Islamic and Humanitarian Responsibility: Gaza

“Islamic and Humanitarian Responsibility: Gaza” conference has been organised by the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) and the Foundation for Islamic Scholars in Türkiye. It has brought together more than 150 scholars from over 50 countries to discuss Israel’s war on Gaza and the wider Islamic world’s response.

Statement to Our Islamic and Human Nation, and to the Free People of the World
 
Out of our religious and humanitarian responsibility, and in response to the pain of one body, the International Union of Muslim Scholars, in cooperation with the Waqf of Islamic Scholars in Turkey, is organizing this blessed conference. This comes with the firm belief that it is an obligation upon scholars and the entire Ummah to stand with Gaza and Palestine, to uphold the trust of defending their just cause, and to support their oppressed people with all strength and determination possible.

Today, we face the gravest catastrophe in our modern history—indeed, in the history of humanity itself—the catastrophe of genocide targeting more than two and a half million of our steadfast people in Gaza. They are being killed with all forms of deadly weaponry, besieged by hunger and thirst, abandoned to disease and deprivation, for twenty-two full months!

For the first time in history, and before the eyes of the entire world, a terrorist Zionist government dares to execute a declared plan to annihilate an entire people. They have spared neither mosque nor church, left neither hospital nor school, protected neither home nor camp. They have destroyed every means of life, erased all traces of humanity, and turned Gaza into a field of death rather than life.

Their crimes have not stopped at Gaza’s borders. Rather, they openly declare their expansionist project to swallow more land from Arabs and Muslims, threatening Jordan, Egypt, and others, in pursuit of their false dream of the so-called “Promised Land: Greater Israel.” Meanwhile, the holy sanctuary of the Prophet’s Night Journey ﷺ, the first qiblah, and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, is subjected to repeated violations and blatant aggression aimed at its demolition and the construction of the alleged Temple.

O people, this is genocide, coupled with the crime of occupation and colonial expansion, while international laws have become a mockery, humanity has lost its values, and the decisions of the United Nations have collapsed in disgrace. UNRWA has been besieged and its institutions exhausted—there is no law to protect, no justice to uphold, and no humanity to be respected. Worse still, these crimes are committed with the support and protection of certain major powers, foremost among them the United States of America, which supplies the occupation with deadly weapons and covers it politically and diplomatically.

On the other hand, the free peoples of the world are rising, protesting, and declaring their rejection of this heinous crime, while our Islamic and Arab Ummah lives between painful helplessness, shameful negligence, and the scandalous complicity of some regimes with the usurping enemy.

Honorable audience, faced with this unprecedented tragic reality, the International Union of Muslim Scholars, in cooperation with the Waqf of Islamic Scholars, together with a group of sincere and concerned scholars, has convened this conference under the motto: “Gaza: An Islamic and Human Responsibility.” It gathers more than 150 of the Ummah’s prominent scholars from over fifty countries to proclaim the word of truth, to fulfill their religious and historical duty, and to affirm that Gaza is not solely the cause of Palestinians—it is the cause of an entire Ummah, and a just humanitarian cause that no one has the right to abandon or compromise.

The objectives of our conference are as follows:

1 - To mobilize the Islamic Ummah and humanity to stop the aggression, open corridors, and deliver all necessities to the honorable people of Gaza.
2 - To establish an Islamic alliance to prevent genocide, Nazism, and racism under any pretext, and to thwart the Zionist ambitions of colonial expansion.
3 - To establish a humanitarian alliance of virtue to prevent grave violations of moral and human principles, and to pursue and prosecute the criminals with just punishment.
4 - To issue the Istanbul Declaration for an institutional alliance of legal, parliamentary, and humanitarian organizations worldwide, to prevent aggression in Gaza and ensure it does not recur.
5-     To form a delegation to visit heads of state in order to rally support for achieving the goals of the conference.
6-     To establish a strong permanent institution or committee for follow-up and implementation of the conference’s resolutions.
7-     To convey a message to our people in Gaza: (We are all with you, O honorable Gaza), and to the resistance fighters that your resistance is legitimate in all divine laws and international and humanitarian laws, and that your victory is a victory for the values of truth, freedom, and justice, and a shield against occupation’s expansion.

Conference Program:

Our conference was blessed with its public opening on this noble Friday, in this mosque carrying the fragrance of the jihad legacy of Sultan Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him). The conference will resume, God willing, on Saturday, 23 August 2025, with protocol speeches delivered by the esteemed heads of participating delegations, marking the official launch of this blessed gathering.

The following days, from Sunday, 24 August until Thursday, 28 August 2025, will be dedicated to holding 18 parallel workshops addressing the central issues of Palestine: wounded Gaza, blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, steadfast West Bank, the Palestinian cause as a whole, and the unity of the Islamic and human Ummah in the face of Zionist savagery. Participants in these workshops will also study ways to benefit from the growing humanitarian solidarity at both popular and international levels, and to employ it politically and in the media, with the aim of producing practical proposals and actionable outcomes that contribute to supporting the cause and strengthening its people.

The conference will conclude on Friday, 29 August 2025, with the issuance of the final communiqué at Hagia Sophia Mosque immediately after Friday prayer, by God’s permission. Thursday, 28 August, will be a day of fasting and supplication alongside the conference’s proceedings.

As we live throughout this conference the suffering of our people in Gaza in particular, and of our people in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and all of Palestine, we affirm through this blessed gathering our unwavering commitment to our Islamic and humanitarian responsibility, and our practical stand alongside our Palestinian people, emphasising the following:

1 - The Islamic Ummah and all of humanity affirm that they will never accept these crimes that have crossed every red line and exceeded even the atrocities of Hulagu and Hitler, and that they will not leave Gaza alone in its ordeal.

2 - We confidently declare that falsehood, no matter how inflated and arrogant, is destined to perish, while truth will ultimately prevail, as Allah Almighty said:

“Rather, We hurl the truth against falsehood, and it destroys it, and behold, it vanishes. And woe to you for what you ascribe.” (Al-Anbiya: 18).

With our people in Gaza is Allah’s true promise of manifest victory, supported by the free and living peoples of the world.

3 - The conference will exert every effort to secure urgent relief, and to apply popular and political pressure to open the crossings and ensure aid reaches the besieged and starving people of Gaza.

4 - The conference affirms that enforcing comprehensive boycott and sanctions on the occupation is among its top priorities, based on the texts of Sharia, the Hague Declaration, humanitarian laws, and United Nations resolutions spanning over seventy years.

5 - We do not lose sight of the hopeful vision of reconstructing Gaza, so that it may stand as testimony to its steadfastness, heroism, and pure blood, and to become the most beautiful city embracing glory through the sacrifice of its people and their patience.
The conference will also deliver clear and explicit messages to the leaders of Islamic and humanitarian states, to free peoples, and to humanitarian and legal institutions, among others, as outcomes of this conference, God willing.

In conclusion, the International Union of Muslim Scholars and the Waqf of Islamic Scholars extend sincere gratitude and appreciation to the Republic of Turkey—its President, government, and people—to the Governor of Istanbul, to the Presidency of Religious Affairs, and to all who contributed to organizing, funding, and supporting this conference. We ask Allah Almighty to reward them abundantly, to grant us all success in supporting the oppressed and the cause of Palestine, and to make this conference a means of solidarity with honorable Gaza and Al-Aqsa Mosque. Amen, Lord of the Worlds.

Peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you.

Prof. Dr. Ali Mohieddin al-Qaradaghi
Conference Chairman & President of the International Union of Muslim Scholars

Friday, 28 Safar 1447 AH / Corresponding to 22 August 2025

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