A high-profile Islamist preacher from Egypt with a history of promoting hostility toward Jews and gays has just completed a tour of English mosques after Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood ignored pleas to bar him from entering Britain.
Shaykh Yosry Gabr (also spelled Yusri Jabr) preached at mosques in Peterborough, Birmingham, and London from July 7 to 13 during a widely publicized visit, despite Labour and Conservative lawmakers urging Mahmood to proscribe Gabr in light of his record of incitement to hatred.
Wars will stop after killing the Jews—there will be no wars after killing the Jews.
“Wars will stop after killing the Jews—there will be no wars after killing the Jews,” Gabr reportedly said in a YouTube video in January. The Egyptian cleric, a senior professor at Al-Azhar University and a cardiovascular surgeon, has 1.7 million followers on Facebook, nearly 500,000 on Instagram, and 298,000 subscribers on YouTube.
In a distortion of the Christian gospel, Gabr continued, “He [Jesus] didn’t die. He’s still alive. He was raised to descend at the end of time to kill the Antichrist; then he will lead the Muslims, and we will kill the Jews behind his banner, and we’ll get rid of the wicked people in the world.”
Shaykh Claims Iran’s Ayatollahs Are Jews in Disguise
In October 2023, Gabr called Jews “the enemies of the faith, the false messiahs of this era.” In a sermon posted to Instagram, he endorsed Islamist terrorism: “Rejoice, O Muslim, wherever you are: our dead are in Paradise, and our living are Mujahideen [those who take part in jihad]. Do not waver, for Allah—Glory be to Him—grants us victory through the casting of terror.”
Preaching on the Al-Masih ad-Dajjal (‘the False Messiah” or “the Great Deceiver”) at the Jamia Masjid in Hounslow, London, Gabr cited a hadith from Sahih Muslim explaining that the Dajjal will be followed by 70,000 Jews of Isfahan (modern-day Tehran) wearing Persian shawls.
Expounding Islamist antisemitic tropes, Gabr blamed Iran for “leading evil in all Muslim countries, arming Muslims against other Muslim sects, and inciting conflict between them” and linked the Jews to Iran, claiming that the Jews “appear as Ayatollahs” and wear religious robes.
“The Safavid sect (the dynasty who established Twelver Shiʿism as Iran’s religion) is originally Jewish; they outwardly profess Islam while inwardly harboring disbelief,” Gabr said. Today’s evils, including “the spread of lies and false media, the glorification of obscenity, immorality, nudity, and perversion, and the homosexual relations of men and women—all stem from this.”
Gabr, speaking in Arabic, did not let his interpreter translate his anti-Jewish screed into English. Instead, he said that the audience would have understood it without translation.
Cross-Party Parliamentarians Call for Ban on Gabr’s Entry
“This kind of hateful extremist has no place here,” Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said, calling for Gabr to be “urgently banned from entering the UK,” and noting that “this despicable Islamist extremist has openly called for Jews to be killed.”
“Whether she bans this man is a test of whether Shabana Mahmood is actually serious about fighting extremism,” Philp stressed, warning that hate preachers like Gabr “fuel the tidal wave of antisemitism we have seen on our streets, including an antisemitic murder in Manchester.”
Noting that Gabr’s “violent anti-Semitic ‘lectures’ are beyond abhorrent and have no place in Britain,” Labour parliamentarian Damien Egan urged the home secretary to “do everything in her power to stop this extremist coming to spread hate and division in Britain, and revoke his visa immediately.” Egan asked why mosques were inviting him in the first place.
Hounslow Mosque Reported to Charity Watchdog for Homophobia
On July 15, the National Secular Society announced that it had reported the Hounslow Jamia Masjid to the Charity Commission for Gabr’s antisemitic sermons and for a homophobic lecture by the mosque’s head imam, Ammar Siddiqui.
The two-hour seminar, streamed in 2023, was based on a book titled Advice for the LGBTQ. Siddiqui explained that the workshop was “especially for our young ones, those who are attending schools especially.”
Siddiqui said that the LGBTQ “motive” and “agenda” are “to destroy the human race” because homosexuals cannot reproduce. “You cannot preserve the human race because it only involves a male and male relationship, female and female,” he stated.
The imam implied it is acceptable for Islamic states to sentence gay people to death. “When the Prophet says kill the doer and the receiver [of gay sex], meaning kill the ones that are doing it, it refers to those people that are in charge, that they put the punishment down,” he preached. Siddiqui said this command applies to “Muslim rulers” and constitutes a punishment laid down by Allah “as a deterrence” to “stop people from doing it, so they feel there’s a fear; they’re scared.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism told Focus on Western Islamism: “Shaykh Gabr has reportedly delivered antisemitic lectures in which he repeatedly called for the murder of Jews. He has also referred to Jews as ‘enemies of the faith’ and ‘the false messiahs of this era.’”
“Astonishingly, the Home Office did not revoke his visa, despite cross-party concern. The Government must ensure that individuals with a documented history of extremism are prevented from entering the UK. Britain has enough extremists of its own to contend with. We don’t need any more,” the spokesperson stressed.
“As for the mosques that hosted him, several of them are registered charities. The Charity Commission must immediately investigate and take robust action,” the Jewish charity added.
Hounslow Mosque Linked to Blasphemy Laws, Terrorism
In 2025, the charity watchdog launched an investigation into the Jamia Masjid over claims of corruption and the misuse of more than £1 million. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs recognizes the mosque, which has received £546,890 in government grants since 2021, for Gift Aid.
Hounslow Jamia Masjid gained international attention in April 2003 when Asif Mohammed Hanif, a 21-year-old former local business student who regularly worshiped at the mosque, carried out a suicide bombing at Mike’s Place, a bar in Tel Aviv, killing three people and injuring over 50.
The Barelvi strand of Islam, which strongly favors the death penalty for blasphemy, provides the original basis for the Hounslow mosque. Gabr also preached at the Jamia Masjid Faizan-e-Madina in Peterborough, another Brailwahi-linked mosque.
For Barelvis, Ishiq-e-Rasool (Love for the Prophet) is the highest form of piety and Tahueen-e-Risalast (insulting the Prophet) is the gravest sin, worthy of capital punishment. The sect was responsible for introducing Pakistan’s capital punishment laws for blasphemy, which are frequently misused to target Christians.
The Charity Commission has said it has opened a compliance case into the Hounslow mosque.
