Scholars like Ismail Ibn Musa Menk, commonly known as Mufti Menk, pose a serious threat to the moral clarity and political conscience of the Muslim ummah. As one of the most influential Islamic voices globally, Mufti Menk holds immense sway over millions of followers. Yet, his repeated silence and evasive rhetoric on the issue of Palestine exposes a dangerous trend among prominent scholars: the normalisation of oppression through passivity and ambiguous language.
Recently, Menk published a vague post on X (formerly known as Twitter), referencing the genocide unfolding in Gaza. He wrote: “I never thought human beings in this day and age would actively unalive entire communities in the most barbaric way, with the whole world watching, unable to do a thing about it.”
This post encapsulates everything wrong with his approach. The use of the word “unalive” instead of plainly saying “kill” or “massacre” reflects a deliberate choice to obscure the reality of the violence.
Even more telling is the total omission of the word “Israel”, the occupying force responsible for the killing. In fact, Mufti Menk has never publicly used the words “Israel” or “Zionism” in reference to Palestinian suffering.
This consistent silence is not just disappointing, it is complicit. By refusing to name the oppressor, he effectively shields the perpetrator and weakens the moral force of solidarity with the oppressed.
Worse still, Mufti Menk has been involved in actions that reinforce this complicity. In April 2022, he attended an interfaith iftar in Dubai where he was photographed alongside prominent Zionist Rabbi Levi Duchman, the UAE’s chief rabbi and a key figure in advancing normalisation between Israel and the Emirates.
This act was widely condemned by the global Muslim community, yet Menk’s response was evasive and lacked accountability. He issued an apology video stating he “did not know” who Duchman was, yet conspicuously avoided naming him or addressing the actual concerns raised. His defence? “I may not be an activist, but I am Muslim at the end of the day.
Palestinians are not asking Mufti Menk to be an activist. We are asking him and others like him to speak truth. To utter a word of real weight. To acknowledge the reality of our oppression without hiding behind empty spiritual platitudes.
Instead, Menk’s messaging often implies that the responsibility is on Palestinians to forgive rather than on the perpetrators, and those who normalise their crimes, not to cause harm.
As one of the most well-known Islamic leaders of our time, Mufti Menk has the ability to cultivate real moral clarity and mobilise not only compassion, but real change for the Palestinian cause. His refusal to utter a word against the oppressor is betrayal.
Of course, he is not the first scholar to fail us.
Hamza Yusuf, a prominent American Islamic scholar and co-founder of Zaytuna College, has consistently looked down on the Palestinian liberation movement by quite literally blaming the Palestinians for their own suffering. “They [Palestinians] have suffered because they have resisted, and they’ve paid a heavy price. When you resist a stronger power, there’s going to be consequences,” Yusuf said in an interview.
And while Hamza Yusuf is far more strident and unapologetic in his contempt for dissent and his loyalty to authoritarian power than Mufti Menk, both represent a deeply corrosive force within contemporary Islamic leadership: Muslim defeatism.
Yusuf’s scholarship, dressed in classical terminology and adorned with references to tradition, is instead a shield for tyrants. He frames resistance as recklessness, protest as chaos and obedience to rulers, no matter how brutal, as divine imperative.
This is not scholarship in service of truth, it is in service of empire.
Mufti Menk, though less explicit, is no less complicit. His weak platitudes and ambiguity, refusing to even name Israel as the architect of Palestinian genocide, reveal a commitment to reputation. His silence and calculated neutrality in the face of slaughter is a moral failure.
I opened my social media today to the haunting image of yet another row of Palestinian children wrapped in white shrouds, killed by Israeli airstrikes in just the past few hours. Since the start of the genocide, 50 members of my own family have been murdered by the genocidal machinery of the Israeli state. And yet, despite the unbearable loss, my family, like so many steadfast Palestinian Muslims in Gaza, refuse to bow to treachery. They do not forget.
“Alhamdulillah,” they say, even as the world turns its back. They embrace the decree of God with unshakable faith, not as an excuse for silence, but as the foundation for resilience. With blood still wet on the ground, they call on the world to act. They cry out, not as victims resigned to their fate, but as witnesses demanding justice.
This is not passive acceptance. This is dignified defiance. Faith without surrender. Gratitude without submission to oppression. In every whispered Alhamdulillah, there is a deep hope for liberation.
Both Yusuf and Menk exemplify a dangerous brand of Muslim thought: one that calls for patience where outrage is needed, for obedience where resistance is a duty. This is not just theological cowardice, it is betrayal.
In a time of genocide, colonisation, and mass dehumanisation, to speak softly is to stand with the oppressor.
Hebh Jamal is a Palestinian American journalist based in Germany.
Follow her on Twitter and Instagram: @hebh_jamal
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