A coalition of Muslim groups in Britain has denounced a peace agreement signed in February between Muslims and Jews, rebuffing moderate Muslim leaders who signed the pact as “self-appointed Muslims” who do not represent the wider Islamic community.
The joint statement issued by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPACUK) condemns the interfaith Drumlanrig Accords, highlights the growing divide between hardline and moderate Islamic factions in Britain, and raises critical questions about which leaders authentically represent British Muslims.
The U.K. government’s website announced the “landmark agreement” signed on February 11 at Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland. The pact “establishes a structured framework for sustained Muslim-Jewish collaboration, fostering deeper understanding and shared responsibility.”
On March 3, MPACUK issued a counterstatement rejecting the pact while blaming the Muslim signatories for failing “to consult widely” with grassroots Islamic bodies “before they signed these Accords with the Chief Rabbi [Ephraim Mirvis], a staunch Zionist.” The statement declared that “Normalization with Zionism is the Ultimate Treachery.”
Thestatement slammed the key Muslim signatories, Imam Dr. Sayed Razawi and Imam Qari Asim MBE, warning the government not to “select Muslims by holding them up as key leaders representing the Muslim community when this is far from the truth.”
Dr. Sayed Razawi is an eminent Sufi scholar and chief imam of the Scottish Ahlul Bayt Society and an associate at the Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs at Harvard University, Qari Asim is the senior Imam at Makkah Mosque in Leeds, which was awarded the title Britain’s model mosque by the Islam Channel. Qari is also Chair of Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board.
MPACUK stressed that it could not acknowledge the pact with Chief Rabbi Mirvis, who “has made public statements supporting Israel despite the horrific actions of the Israeli Occupation Forces.”
“This is even more so when Israeli leaders, Knesset members, Israel’s ambassador to the U.K., and the defense minister have made genocidal statements against Christians and Muslims only because they are Palestinian Arabs,” the statement noted.
IHRC Condemns Pact
Among the groups decrying the pact is the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) which has a special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
A report on the IHRC by the Henry Jackson Society’s Centre on Radicalisation and Terrorism reveals that the advocacy group is “inspired by the worldview of Ayatollah Khomeini and the revolutionary, theocratic societal aims he established in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Titled Islamic Human Rights Commission: Advocating for the Ayatollahs, the 60-page dossier published in 2019 labels the London-based organization “institutionally pro-terrorist and anti-Semitic” (sic) and aligned with Iran’s foreign and domestic agenda.
The IHRC has supported high-profile associates of Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Hezbollah; and hosted representatives from PFLP and Hezbollah; and have been used to seek out those “looking for martyrdom,” the report noted.
“So extreme are its views and apparent conduct that, in my view, they warrant police investigation,” the report’s author, Emma Fox wrote. “Those who have previously shown support for the group should immediately disassociate themselves from it and deprive them of the veneer of credibility they so desperately crave.”
A 2019 report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, titled Narratives of Division: The Spectrum of Islamist Worldviews in the U.K., warned of the IHRC promoting “a divisive view of the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in the U.K.” through its public messaging.
The European Palestinian Communication Forum (EPCF), which, according to the Jewish Press, “works to remove Hamas from the list of terrorist organizations in Europe,” also signed the MPACUK statement. Zaher Birawi, who has been described as “probably the most important of the Hamas operatives in London,” is, according to Policy Exchange, a spokesperson for the EPCF.
The Cordoba Foundation, banned by the United Arab Emirates and designated as a “terrorist organization” by the Arab emirate in 2014, also signed the statement against the Drumlanrig Accords.
Abraham Accords for U.K. Civil Society
According to the pact, the “basis for reconciliation and mutual respect exists within both Jewish and Islamic sacred texts, which stress shared values of monotheism, compassion, and justice.” It aims “to develop and strengthen joint educational initiatives addressing Islamophobia and Antisemitism (sic).”
“Drawing upon the Qur’ān and the Torah, we reaffirm values such as Sulh (reconciliation), Rahmah (compassion), Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) and Derech Eretz (dignity),” the pact states.
Muslim and Jewish leaders later presented a copy of the accord to King Charles III at Buckingham Palace.
“At a time of deep division and uncertainty, these Accords represent a bold step towards rebuilding trust,” Mirvis said, after meeting King Charles III. “They do not ignore our differences, but they reaffirm our shared humanity and our shared future. If we allow only the voices of division to shape our world, then we surrender to a bleak future.”
Britain’s Jewish Chronicle compared the Muslim-Jewish pact to the Abraham Accords brokered during the previous Trump administration, which normalized relations between Israel and various Arab states. “Hopes will clearly be high that the latest accord will prove to be similarly momentous for Jewish-Muslim relations in this country,” the JC noted.
Senior rabbis from the Reform, Liberal, Orthodox, Sephardi, and Masorti branches of Judaism also signed the Drumlanrig Accords.
The IHRC did not respond to Focus on Western Islamism’s (FWI) request for comment. The Chief Rabbi’s office said they “did not have any plans to respond at the moment.”
Speaking to the FWI, scholar Tim Dieppe said, “It is disappointing, but not surprising, that multiple representatives of the U.K. Muslim Community are objecting to this attempted reconciliation project because of the involvement of Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.”
Dieppe, who leads the public policy division at Christian Concern, added, “One wonders how many of these Muslim representatives have publicly denounced the October 7 Hamas atrocities or condemned the vile antisemitism on display in our streets, including chanting for the death of Jews and the destruction of Israel.”
Citing his recently published book, The Challenge of Islam, Dieppe reports that Islamic scriptures and the life of its founder provides numerous examples of hostility toward Jews. Judaism has no analog, he adds.
“There is not a moral equivalence here. The Chief Rabbi supports Israel in its defense against Hamas, as is his right, and as any reasonable person should. Yet, this is what these Muslim representatives object to,” Dieppe said.
Dieppe noted the Islamist leaders had insisted that the Muslim leaders signing the peace pact represent only a very small minority of British Muslims. “It appears then, that a very small minority of Muslims support Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas,” he said.
