Muslim Brotherhood-linked cleric credits Oct. 7 attack for US political gains

At an August gathering in Turkey, Ali al-Qaradaghi, secretary-general of the Qatar-based International Union for Muslim Scholars, praised the Oct. 7 Hamas attack—referred to as the “Al-Aqsa Flood”—as the catalyst for recent political breakthroughs in the West. He asserted that without the attack, Zohran Mamdani would not have become New York City’s mayor and Abdul El-Sayed would not have mounted a $73 million Senate bid in Michigan.

The cleric’s remarks tied the electoral successes to what he described as the Zionists’ shame after the assault. The International Union for Muslim Scholars is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization the governments of Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have accused of using Islamic discourse to facilitate terrorism, though it denies the claim. Mamdani’s campaign leveraged anti-Israel sentiment and included a pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while El-Sayed, a Democratic Senate candidate, has vowed to withdraw U.S. military assistance to Israel. Both figures have faced scrutiny for endorsing slogans that glorify Palestinian militancy.