IUMS Scholar Praises October 7 Hamas Attacks in Istanbul Sermon

A recent Fri­day ser­mon deliv­ered by Turkey-based Egypt­ian Islam­ic schol­ar Dr. Mohammed Al-Sagheer, who praised the Octo­ber 7, 2023 attacks on Israel as a “momen­tous day of Allah’s divine inter­ven­tion.” On 17 Octo­ber 2025, MEMRI report­ed that Al-Sagheer, a mem­ber of the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS) Board of Trustees, deliv­ered the ser­mon post­ed on his X account, describ­ing the attacks as a source of pride for Mus­lims and pre­dict­ing Israel’s immi­nent col­lapse. The arti­cle begins:

In his Octo­ber 17, 2025 Fri­day ser­mon, post­ed on his X account, Turkey-based Egypt­ian Islam­ic schol­ar Dr. Mohammed Al-Sagheer, a mem­ber of the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS) Board of Trustees, praised the Octo­ber 7 attacks and their per­pe­tra­tors, describ­ing Octo­ber 7 as a “momen­tous day of Allah’s divine inter­ven­tion.” He said that Mus­lims have the right to be proud of belong­ing to a nation that pro­duced this “blessed Flood.” Al-Sagheer cit­ed Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, who pre­dict­ed Israel’s col­lapse by 2027 and said that those behind Octo­ber 7 would bring about this col­lapse with­in two years. Call­ing the Al-Aqsa Flood one round in many rounds in the process of lib­er­a­tion, he urged Mus­lims to be part of those who are prepar­ing for the next round.

Read more: https://www.memri.org/tv/turkey-al-sagheer-iums-october7-blessed-flood-israel-collapse

Key Points

• IUMS Board of Trustees Mohammed Al-Sagheer described the Octo­ber 7, 2023, attacks as the “blessed flood” and a momen­tous day of Allah’s divine inter­ven­tion dur­ing an Istan­bul sermon.
• Al-Sagheer cit­ed Hamas founder Ahmed Yass­in’s pre­dic­tion that Israel would col­lapse by 2027, claim­ing Octo­ber 7 accel­er­at­ed this timeline.
• Al-Sagheer stat­ed that Hamas remained in con­trol of Gaza despite the cease­fire deal and Israel’s fail­ure to remove the group from power.
• The schol­ar urged Mus­lims to pre­pare for the next round of lib­er­a­tion, describ­ing the Al-Aqsa Flood as one phase in an ongo­ing process.

The International Union of Muslim Scholars and Its Extremist Legacy

The Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS) is a promi­nent orga­ni­za­tion of Islam­ic the­olo­gians some­times described as the supreme author­i­ty of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB), found­ed in 2004 by the late GMB leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi with head­quar­ters in Qatar and Dublin. The orga­ni­za­tion claims to rep­re­sent approx­i­mate­ly 90,000 Mus­lim schol­ars world­wide, though its lead­er­ship has con­sis­tent­ly includ­ed promi­nent mem­bers of the GMB who main­tain the­o­log­i­cal and oper­a­tional con­nec­tions to transna­tion­al extrem­ist net­works. In 2017, Egypt, Sau­di Ara­bia, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, and Bahrain des­ig­nat­ed IUMS as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, cit­ing its alleged con­nec­tions to extrem­ist groups and ongo­ing coor­di­na­tion with Mus­lim Broth­er­hood net­works across the Mid­dle East.

Mohammed Al-Sagheer serves as an Egypt­ian Mus­lim Broth­er­hood schol­ar and Chair­man of the IUMS Da’wa and Pros­e­ly­ti­za­tion Com­mit­tee along­side his posi­tion on the Board of Trustees, hav­ing spo­ken at mul­ti­ple events con­nect­ing Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers in Istan­bul with Turk­ish gov­ern­ment offi­cials, includ­ing IUMS Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Ali Qaradaghi in Novem­ber 2021 to estab­lish new transna­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions. IUMS lead­er­ship has par­tic­i­pat­ed in high-pro­file Doha meet­ings with inter­na­tion­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers includ­ing Coun­cil on Amer­i­can Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR) Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Nihad Awad to coor­di­nate transna­tion­al influ­ence oper­a­tions, while the orga­ni­za­tion also wel­comed Tal­iban del­e­ga­tions in Doha and pledged future col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Afghan regime.

The IUMS has pub­lished state­ments pro­vid­ing reli­gious legit­imiza­tion for Hamas oper­a­tions, with past GIOR report­ing doc­u­ment­ing how the IUMS Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Jerusalem Com­mit­tee Mraweh Nas­sar open­ly called for the anni­hi­la­tion of all Jews in Pales­tine, stat­ing that human­i­ty would only thrive once the Jew­ish nation was destroyed. The orga­ni­za­tion has pub­lished ser­mons and fat­was laud­ing jihad oper­a­tions by Pales­tin­ian fight­ers and urg­ing Mus­lims world­wide to sup­port vio­lence against Israel finan­cial­ly and phys­i­cal­ly, demon­strat­ing a con­sis­tent pat­tern of prais­ing extrem­ist move­ments from Hamas to the Tal­iban as legit­i­mate Islam­ic resistance.

IUMS main­tains sig­nif­i­cant oper­a­tional pres­ence in Turkey, where Istan­bul-based con­fer­ences bring togeth­er IUMS lead­ers with Diyanet offi­cials and Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood net­works to coor­di­nate mes­sag­ing on Gaza and Pales­tin­ian resis­tance, while Turkey’s gov­ern­ment pro­vides safe haven for IUMS oper­a­tions despite region­al pres­sure. The orga­ni­za­tion’s influ­ence extends through coor­di­nat­ed reli­gious author­i­ty struc­tures that chal­lenge tra­di­tion­al Islam­ic insti­tu­tions like Al-Azhar, posi­tion­ing IUMS as an alter­na­tive source of reli­gious legit­i­ma­cy for GMB polit­i­cal objectives.

Exter­nal references:

• Beyond Islam­ic Guid­ance: Qatar-based IUMS as an Agi­ta­tor in the Israel-Hamas War
• Arab Quar­tet Adds Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars & Sheikh Hasan Sul­tan to Ter­ror List
• The Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars issued a fat­wa call­ing for mil­i­tary Mus­lim sup­port for the Gaza Strip

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.