A leading Muslim charity that has received nearly £300,000 in grants from the government since 2018 posted online videos praising the October 7 terrorist attacks and urging viewers to hate non-believers, the JC can reveal.
The Karima Foundation, which is based in High Wycombe, says on its website that it “seeks to deliver impactful and tangible community development” through activities that “nurture mind, body and soul”.
But on 11 January it posted a talk on YouTube by imam Abu Aaliya, who said: “The Muslim by creed, by theology, is required to hate kufr (disbelief). So ingrained is this theology to tawheed (monotheism) that whoever loves a non-Muslim, a kaffir, because of their disbelief, leaves the fold of Islam and apostatises.”
According to Aaliya, “a lot of good” had happened to the “Palestinian resistance cause against Zionist colonialist occupation” in the current conflict, making it “remarkably different within all of the decades I’ve seen this since 1987”.
In an earlier Foundation video posted on 18 December, he said: “For the first week in October, we’ve yet again seen on our screens and heard from social media and other places the courage of the Palestinian resistance.”
He called this “deeply inspiring”, adding: “Once a country is invaded, by tyrants, by an oppressive colonialist regime, there’s nothing you can do except resist. You have no choice. Either that or you’re killed, or more and more of your land gets confiscated, both of which are not good. And so Palestinian resistance could be said they’re compelled to do it… May Allah bring about a blessed victory to them.”
Other preachers have delivered similar messages on Karima Foundation videos. One was imam Asim Ayub, who said in a sermon posted on 17 November: “Awaken the ummah! Terrify the Zionist oppressors! Terrify the terror state of Israel!” Muslims, he went on must “strike fear into the enemies of Islam”.
Another was Haitham Al-Haddad, who asked on 6 November what Muslims should do in the wake of the Hamas attacks. He said Islam was a “deen [faith] of jihad… The prophet participated in how many battles? By himself, 25 battles, OK?”
He added: “Allah told us about the Children of Israel. We don’t want to become like the Children of Israel and do not speak about the truth.”
The Foundation has an income of some £300,000 a year, and its accounts filed with the Charity Commission say that over the four years from 2018-22 it received a total of £288,000 in government grants.
The JC approached the charity asking for comment on its videos but, instead of responding directly, it posted an online statement claiming it did “not intend to respond to an organisation lacking journalistic credibility that provides cover to a genocidal, apartheid regime”.
It claimed that the JC’s email asking for comment “contained nothing but horribly racist Islamophobic tropes and libellous misquotes” and that it was “an attempt to weaponise the evil of antisemitism to silence any criticism of Israel”.
This statement was praised on X / Twitter by Asim Qureshi of the prisoners’ support group Cage, who stated in 2015 that the Isis executioner known as Jihadi John, alias Mohammed Emwazi, was a “beautiful young man”.
Aaliya praised Qureshi in his 11 January video, saying he and Cage had “really upped their game in a really intelligent way. There’s a lot to be hopeful for them.”
The Foundation’s videos are currently being examined by the Charity Commission, whose spokesperson told the JC: “Concerns have been raised with us regarding activities linked to Karima. We are currently considering the information provided to inform our next steps.”
