Grand mufti attended tribute to spiritual leader of banned hate group Hizb ut-Tahrir

Australia’s most prominent Muslim cleric appeared on stage alongside key members of the radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir to mourn the now banned hate group’s spiritual leader days after his death.

A video posted by an account linked to the group shows the Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamad, seated on stage at an event in May 2023 commemorating the death of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s Australian spiritual leader, Ismail al-Wahwah, also known as Abu Anas.

In the footage provided to this masthead, Abu Mohamad is seen sitting beside two of the group’s key figures Bilal Merhi and Wassim Doureihi.

The now deleted video emerged a day after the Albanese government formally listed Hizb ut-Tahrir as a prohibited hate group under new federal powers. It is the first use of the new powers since Labor enacted tougher hate crime laws in response to the December 14 Bondi massacre.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke announced the designation late on Thursday, making it a criminal offence to be a member of, recruit for, train with, fund or materially support the organisation.

“For a long time, Hizb ut-Tahrir has been able to spread hate and create a pathway for others to engage in violence,” Burke said.

“The Australian government’s new hate group listing framework has been designed to stop organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir from spreading hate and sowing the seeds of division in the community, that risks not only our social cohesion but the safety of Australians.”

The group was defended in January by the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, a leading peak body, which claimed the organisation’s listing was “part of a wider effort to hold the Muslim community collectively responsible for the Bondi attack”. The council did not reply to request for comment.

The gathering attended by the mufti three years ago commemorated al-Wahwah, who died on May 17, 2023, and was long regarded as the central ideological figure behind Hizb ut-Tahrir’s activities in Australia.

In the short video, Doureihi praised al-Wahwah’s commitment to the Islamist movement. He told the audience that al-Wahwah was someone who “said what needs to be said” and praised his “devotion to Islam”.

The group’s Australian website was taken down in late January, while social media pages linked to the group have also been either locked or deleted recently.

Al-Wahwah, a Palestinian born in the West Bank in 1957, was notorious for inflammatory rhetoric about Jews and Israel, including calls for Israel’s destruction and repeated promotion of antisemitic tropes.

In the years before his death, he accused Jews of exaggerating the Holocaust, claiming they “exaggerate, blow out of proportion, lie about, and milk [the West] over [the Holocaust] in order to accomplish their goals” and alleging that “the occupying Jews ... exploit this issue [the Holocaust] in order to humiliate human beings”.

He also refused to condemn the terrorist group Islamic State and regularly promoted conspiracy theories circulating in the Arab world. Among them was a claim that Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, killed by the United States in 2020, was, in fact, an American agent. After the Beirut port explosion, al-Wahwah told followers that the possibility Israel was behind the blast was “a strong one”.

The controversial fringe group has been regarded warily by many within the Muslim and broader community for its teachings, and was listed as a terrorist organisation in Britain in January 2024. The group has been banned in Germany, India, Indonesia and other jurisdictions. Its most extreme Australian supporters have been exposed praising the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel as a step towards its caliphate goal.

The grand mufti is appointed by the National Imams Council, which until last year retained Ibrahim Dadoun as its public relations director. Dadoun is a key Hizb ut-Tahrir figure who previously described the October 7 Hamas attack as a “day of pride” during a rally organised by the group.

Abu Mohamad, described as a political moderate but religiously orthodox, has held the position since 2011, apart from a short break in 2018.

Neither the office of the grand mufti nor the Australian National Imams Council responded to questions on Friday.

The video of his appearance was posted on May 21, 2023, but deleted soon after.

The day before, Abu Mohamad posted a public tribute on his own social media accounts, saying his devotion to the Islamic cause “makes you admire him and respect his opinions”.

“You will notice the man’s loyalty to his idea and principles in an admirable way,” he wrote.

“There was an agreement and a difference between us, an agreement in the origin of the idea and its right to return to life as a necessity and prevention. And a difference of views, about mechanisms and methods of calling for it and propaganda for its return.”

He also appeared at a rally in October 2023 organised by Stand4Palestine, a group linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir that has been used as a platform for pro-Palestinian activism in Australia.

Josh Roose, an associate professor of politics at Deakin University, said Hizb ut-Tahrir had a sophisticated infrastructure and a funding model that raised questions about connections to foreign actors.

The decision to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir would force its adherents to start from scratch under a completely different guise, Roose said. Global evidence suggested that decisions to ban groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir ultimately resulted in followers leaving and not returning.

“By banning them, you are not only disrupting their momentum but preventing them from undertaking the activities that have allowed them to be successful over the years,” he said.

The federal opposition welcomed the move, noting that the organisation had “given inspiration to people that seek to destroy our way of life”.

Coalition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam said Hizb ut-Tahrir had advocated “some of the most appalling and disgusting approaches to how society should work” and had done so in Australian suburbs with impunity.

With Max Maddison

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