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On August 17, 2024, unofficial Telegram channels affiliated with Hamas and the Iran-backed militias in Iraq shared a three-page letter from the Hamas military wing, the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, addressed to "The scholars clerics of the Islamic nation."
Dated August 10, 2024, the letter exhorts the Muslim religious scholars and clerics to join forces, to join the ranks of the mujahideen and to promote mass demonstrations and other activities at universities and at Israeli and American embassies in Arab and Islamic countries.
The letter opens with harsh rebukes of Muslim scholars and clerics for what is described as their incompetence and inaction in the face of "the terrible, despicable, most prolonged aggression in the modern era" directed against the Muslims in the Gaza Strip. It refers to what has been occurring in Gaza since the war began as "genocide in the fullest sense of the word," that is taking place in the shadow of "global silence," support from "the forces of colonialism and arrogance" and "unprecedented abandonment by the Muslims." The authors of the letter (who are members of Hamas) present themselves as those who have fulfilled their obligation and "raised the flag of jihad for the sake of Allah" – not only for Gaza, but for the entire Islamic nation.
The writers of the letter note that the sense of abandonment that they are experiencing is not only abandonment by the Arab regimes and the Muslim general public, but also by the Islamic scholars, clerics and preachers, and assert that now is the time to translate into actions the vast knowledge that they hold, for this is the moment of truth for them, as the Quranic verse states, "Unless you [believers] act likewise, there will be great oppression and corruption in the land (Quran 8:73). The letter exhorts "the jihadi clerics and scholars" to join the ranks of the mujahideen and castigates them, posing the rhetorical question, "Are you waiting to be told that Gaza is lost and Islam has been excised from it?"
The authors stress that the concrete action they expect from the clerics and scholars is that they will join forces, integrate their efforts, and play a leading role in the recruitment of "an army of those with proven credentials, educated men of letters and influencers." They anticipate that the preceding will create professional teams that will be active on several fronts and in several spheres. First and foremost, they expect them to establish teams to promote pro-Palestinian demonstrations at universities, like those that were held at universities in Western countries; these clerics and scholars are expected to lead solidarity campaigns and mass demonstrations at the embassies of "the Zionist entity and the U.S., its partner in genocide;" to relate to what is going on in Palestine during the Friday sermons at the mosques; to establish teams of economists to lead economic boycotts of the "tyrannical enemy" (Israel) and to devise creative ways to break the "monetary siege" imposed on Gaza; they call on them to create teams to be responsible for integrating the humanitarian assistance efforts for the residents of the Gaza Strip; and to establish teams to be active on social media to influence public opinion in Arab and Islamic countries with the aim of "breaking the false narrative of the occupation" and disseminating the narrative of the resistance.
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