Muslim charity boss delivered sermon on killing Jews six days after Oct 7

The charity regulator has issued an Islamic charity with an official warning and banned one of its trustees after he was accused of encouraging violence against Jews after the Oct 7 Hamas attack.

Harun Abdur Rashid Holmes, a leading figure with Nottingham Islam Information Point (NIIP), has been barred from acting as a charity trustee for three years after delivering a sermon in which he stated that Muslims would kill Jews until they “hide behind a rock”.

Holmes was accused of anti-Semitism and incitement to violence after delivering the sermon on the charity’s premises in which he stated: “The hour will not begin until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them until a Jew hides behind a rock or a tree. And the rock or tree will say ‘Oh Muslim… there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him’.”  During the same sermon, Mr Holmes is understood to have offered prayers for the “mujahideen” – a common Islamic term for fighters – in Palestine.

The commission said some of the content of the sermon had been taken from a specific “Hadith”, a narration of historical events ascribed to the prophet Mohammed but it was delivered without the appropriate context and “as such was inflammatory and divisive”.

During his sermon, Mr Holmes also called on attendees not to “busy yourselves with politics and voting”, which the commission found could be interpreted as encouraging people not to vote or to disengage from the democratic process.

It found that Mr Holmes, a former care home assistant manager, lacked the good judgment expected of a trustee.

Mr Holmes, who was not a qualified Iman at the time he delivered the sermon, told the regulator that, in hindsight, he accepted the Hadith was sensitive, and he did not give sufficient context to it.

Holmes delivered the sermon just six days after Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel in 2023, killing more than 1,200 Jews and taking 251 hostage.

The Charity Commission found that Holmes’s words were “inflammatory and divisive” at a time when conflict was setting communities against each other. Following a 20-month investigation, the regulator has now disqualified Mr Holmes from serving as a trustee or holding any senior management position in a charity in England and Wales for three years.

Following Mr Holmes’ sermon, NIIP apologised for any offence he may have caused. Mr Holmes did not respond to requests for comment.