Other media sources picked this up. For years he's been spewing hatred.
Canadian Islamic preacher again in spotlight after calling for destruction of Jews
South Africa-born Younus Kathrada has a lengthy history of extremist rhetoric
A Canadian Islamic preacher with a lengthy history of extremist rhetoric is under scrutiny once again after a sermon calling for the death of Jews.
“Oh Allah, destroy the Jews, oh Allah destroy the Jews … oh Allah destroy them for they are no match for you,” said Younus Kathrada in a sermon uploaded to the social media channels of the Dar al-Ihsan Islamic Centre in Victoria, B.C.
The April 18 sermon also praised the “bravery” of Palestinian children as young as 10 years old who expressed a wish to die as “martyrs” in armed combat against Israel.
“It’s the young girls as well … Did you not hear that little girl say: ‘I want to grow up, and I want to get married, and I want to give birth to and raise martyrs.’ Yes, by Allah. What kind of bravery is that?” he
said in English.
Kathrada’s prayer calling for the destruction of Jews was then spoken in Arabic at the sermon’s end.
“This guy needs to be arrested or deported, before he does something to hurt someone here in Canada,” wrote B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad in a social media post appended to a video of the April 18 sermon.
On Sunday, the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation announced it had lodged an official complaint with the Victoria Police Department, arguing that Kathrada’s sermon met the threshold for hate speech.
Specifically, the group argued, Kathrada’s statements violate
Section 318 of the Canadian Criminal Code, which prescribes prison terms of up to five years for “every person who advocates or promotes genocide.”
National Post reached out to Kathrada via the Dar al-Ihsan Islamic Centre for comment, but did not hear back by press time.
An excerpted video of the “destroy the Jews” sermon was circulated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a non-profit that provides translations of extremist media from across the Muslim world.
Kathrada has often been featured in MEMRI videos, going all the way back to 2018 when the group excerpted a sermon of him saying that a Muslim uttering Merry Christmas is
a sin worse than adultery or murder.
“If a person were to commit every major sin … lying, murder, committing adultery, dealing with interest. If a person were to do all of those major sins they are nothing compared to the sin of congratulating and greeting the non-Muslims on their false festivals,” said Kathrada at the time.
In 2019, Kathrada
urged his followers not to vote in that year’s federal election, declaring that every single candidate was “evil” for supporting homosexuality. “They are all evil. Every single one of them … They are all evil and filthy,” he said.
Article content
In 2020, after French schoolteacher Samuel Paty was beheaded in an Islamic terrorist attack, Kathrada denounced the deceased as a “filthy excuse of a human being,” called for a boycott of all French goods, and prayed for the destruction of the “enemies of Islam.” “Oh Allah, support those who wage jihad for your sake everywhere,”
said Kathrada.
Just two weeks after the April 18 “destroy the Jews” sermon, in fact, Kathrada
can be heard praying in an April 27 video for the victory of the “mujahideen” in Kashmir. Five days prior, Islamist gunmen had murdered 26 tourists in the Indian-administered territory.
Despite all of this, Kathrada’s group, Muslim Youth of Victoria, has previously been a recipient of government grants. In 2021 and 2022, the group
received a combined $5,000 from a City of Victoria fund intended for those who “own or operate cultural facilities.”
In 2024, Global News
reported that Kathrada’s group had also received grants from the Islamic Society of B.C., a federally registered charity.
As recently as last November, Kathrada had been scheduled to speak on the campus of the University of Victoria at an event sponsored by the school’s Muslim Students Association.
“Join us for an insightful lecture by Sheikh Younus Kathrada on the significance of building strong ties within the Muslim community,” read an advertisement for the Nov. 24 lecture, which was ultimately cancelled by UVic administrators following reports by Global News and National Post.
Born in South Africa, Kathrada’s extremist rhetoric
has been making headlines since at least 2005, when one of his former students at Vancouver’s Dar al-Madinah Islamic Society was killed by Russian forces reportedly after joining a Chechen jihadist group as an explosives expert. At the time, CBC
obtained recordings of Kathrada sermons in which he referred to Jews as “the brothers of the monkeys and the swines.”
Although Kathrada was briefly subject to a security probe at the time, it yielded no charges.
South Africa-born Younus Kathrada has a lengthy history of extremist rhetoric.
nationalpost.com