Hamas claims ‘Israel is Waqf property’

How the politics of Islamic dominance uses the idea of Waqf as a tool in India too

This is a Waqf world and we all are living in it. With the scale at which Islamists are claiming small plots to vast swathes of land to an entire country as Waqf property, the day is not far when the Islamists will declare the whole planet Earth as Waqf property. Islamists use myriad tactics to assert the supremacy of Islam, be it terrorism, brainwashing & conversion, or playing the Islamophobia card when confronted to oust non-Muslims from their houses by randomly claiming ownership in the name of Waqf. Waqf has proven to be one of the most lucrative methods to spread the dominance of Islam.

It is the very desire to establish Islamic supremacy across the world that numerous Islamist groups, both armed and unarmed, are engaged in conflict with forces that refuse to cede their land, religion and culture to the Islamists. One such force is Israel, the West Asian country that has long been thwarting the violent designs of Palestinian Islamic terror group Hamas to take over Israel in the garb of the farcical ‘resistance’ to ‘free Palestine’. While the Hamas attack on Israel on 7th October 2023, snowballed into a full-fledged war as Israel resolved to annihilate Hamas, the Islamic terror group has used Waqf as an instrument to assert its exclusive claim over Israel. Yes, Hamas has claimed that this entire country is Waqf property.

Before delving into the 1988 Hamas Charter [also called Hamas Covenant], it is essential to understand what is Waqf. The literal meaning of Waqf is detention, confinement, and prohibition. According to Islam, the property marked as Waqf is now available only for (Islamic) religious or charitable purposes, with any other use or sale prohibited. According to Sharia law, once a Waqf is established and property is dedicated to it, it becomes Waqf property forever.

Hamas Charter and the ‘Waqf’ of Israel

The Hamas Charter, adopted in 1988, outlines Hamas’s ideological standpoint regarding Israel, Palestine, and the larger conflict between Jews and Muslims. One of the key assertions in the charter is that all of Israel, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, is considered Waqf land that belongs exclusively to Muslims. This argument is based on the concept that once a land has been claimed by Islam, it will never return to non-Muslim control. Thus, Hamas considers all of Israel to be ‘illegitimately occupied’ by the Jews and is hell-bent on bringing it under Islamic autonomy.

One of the most common phrases used by Islamists and their non-Muslim cheerleaders [read left-liberal, DEI enthusiasts] to garner support and sympathy for Hamas and Palestine is – ‘You don’t have to be a Muslim to stand with Palestine’. This appeal has proven to lure even those like the LGBTQ+ community members, and non-Muslim university students, who are despised by Islamists to extend their support to Hamas. However, the Islamic terrorist group Hamas has clearly stated in its Charter that the Palestinian movement aims to establish the supremacy of Allah over ‘every inch of Palestine’.

Article 6 of the Hamas Charter says : ‘The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine’.

The Hamas Charter has declared Israel as Islamic Waqf hallowed for the coming Muslim generations until the Yawm ad-Din or Judgment Day. “The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it”, Article 11 of the Hamas Charter reads.

The very reason why all the efforts by Israel to reach a peaceful solution to the Israel-Palestine dispute have gone in vain can be understood from Article 13 of the Hamas Charter which outrightly dismisses even any possibility of a peaceful resolution of the dispute with Israel as a ‘waste of time’ since ‘Jews are infidels and only Jihad is the solution’.

Notably, the Israel-Palestine-Hamas conflict stems from Israel’s Independence in 1948 and the succeeding Arab-Israeli wars. But Hamas’ unwillingness to recognise Israel’s right to exist, as well as its desire for its annihilation, as written in the Hamas Charter, leaves no room for any peace talks. Israel’s military retaliation to Hamas rocket launches and invasions is part of its overall self-defence plan. However, Hamas continues to deploy violent tactics, in addition to using civilians as human shields in Gaza.

Hamas’s call to Jihad and annihilation of Jews

“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out : ‘O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him”, Article 7 of the Hamas Charter reads.

Notably, the Islamic verse mentioned in Hamas Charter’s Article 7 is taken from Sahih Al Bukhari (a collection of Hadith and book of Sunnah).

According to the Charter, Jews are worthy of a life of misery and dishonour since they ‘displeased Allah, rejected the Quran and killed the prophets’.

 Israel to India : Waqf as an effective tool of Islamists to suppress its ‘infidel’ enemies

Incidentally, the menace of Waqf is nowhere near as rampant as it is in India. Waqf has a long history in India, dating back to the early days of the Delhi Sultanate when Sultan Muizuddin Sam Ghaor granted two villages to the Multan Jama Masjid and delegated management to Shaikhul Islam. As the Delhi Sultanate and the following Islamic dynasties thrived in India, the number of Waqf properties soared. While Islamic and Muslim-dominating Nations like Turkey, Indonesia, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia have adopted a centralised approach in Waqf management to ensure transparency, in India, the powers of the Waqf Board have largely been unchecked. However, the ruling Modi Government has been making some attempts through its Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024, which amends the Waqf Act, of 1995. The Bill has been sent to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for further scrutiny. Even in post-Independence India, the Waqf Board controls huge tracts of land and is often involved in legal battles over land ownership. The Waqf Board has also gone to court for literally any property they eyed and litigated the hell out of the system, often making ludicrous claims.

Interestingly, while the leftists and Islamists cry hoarse that the Muslim ‘minority’ [read second largest majority] is oppressed in India, the nearly invincible Waqf Board in a Hindu-majority India is the third-largest landowner in India, after the Government and the Indian Railways, with its control extending over 600,000 acres of land while Hindu majority has no such body. Too much oppression of Muslims, isn’t it ?

A detailed OpIndia report on Waqf and its history in India as well as how Muslim appeasement politics of the Congress party made the Waqf Board powerful beyond imagination, can be read on : opindia.com, 27.9.2024.

Conclusion

From Israel to India, the hatred of Islamic radicalism uses the idea of Waqf as a tool to spread Islamic dominance and strip non-Muslims of the legitimate claim over their houses, properties and even the Motherland. In the context of Hamas, the assertion that all of Israel is Waqf property exacerbates the intractable dispute with Israel. How can a peaceful resolution of the Palestine-Israel dispute ever come up when Hamas finds legitimacy in massacring the Jewish people in the Islamic texts itself ? The Preamble of the Hamas Charter says that ‘Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it’. In such a case, Israel is left with no option but to retaliate against Hamas in the same violent fashion if Israel does not want the only Jewish Nation to turn into Waqf property for eternity.

In the Indian context, the Waqf Act of 1995 gives the Waqf Board broad authority over Muslim religious and charitable properties. However, the law has been extensively abused. Many properties have been arbitrarily claimed as Waqf, resulting in legal battles, communal tensions and riots. Muhammad Iqbal, the 20th-century poet and main proponent of the two-Nation theory that culminated in the partition of India on religious lines, wrote in ‘Tarana-e-Milli’ – ‘Muslim hain hum watan hai saara jahan humara [We are Muslims and the entire world is our homeland]’. This literary composition reflects the mindset that Islamists have perpetuated to legitimise their dream of turning the entire world into ‘Dar-ul-Islam’. This mindset finds ways to assert Islamic dominance in non-Islamic Nations like India and Israel, with Waqf being one of the most successful ways of doing the same. In a Muslim-majority Bangladesh, in place of Waqf, the Islamist Governments have framed laws dedicated to declaring Hindus as ‘enemy’ and usurping their properties rendering them homeless and at the mercy of Islamists.

The mother of all ironies in this context is that, despite the fact that Islamists are trying to kill and drive out non-Muslim communities, particularly Jews and Hindus, the latter are presented as bigoted hatemongers and oppressors, while Islamists remain the ‘oppressed victims’ in mainstream media.

(Courtesy : Excerpts from an Article by Shraddha Pandey posted on opindia.com, 27.9.2024)

The Waqf Board in a Hindu-majority India is the 3rd largest landowner in India, after the Government and the Indian Railways !