A trustee of an Islamic charity who delivered a sermon on killing Jews just days after October 7 has been barred by the Charity Commission from holding any senior position within a charity in England or Wales for three years.
Following a 20-month investigation by the Commission, Harun Abdur Rashid Holmes, a central figure with Nottingham Islam Information Point (NIIP), was sanctioned after giving a sermon in which he said Muslims would kill Jews until they “hide behind a rock”.
Holmes said during the sermon, just six days after Hamas murdered more than 1,200 people in Israel: “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’.”
The Charity Commission issued NIIP with an official warning on Saturday following the conclusion of its compliance case into the charity. It concluded that Holmes’s words were “inflammatory and divisive”, and that “no consideration” had been given to how appropriate the sermon was just days after the events of October 7.
The Commission also formally warned the charity and outlined actions it could take to improve governance, such as ensuring all trustees understand their legal duties and that all activities contribute to the charity’s purpose. The NIIP was set up in the late 1990s to provide relief to the victims of Islamophobic attacks and to help address misconceptions about Islam.
The Commission said the sermon’s content had been taken from the Hadith without “appropriate context”, and that Holmes had “accepted that with hindsight the Hadith was sensitive” and that he had not provided sufficient context to it.
Holmes’s sermon also called on listeners not to “busy” themselves with politics and voting, which the Commission interpreted as encouraging people not to engage with the democratic process.
Stephen Roake, Assistant Director of Investigations and Compliance at the Charity Commission, said: “In times of conflict, people expect charities to bring people together, not to stoke division. In this case, we found due consideration had not been given the words and rhetoric used. The sermon was inflammatory and divisive, and we acted robustly and disqualified the trustee who gave the sermon. We also issued the charity with a formal warning.
“Following our intervention, the charity’s remaining trustees have taken positive steps to improve their governance. This includes the introduction of a more robust events policy. All charities that host events and speakers should take note of this case and ensure they have sufficient due diligence in place.”
