At an eight-day conference last week, around 200 Muslim scholars from over 50 countries issued a declaration affirming Palestinians’ “legitimate right of resistance.”
The week-long Gaza Conference concluded on August 29 outside the historic Aya Sofya Grand Masjid with the “Istanbul Declaration,” a formal statement rejecting efforts to delegitimise the Palestinians right to self defence via armed struggle.
“We reject all efforts to give up resistance, which is the legitimate right of the Palestinian people,” the declaration said.
Various prominent Muslim scholars and imams travelled to Aya Sofya Grand Mosque to attend Friday prayers, where Ali Erbas, head of Türkiye’s Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), delivered speeches and the final declaration.
Speeches were also delivered by the president of the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), Ali Muhyiddin al-Qaradaghi, and the president of the Foundation for Islamic Scholars in Türkiye, Nasrullah Hacimuftuoglu.
‘An obligation for Muslims around the world’
The declaration opened with a verse from the Qur’an which gives those under oppression the right to fight back and resist, which also highlighted the plight of Gaza as a collective obligation for the Ummah.
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“The Gaza issue is no longer just a local issue, but a religious and human responsibility.”
The conference was organised as a response to the continuous massacres in Gaza (where at least 65,000 have been killed) and international inaction.
Qaradaghi, president of IUMS, described the conference as a revival of Hilf al-Fudul, in reference to an alliance formed in pre-Islamic Mecca where leaders gathered to establish justice for the oppressed.
“An effective step has been taken to stop the attacks and to bring the criminals to justice,” he said.
Other measures which were outlined in the Istanbul Declaration included:
- Establishing committees to engage heads of states to monitor the implementation of the terms.
- Allocating a minimum of 2% of annual profits from Muslim-owned financial and economic institutions to aid for Gaza.
- Calling on bordering states to open crossings to Gaza and encouraging global participation in aid convoys by sea to break the illegal blockade.
- Demanding that all commercial and political ties with Israel be immediately terminated.
Adding onto the last point, the declaration said that “companies that support Zionism and cooperate directly or indirectly with Zionist companies” should be boycotted.
Growing calls for Muslim military intervention
Protests across the Islamic world have grown amid the ongoing horrors in Gaza. Huge demonstrations have been seen in various Muslim and Arab countries demanding their leaders boycott, sanction and declare war on Israel.
Senior Islamic scholars and clerics have also begun calling for a jihad against Israel in order to force an end to the genocide and save the civilians trapped in Gaza.
In April, the influential International Union of Muslim Scholars issued a fatwa ordering every able Muslim to immediately launch armed jihad against Israel.
The body of scholars also called for immediate military intervention by Arab and Islamic states to support the Palestinian resistance and people, as well as a complete blockade of Israel at every level.
Later that month, a conference of ulema in Pakistan issued their own fatwa calling on all Muslim countries to use their armies to launch a jihad to protect the Muslims of Gaza.
“If you can watch over 50,000 of your brothers and sisters being killed before your eyes, and you cannot move to action to help them, then what use are you weapons? What use are your armies?” said Mufti Taqi Usmani, addressing thousands of guests and delegates assembled before him at the Jinnah Convention Centre in Islamabad.
In July, Libya’s Grand Mufti, Al-Sadiq Al-Ghariani, demanded Muslim border guards in Egypt and Jordan to abandon their posts along the border of Israel, as they are complicit with the Zionists in the killing of Palestinians.
War crimes and accountability
The declaration also urged international criminal courts and war tribunals to hold those accountable for the genocide in Gaza.
“The perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity should be prosecuted immediately, Islamic countries as well as all free-willed states should immediately prosecute war criminals in their own countries.”
When the conference ended, the scholars involved insisted that this wasn’t the conclusion of just another conference, but an initiative paving the way to justice.
“Today, we do not declare the closing of the Islamic and Humanitarian Responsibility: Gaza Conference. On the contrary, we declare the beginning of the work of this conference,” the declaration said.
The event, which began with prayers at Istanbul’s iconic Eyup Sultan Mosque, continued on Istanbul’s surrounding islands of Democracy and Freedom Island, and ended at Aya Sofya mosque.
Expressing support for the Palestinian people’s right to armed resistance is enshrined in international law. However, several Palestinian groups fighting Israel in Gaza are proscribed terrorist groups in the UK and expressing support for these groups could lead to a lengthy prison sentence.
At least 63,746 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip since October 2023, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
A ministry statement said that 113 bodies were brought to hospitals in the last 24 hours, while 304 people were injured, taking the number of injuries to 161,245 in the Israeli onslaught.
“Many victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
The ministry also noted that 33 Palestinians were killed and over 141 others injured by Israeli army fire while trying to get humanitarian aid in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of Palestinians killed while seeking aid to 2,339, with over 17,070 others wounded since May 27.
The ministry said that six more Palestinians, including one child, died of malnutrition and starvation in the last 24 hours. This brought the famine-linked death toll since October 2023 to 367 people, including 131 children.
