Hamas' Oct 7 attack was ‘righteous Jihad against infidels’, hundreds of Muslim clerics declare in Turkey

A group of Muslim clerics from around the world recently convened in Turkey to lend religious justification to Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, drawing up a charter declaring the terror group’s “resistance” to be “jihad for the sake of Allah.”

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) recently published a detailed summary and translation of the charter that, so far, has been signed by 39 religious organizations and associations and 350 clerics from across the Muslim world.

Abd al-Hayy Yousuf, chairman of the charter’s committee and a member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, noted that the creation of the charter was necessary to disperse doubts and create a unified position among Muslims, as well as “to reject the doubts raised by the liars and the campaigns that harm the heroic jihad fighters.”

In the Muslim and Arab world, recent months have seen growing criticism of Hamas’ actions. Some of these critics, including even more radical Islamists, did not base their objections on humanitarian grounds, but rather claimed that the heavy loss of life and destruction caused by it were not worth the effort.

Hundreds of clerics met in Turkey on June 27, 2025, to declare that “Palestine,” defined as the entire area controlled by the State of Israel, is an Islamic land, and branding anyone who relinquishes any part of it a “traitor.”

According to the charter, Jews have no right to any part of the land, and their rule over it is considered occupation by an infidel enemy, against whom jihad is a religious obligation.

“Sometimes the place of the convention is important,” explained Zvi Yehezkeli, an Israeli expert on radical Islam and journalist, who works for Israel's i24 News.

“That this happened in Turkey, is [President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan saying, ‘Guys, I’ll be the next Sultan, I’m the ideologue of terror. I’m the one who gives support to the Hamas-like theory of the Muslim Brothers, that terror and Oct. 7 are legitimate, and to make this acceptable in international discourse,’” he added.

“'Meanwhile, I’m the friend of [U.S. President Donald] Trump, and I’m being received in Europe and am influencing it, and I have something to say.' This is what he’s saying,” Yehezkeli stated.

The Muslim charter rejected any attempts to call on Hamas to disarm as part of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, rather declaring that “acquiring power in all its forms” is a religious duty, while demanding the surrender of power serves “the goals of the enemies of religion.”

The document also called on the Muslim ummah, the "society of all believers," to support the fight against Israel through active combat, including by sending weapons, supplies, or money, and by waging information warfare.

Rather than being a random assortment of Muslim clerics, the signees of the declaration include many well-connected and popular figures, including several senior members of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), MEMRI noted.

“Understand that all these sheikhs, they have channels on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, they’re not just being listened to by youth in the Middle East, but also in Judea and Samaria, in Germany, in Berlin,” Yehezkeli said.

“When Jews go on vacation in Spain and get chased by Muslims with sticks – I saw a news story about this, and one of the mothers of these children said, ‘they only wanted to go on vacation, they’re good children – yes, they’re good children. But they’re Jews.”

“And if they’re Jews, what’s written here? Jihad against infidels,” he said.

The IUMS headquarters are located in Qatar and are actively supported by the Qatari and Turkish governments. Until 2018, it was headed by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the chief ideologues of Hamas and the broader Muslim Brotherhood movement.

The IUMS immediately declared its support for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in 2023, and in March 2025, issued a fatwa (Islamic legal ruling) calling on all Muslims and Islamic countries to wage jihad against Israel, drawing significant criticism even within Muslim countries.

Dar al-Ifta, an Egyptian state-affiliated religious legal authority in Egypt – and among the oldest, most respected religious institutions in the Muslim world – denounced the fatwa as “an irresponsible call that contradicts Sharia.”

“Wars can only be declared by states and governments,” a Dar al-Ifta senior official said at the time, adding: “Such wars cannot be launched haphazardly, but they need special preparations.”

In June, the IUMS condemned what it called the “blatant Zionist aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and some of its members celebrated the Iranian missile attacks on Israel on social media.

According to the IUMS, the radical gathering being held in Turkey suggests that “Erdoğan is wearing the hat of caliph and is more extreme than ISIS – ISIS doesn’t even consider the Jews, they only see infidels, Arab leaders, and Shiites – and when he really wants to tell Israel what he thinks about Oct. 7, he brings in the clerics.”

“There is someone who is legitimizing Jihad against us, and ostensibly, he’s a nice guy – Erdoğan, friend of Trump and Europe. Be careful, read between the lines, and dive into the story of our neighborhood."