of the interactions I’ve had with various ulamā, community leaders, and Muslim-led organisations.
Alhamdulillāh, many support our work, the work of CAGE International, and many other initiatives — but they do so quietly.
When I ask them about their lack of public presence, they say to me that our role is to fight for justice, and theirs is to teach the people their religion.
This cannot be right. If our scholars are the inheritors of the prophets, why are they creating these distinct spaces — a disconnection between their teaching and the necessitudes of the real world?
Look through the Qur’ān, and you won’t find a single example of a prophet who said that he would remain behind to teach the people, while injustice in society was for others to rectify.
Do not mistake me. We feel honoured to fight for the rights of the oppressed.
But I am not a scholar whose learning is revered by millions of Muslims around the world. Muslims look to their ulamā for leadership, but this genocide has heightened the sense that their role is somewhat lacking. It is distant from the need.
My colleagues and I have entered into a phase of our work in relation to this ongoing genocide, where we are completely overwhelmed with helping those who are being maligned or imprisoned for speaking up for Palestine.
There are student groups across the UK looking for guidance and leadership, there are activist groups looking for support and help… And they are finding it, just not among the very leaders who claim to feel the suffering of the Palestinians.
I see many of the scholars I know, keen to share the takes of a middle-aged Italian woman (the UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese), but would never countenance to make her arguments themselves.
When Albanese speaks of the fundamental nature of the Zionist project, and the fundamental right of resistance groups across Palestine to regain possession of their dispossessed land, she is speaking from the authority of international law.
Our scholars are welcome to cite international law too, but they also have a higher authority in the Qur’ān — which is not silent on these matters.
The reality is this: I am sure that if I placed a bullet on a table, and told every single one of our scholars that this bullet was destined for the head of a Palestinian, unless they picked it up and put it in their pocket (without any concern over repercussions), none would hesitate to confiscate the bullet.
So we have to ask ourselves, where are we in relation to stopping the supply lines that provide oxygen to the machinery of Zionist violence? Where are our scholars, specifically, in stopping the Zionist entity as a whole, not simply hoping and praying for a ceasefire?
In our time, we are speaking of a political entity that has displaced Palestinians, colonised their lands by unlawfully settling on them, and built an entire infrastructure of apartheid.
Connecting the Qur’ān to action
I write to you now, this far into the genocide, out of a sense of urgency.
I write out of a need to hear something different, to see a leadership and guidance from our communities that does not look like a “carry on” approach that has dictated so much of our response so far; something that breaks the cycle of this abusive relationship we have with power that is centred in the West.
I write to you, because I am standing in tarawīh and listening to the recitation of the Qur’ān, and left wondering what those reciters understand about the verses that command we stand up for justice, that we answer the call of the mustad’afīn, that we act.
I can hear it in the voice of the qāri (who has been so sought after and so well advertised) as he recites for the congregation, so that we can stand at length to listen to his voice and be moved by it.
I heard it when he reached ayah 75 of Surat al-Nisā — his voice trembled as Allah asks us what is wrong with us, that we do not fight when we hear the cries of the oppressed. [2]
And what is [the matter] with you that you fight not in the cause of Allah and [for] the oppressed among men, women, and children who say, “Our Lord, take us out of this city of oppressive people and appoint for us from Yourself a protector and appoint for us from Yourself a helper?”
I could almost hear him think of Palestine. Is that enough though? To be moved by the Qur’ān without a call to action?
I thought of the following hadīth later that night, as I had a chance to sit with my own thoughts:
The religion will be victorious until you pass beyond the seas and fight upon the seas in the way of Allah, then after you will come to a people who recite the Qur’ān.
They will say: ‘We recite the Qur’ān, so who is better at reciting than us? Who has more understanding than us? Who has more knowledge than us?’
Then the Prophet ﷺ turned to his companions and he said, ‘Is there any good in these people?’ They said ‘No’. The Prophet ﷺ said, ‘These people are among you from this nation. These are fuel for the Hellfire.’”
This hadīth echoes the verse in Surat Āl Imrān, where Allah (subḥānahu wa ta’āla) entered into a covenant with those given scripture. Yet they hid its meanings for a fleeting gain, rather than clarifying it for the people. [3]
And [mention, O Muhammad], when Allah took a covenant from those who were given the Scripture, [saying], “You must make it clear to the people and not conceal it.” But they threw it away behind their backs and exchanged it for a small price. And wretched is that which they purchased.
I write to you because our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ told us that you are the inheritors and successors to all the prophets — the very ones mentioned in the Qur’ān — successors of Ibrāhīm, Shu’ayb, Mūsā, Dawūd, and of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam (ʿalayhim al-Salām). How does their mantle fall on your shoulders in this time?
This story is well recorded, but I want to remind you of Qādi Abu Sa’ad al-Harawī, storming into the court of the Baghdad Sultan Mustazhir Billah with an entourage of those who survived the massacre of Jerusalem by the crusaders in August 1099, a mere month after it had taken place.
Refusing to countenance the decorum of the court, he shouted in the midst of the elite:
How dare you slumber in the shade of complacent safety, leading lives as frivolous as garden flowers, while your brothers in Shām have no dwelling place save the saddles of camels and the bellies of vultures. Blood has been spilled!”
Indeed, blood has been spilled.
And what of our relationship with this blood?
I know I don’t have to go into detail of explaining how the Ummah is required to feel the pain of the rest of the Ummah, or how the sanctity of Muslim life is worth more than the Kaba or its surroundings. You know these ahadīth better than me.
But what does this mean in practice?
Reconfiguring our role and overcoming our fear
Ramadan has been inundated with calls by scholars, Islamic speakers, and du’āt, all encouraging towards the giving of charity to the Palestinians, to the orphans, to medical aid, to reconstruction efforts.
This is all admirable and needed. But what if that isn’t enough?
Even a cursory reading of the economics of humanitarian aid should inform you that we are constantly subsidising Zionist aggression and oppression.
The Zionists will destroy a hospital, a school, or a mosque, and the Ummah rallies to rebuild it. They destroy again; we rebuild again, and so on and so forth.
I return to the idea of being in an abusive relationship: one in which we get the constant “opportunity” to subsidise a genocide.
The Zionists have their resources restocked and re-manned by the US, UK, and other Western allies, while Palestinians get to have their infrastructure slowly rebuilt until the next major aggression.
The situation does get worse.
There is no aid or reconstruction work possible that does not engage directly with the Zionist economy; and so, we are forced to accept the fact that this Ummah’s wealth eventually trickles down to a Zionist system that is engaged in settler colonialism and apartheid.
It may be unintentionally, and two steps removed, but ultimately we are forced to engage with it and have our wealth maintain it.
Does that mean we collectively stop giving aid to the Palestinians? Of course not. It would be ludicrous to make such a call, however problematic the process of aid-giving might be.
What else, you might ask? Outside of aid work, the landscape of action seems much more difficult for scholars to engage in. But it’s precisely here that you are needed at this time.
I’m sorry to be blunt, but only being involved at the level of publicly encouraging others to donate to Palestine and to make du’ā is the easy choice. To call to that alone is a choice that comes as a byproduct of fear. A fear that was forged in the global War on Terror — and one that occupies the hearts of many ulamā today.
I cannot tell you the number of times I have heard excuses from scholars, Muslim organisations, and mosque committees, that beyond calling for charity and the making of du’ā, there is little more they are willing to do.
There is one particular scholar who regularly refuses to name the Zionist entity… as if the wholesale massacre of an entire Muslim people in the Holy Land has happened at the hands of some kind of apparition. A passive haunting of the Palestinian people(!)
I want us to think about this imagined fear that debilitates our leaders and organisations. I call it “imagined fear”, largely because the spectre and apparitions that our minds concoct are nearly always more frightening than reality — like a child staring at the gap in their wardrobe after the lights are turned out.
Some nights ago, I was reading Surat Tāhā when I came across these verses:
قَالَا رَبَّنَآ إِنَّنَا نَخَافُ أَن يَفْرُطَ عَلَيْنَآ أَوْ أَن يَطْغَىٰ
They both pleaded, ‘Our Lord! We fear that he may be quick to harm us or act tyrannically.’ [4]
فَأَوْجَسَ فِى نَفْسِهِۦ خِيفَةًۭ مُّوسَىٰ
So Moses concealed fear within himself.” [5]
They both reference the natural fear that we as humans are built with, a natural fear that helps to protect us from harm.
When Mūsā (ʿalayhi al-Salām) is commanded to account Pharaoh (even gently), he describes how he fears the repercussions by this tyrant. Fear is a natural response to a world in which there is great structural violence, where the consequences of your actions and speech are all too real.
What happens, though, when that fear debilitates us from taking action, or at least speaking the truth?
My concern is that when such fear takes hold in the hearts of scholars, leaders, and organisations, it can produce a spiritual dissonance: one in which the fundamentals of aqīdah and tawhīd can be taught in the classroom, but at the same time that lesson is not activated in the real world.
To teach that there is no power greater than that of Allah, and then to fear His creation to the extent of inaction, is a dissonance that requires realignment.
There are, of course, those in our community who side with our oppressors — whether through acts of complicity or through directly engaging with Zionists. I am not really concerned with writing to them, as that form of spiritual lobotomy is difficult to mend.
The spiritual dissonance I am concerned with, is one that perhaps more unintentionally creates secular spaces — so the world is one space, and ritual practice is another. This malaise is one that must be avoided at all costs; not just for the Palestinians but for the very soul of who we are as Muslims in today’s age.
One of the arguments that the people of Shu’ayb (ʿalayhi al-Salām) used against him was to question what prayer has to do with the marketplace. They didn’t deny the existence or the need for prayer itself; rather, they created disparate spaces. [6]
What is taking place in Palestine is very much a matter of our belief in Allah and our understanding of how the ethical schema of the Qur’ān forces us to confront this world as Allah has planned it for us. The fact that we are living through a live-streamed genocide, is perhaps the major imtihān of our time.
Returning to some of the discussion above, if we accept that we have duties towards this Ummah, then why is that duty so carefully managed into seemingly non-controversial actions? Is the limit of our ambition that we (especially those of us living in the West) are only able to give charity and make du’ā for such oppressed people?
Furthermore, if our scholars are the successors of the prophets, then what is their role in all of this?
How we can show public solidarity
As I write this, there are several Muslim political prisoners in the UK who have chosen to remove the bullet from the table (that I wrote of earlier), based on their understanding of what is needed as Muslims.
They are part of Palestine Action, an actionist group across the world that has made it its mission to shut down the weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems — the largest producer of weapons for the Zionist entity.
85 per cent of all weapons used by the Zionist Occupation Force are not only produced by Elbit Systems but were tested and refined on the Palestinian people as part of their production process. The Elbit hub in Filton is or was replete with quad-copters which play the sounds of babies crying in order to lure adults to look for them, only to execute those who emerged.
Palestine Action activists chose to protest outside the weapons manufacturer’s offices, spray their building with red paint, and even locked themselves to the building. Most importantly, they broke into the factory to destroy military-grade drones, to stop any prospect of weapons being moved from their factory to the Zionist regime.
This form of direct action has resulted in tangible results. Israel has been unable to receive arms that it had ordered, denying Elbit Systems over £280 million in lost contracts.
At this time, this direct action conforms to the command of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, that if one sees a munkar (a wrong), they should change it with their hand, as this is the best form of effecting change.
The Muslims involved (allegedly), such as Fatema Zainab, Sean Middlebrough, Zahra Farooque, Kamran Ahmad, and sisters who have only revealed their initials as T and Q, have chosen to act on their conscience by stopping the weapons themselves. In a time of genocide, they have appealed to a higher sense and purpose of the law, one that, for them, is rooted in Islam.
Taking such action requires a degree of bravery that not all have, but what should be the position of the scholarly community to this group of people? I have seen some discussion on groups around Palestine Action interfering with the property rights of Elbit Systems, and I am dismayed that at such a time, the maqāsid of the religion are being weighted in favour of property rights, over the protection of life itself.
At the very least, there should be some kind of discussion, some kind of response to these brave souls. Instead, we have been met with silence, as if these Muslims and non-Muslims together have not achieved something by stopping or delaying actual violence taking place against the oppressed.
Is it possible that our scholars — who might not smash drones inside factories themselves — might at the very least express some public support for these brave individuals?
It is one thing not to be on the front lines of an action, it’s an entire other to be completely missing. This is a call to our scholars: to show up for these political prisoners, to show up for Palestinians, and ultimately, to show leadership by showing up for what the prophets would have done in times of oppression. They are the ones gifted by Allah to inherit that mandate – a mandate that should be expressed publicly – not just held privately.
Showing solidarity means that we stand alongside others, even if we do not participate in their actions.
With that in mind, I would suggest that our ulamā engage in the following activities:
- Normalise the making of du’ā for Palestine, and the victory of the resistance over a settler colonial apartheid regime.
- Use the Jumu’ah khutbah as a way of educating communities around Palestine.
- Deliver special talks on the history of Palestine, the fadā’il of al-Quds and al-Shām, and the modern dispossession of the Palestinian people and their land.
- Invite Palestine activist groups to teach mosque communities on how to get involved in different Palestinian causes.
- Speak publicly about the cases of Palestinian political prisoners, highlighting their centrality to the Palestinian struggle for freedom.
- Use social media to publicly state their opposition to Zionism and the settler colonial apartheid status of the Zionist state. They should also take confidence in the accepted international law position that resistance groups have a legal right to Palestinian self-determination.
- Attend protests in support of the Palestinian people and support the student groups leading on Palestine activism.
- Boycott any product that provides support or supply lines to the Zionist regime.
- Encourage their communities to be actively involved in boycotting Zionist products.
- Refuse platforms with all those complicit in the genocide — this includes attending iftar and Eid parties as a form of “engagement”. They can be held to account outside of such superficial settings.
- Publicly support the idea of direct action to stop a genocide from taking place.
- Put their support behind Palestine Action and encourage their communities to play a role, even if it is just to raise awareness or be a support line for their action.
- Show public support for the political prisoners being detained around the world for their role in shutting down weapons supply lines to the Zionist state, especially for Palestine Action and other actionist groups.
- Play a supporting role to help and comfort the families of those political prisoners being detained for their direct actions.
These actions are all legal; you can check CAGE’s guidance here. They should not constitute a risk to anyone seeking to be involved.
And so, all it takes is placing your trust in Allah, that enjoining good and prohibiting evil will always draw you closer to Him (subḥānahu wa ta’āla).
Allah reminds us in Surat al-Asr, that enjoining of truth is coupled with enjoining patience, because to be truthful requires being patient with that truth until its end. [7]
The fear of some repercussions should not prevent the ulamā from speaking and guiding the Ummah in times of adversity and struggle.
Ibn Rajab al-Hanbalī explains in Jāmi‘ al-‘Ulūm wa-l-Hikam:
If someone (enjoining good or forbidding evil) fears insult or harsh words, this does not exempt them from their duty. Imam Ahmad explicitly stated this. If one can endure harm and is strong enough to face it, it is even better to proceed.
He was asked, ‘Did the Prophet ﷺ not say: It is not befitting for a believer to humiliate himself, i.e. exposing himself to trials beyond his capacity?’
Imam Ahmad replied: ‘This is not applicable here. Rather, it refers to someone who knows they cannot endure harm or cannot be patient in the face of it. If they are confident in their ability to endure, then they should proceed.’”
Over the last week, we have seen the Trump administration ramp up its fascistic policies against Palestine activists, by ordering the deportation of the Syrian refugee and green card holder Mahmoud Khalil for his Palestine activism — nothing more.
Some might see this as a cause for retreating further, but I would argue that now is the time to be bold, for our scholars to come forward and show the relevance of Islam to being on the forefront of bringing about justice in this world.
If it is to be our speech that we are held to task for in this life, if it is our speech that is to be tested by Allah, then let it be for the sake of the oppressed. At the very least, let our scholars not be condemned by their own silence.
I return to the beginning. Out of a need to hear more from those who represent Islam itself. In a time of genocide, you are needed more than ever.
Hayākamullāh,
Asim Qureshi, Research Director, CAGE International
Source: Islam21c
Notes
[1] https://x.com/AbubakerAbedW/status/1901810188450996405
[2] al-Qur’ān, 4:75
[3] al-Qur’ān, 3:187
]4[ al-Qur’ān, 20:45
[5] al-Qur’ān, 20:67
[6] al-Qur’ān, 11:87
[7] al-Qur’ān, 103
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