Arabic media is reporting that the leader of the Muslim World League (MWL) has issued a strong statement against Holocaust denial. According to the Arab News report:
July 15, 2020 Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa, secretary-general of the Muslim World League (MWL), told Arab News that Muslims must unite to entrench the memory of the Holocaust’s victims. He denounced those who deny the Holocaust, saying this serves to drive new hate-fuelled ideologies and antisemitism.The MWL “and the Islamic peoples under it denounce all the killing of innocents and the violation of the inviolability of the Holocaust,” he said. “The followers of the Jewish religion… have a distinctive position in Islam with the Christians. We and they are descendants of Abraham and believe in one God,” he added. “He who denies the Holocaust seeks to repeat it… Rational human beings must unite and work together to restrain the advocates of murder and extermination, otherwise the lessons of history won’t be useful.” Al-Issa, who is also president of the Makkah-based International Organization of Muslim Scholars, spoke to Arab News following a widely circulated article in the Washington Post, in which he said denying the Holocaust “has only helped those who continue to perpetuate hateful ideas of racial, ethnic or religious purity, such as the genocidal killers of the Rohingya people in Myanmar.”
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The Muslim World League (MWL), a quasi-governmental religious organization in Saudi Arabia, was established in 1962 as a means for the propagation of Saudi “Wahabbi” Islam. Muslim Brothers played an important role in its founding and the League has always been strongly associated with the Brotherhood.
The GMBDW had been warning since March 2014 that the Saudi Arabia’s designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization was likely not what it seemed at first and that the Kingdom had been continuing its outreach and support of the Global Muslim Brotherhood. This warning was based on numerous other GMBDW reports including:
- Visits in April and May 2014 of top aides of GMB leader Youssef Qaradawi aides to the MWL.
- In April 2015, we reported that Tunisian Muslim Brotherhood Rachid Ghannouchi was welcomed by the new King of Saudi Arabia at the January funeral of his of his half brother, the late King Abdullah. In July 2016, the GMBDW reported that Qaradawi and Ghannouchi had been received King of Saudi Arabia at his Safa Palace in Mecca, in October 2015 we had reported that Qaradawi attended a ceremony organized by Saudi Arabia in Qatar earlier that month.
- In July 2015, we reported in that a high-level Hamas delegation, including the group’s political leader, had visited Saudi Arabia where they met with the new Saudi King as well as other officials.
- In August 2015, we reported on a French newspaper report suggesting that Saudi Arabia was trying to ‘normalise’ its relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood.
- In October 2015 we reported on an “interfaith” event sponsored by by the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, known by its abbreviation KAICIID, a controversial organization that was founded in Vienna in October 2011 by the then Saudi King. The event featured two key individuals tied to the Global Muslim Brotherhood.
However, In 2017 the GMBDW reported that the Muslim World League (MWL) had terminated the membership of GMB leader Qaradawi. The above statement on the Holocaust by the current MWL leader would appear to be another sign of reform in the MWL since Holocaust denial, as well as anti-Semitism generally, are frequently found within the ranks of the GMB.
The GMBDW will continue to monitor the developments at the MWL and inform you when they occur.