Support MEMRI's Work Fighting Extremism: Copenhagen Imam Exposed By MEMRI Calling For Killing Jews Is Indicted By Authorities – In Another Sermon Translated By MEMRI Imam Abdallah Calls For Jihad To Invade And Conquer Europe

On July 24, 2018, Danish imam Mundhir Abdallah, of the Al-Faruq mosque in Copenhagen, was indicted for calling for the murder of Jews in a Friday, March 31, 2017 sermon that was translated and released by MEMRI.

News reports from across Europe on the indictment credited MEMRI with exposing Imam Abdallah, stating: "His preaching was translated from Arabic into English by the U.S. Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)."[1] (See MEMRI TV clip and full transcript of the sermon below.)

The Imam's July 24, 2018 Indictment

The imam's indictment is the first case of its kind in Denmark, under a provision in the Criminal Code introduced on January 1, 2017. Public prosecutor Eva Ronne said that it is legal in Denmark to quote religious books like the Koran and the Bible, but that inciting or welcoming the killings of people could be punishable by up to three years in prison. She added: "It has always been illegal to accept killings of a certain group of people, but it's new for us to target hate preachers." The Imam is also charged with the Penal Code Racism Paragraph 266b. The criminal case, which is to be conducted at Copenhagen City Council, is not yet scheduled.[2]

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It is only thanks to the support of donors like you that MEMRI is able to continue exposing extremist imams in the West – such as, most recently, Toulouse Imam Mohamed Tatai, of the Grand Mosque of Toulouse, France, who recounted this same hadith in a December 2017 sermon (see MEMRI Special Announcement No. 638, Exposure Of Another Antisemitic Sermon By Imam Who Is An Interfaith Leader – This Time In France – Leads To Denunciation, Legal Measures; Muslim Leaders Support Him, But Then 'Strongly Condemn' Him, July 19, 2018). MEMRI research and translation efforts are an increasingly costly endeavor, and as a nonprofit organization our efforts are made possible only by readers like you. Producing MEMRI TV clips demands extensive and advanced technology and human expertise – from monitoring, recording, and reviewing raw programming to translating, captioning, and uploading clips. Please help us today to continue this work, with your tax-deductible donation to our Summer Campaign.

Imam Abdallah Responds To Indictment – And Resigns

In an interview following the indictment, Abdallah said he has "wide and warm support from people from everywhere. Even many in Denmark." He added: "They know that my words have been manipulated, and they know that the motivation for this campaign is to prevent Muslims from criticizing Israel and Western governments that support the occupation [of Palestine]."[3]

After the indictment, he wrote in an email to several Danish media outlets, including TV2, that he believes his speech had been taken out of context. His March 31 sermon, he wrote, was about the Arab League's summit taking place at the time, and about the Palestinian cause that was on its agenda; he noted that his statements were "exclusively about the Zionist occupation of Palestine." He added: "At no time during the sermon was there talk of Jews in general. On the other hand, the speech was all about the Zionist occupation of Palestine, which is also clear from the excerpt that the prosecution itself quoted. It is therefore not possible in any way to interpret the speech as an invitation to kill Jews." He further wrote: "The narrative of Prophet Muhammad, as I quoted in the sermon, does not concern Jews as a religious group in general, but deals solely with a context of military conflict in which the aggressors are Jews, [and this is] why this account was used in the sermon in this particular context, namely the military occupation of Palestine."[4]  

Also in his email, he called the law under which he was indicted discriminatory, and said that he expects there to be a lawsuit that reflects this. "For the coming trial, I expect the so-called preaching law to be displayed together with the politicians who adopted it," he wrote, claiming that the law was renamed the "Imam Law" when politicians clearly stated that it was aimed purely at striking at the Muslim community.[5]

It was reported on July 25 that Imam Abdallah had resigned.[6]

Imam Abdallah's Reaction To MEMRI's Release Of Clip Of His March 31, 2017 Sermon

Following the release of the MEMRI TV clip of his March 31, 2017 sermon, Imam Abdallah claimed that he was the victim of a conspiracy. He wrote: "Politicians in the West and the media never stop attacking Islam and Muslims. Their propaganda never stops. Muslims are the real victims, not others. Our women are being attacked, our mosques are being burned."[7]

Weeks after MEMRI's release of the sermon, in an address at an "open political meeting" at the Al-Faruq mosque, Abdallah accused the U.S., and the West in general, of committing atrocities in Muslim countries, thus planting the seed for the terror attacks being carried out in the West. He rejected the criticism of him because of his previous sermon, and insisted that as soon as Muslims regain power, they would "erase" and "obliterate" Israel as well as all U.S. military bases in the region. Westerners, he said, are "machines," living in a "culture of AIDS, drugs, homosexuality, family disintegration, and colonialist control" of wealth. (View the MEMRI TV clip of his address here; see also MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 6919, Following Release Of MEMRI TV Clip Of Copenhagen Preacher Citing Hadith On Killing Jews And Stating That Caliphate Will Wage Jihad Against Its Enemies, Danish Government Takes Steps Against Him; Clip Covered By Media Across Europe, May 11, 2017).

Controversy Surrounding Al-Faruq Mosque

The Al-Faruq mosque reportedly has close relations with the Islamic political organization Hizb ut-Tahrir,[8] and reportedly has extremist connections.[9] Danish-Moroccan national Said Mansour, convicted in June 2016 of inciting terrorism and stripped of his Danish citizenship as a result,[10] was a visitor to the mosque, as was Omar el-Hussein, perpetrator of the February 2015 Copenhagen attacks in which he killed two people. El-Hussein visited the mosque before carrying out his attacks.[11]

MEMRI TV Clip: Copenhagen Imam Mundhir Abdallah Calls For Jihad To Invade And Conquer Europe, Adds: Filth And Vileness Of Jews Reflect Their Immutable Nature – July 23, 2017

In another address streamed live on Facebook on July 23, 2017, Copenhagen Imam Mundhir Abdallah said that "the final solution to the problem of the Levant – after the establishment of the Caliphate and the elimination of the Jewish entity – will be through the conquest of Europe." "Europe must be invaded again," he said, calling for a new Islamic conquest of Al-Andalus, the Balkans, and Rome, in order to fulfill the promise of the Prophet Muhammad.

In the address, Imam Abdallah said that the Jews "are hastening their own annihilation by their rampaging, their filth, and their vileness, which reflect the immutable nature of the Jews." He added that he was "not a racist" but that this "has to do with the Jewish character and psyche, with that sick Jewish mentality."

Abdallah further says: "Jihad necessitates the conquest of Europe. [The Quran says:] 'Fight them until there is no more fitna, and religion belongs to Allah alone.' It is impossible to eliminate fitna unless the capitalist and secular order is destroyed and eliminated... That fitna and corruption can only be eliminated by destroying the capitalist and secular order, and by replacing it with an Islamic order – or through the expansion of the Islamic order to the heart of Europe."

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, click here or below:  

MEMRI TV Clip: Copenhagen Friday Sermon: Imam Cites Antisemitic Hadith, Says: Soon Caliphate Will Uproot Colonialist, Crusader Jewish Entity – March 31, 2017

The following is the MEMRI TV clip of Imam Abdallah's March 31, 2017 sermon, followed by the full transcript of the clip.

To view this clip on MEMRI TV, click here or below:  

Imam Mundhir Abdallah: "[Soon there will be] a Caliphate, which will instate the shari'a of Allah and revive the Sunna of His Prophet, which will wage jihad for the sake of Allah, which will unite the Islamic nation after it disintegrated, and which will liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Zionists, so that the words of the Prophet Muhammad will be fulfilled: 'Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. The Jews will hide behind the rocks and the trees, but the rocks and the trees will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' The rightly-guided state, which will instate the shari'a of Allah, will unite the servants of Allah, will revive the Islamic nation, will wage jihad against its enemies, will liberate Jerusalem, and will uproot the Jewish entity, that colonialist and Crusader base – that rightly-guided state will soon come to be, Allah willing."