Mohammed Hijab is a liar, judge rules as influencer loses libel case

A judge has dismissed a defamation case brought by Islamic influencer Mohammed Hijab against Douglas Murray and The Spectator, ruling that Murray’s article about Hijab was “substantially true” and did not cause “serious harm” to Hijab.

Hijab brought the libel claim over an opinion article written by Murray and published in The Spectator in September 2022, which suggested that he had inflamed racial tensions when he travelled to Leicester during the riots in the city at the time between Muslim and Hindu communities. Murray accused Hijab of “cropping up in Leicester to whip up his followers".

But Hijab claimed that the article had caused serious harm to his reputation and a loss of earnings.

Hijab travelled to Leicester in September 2022 after clashes between the two ethnic groups had already begun. He gave a speech to a crowd of mostly masked Muslim men, during which he said: “What a humiliation and pathetic thing for them to be reincarnated into some pathetic weak cowardly people like that.”

Hijab said this comment referred to Hindutva groups – i.e. those following an ideological branch of Hindu nationalism – and not all Hindus. The Hindutva movement in India has previously faced accusations of persecuting the country’s Muslim minority.

Hijab claimed in the case, which was heard in the Royal Courts of Justice last month, that not all Hindutvas were Hindus. But when asked to identify someone who, in his opinion, subscribed to the Hindutva ideology but who was not Hindu, he was able to give only one name: Benjamin Netanyahu. He later named Tommy Robinson and Douglas Murray.

In his judgement released on Tuesday, Mr Justice Johnson said: “The reality is that those who subscribe to the Hindutva ideology are overwhelmingly Hindu."

The phrase “if they believe in reincarnation” was "a rhetorical device intended to inflame sectarian tensions by inviting ridicule of a central tenet of Hinduism,” the judge went on.

These comments about reincarnation – and Hijab’s suggestion that Muslims have the “truth” - were an example of “inflammatory rhetoric that intentionally aggravated the febrile atmosphere," the judge said.

“That speech, to a large group of excitable and engaged masked young men, exacerbated the tensions that had spilled over into serious public disorder the previous day,” the judge added.

Mr Justice Johnson said Hijab denounced the opposing faction of Hindu men as "the Hindutva" for “rhetorical and propaganda purposes” and used a similar tactic when he described Jewish people he encountered in Golders Green as "Zionists," “without any objective basis, and to suit his own narrative”.

In Golders Green, the judge found Hijab made claims that were “not credible” when he said he was unaware of having given a speech in front of a van displaying images of the Holocaust with the words “Did we not learn from the Holocaust?”

Hijab had told the court that he attended the area of north London in 2021 to engage in a debate with “Zionists” about the actions of the Israeli military. But the judge said his questioning of people in the area on Shabbat “was designed to cause an adverse reaction and to elicit material for his social media channels” and “was grossly offensive and disingenuous”.

“The people who he engaged in conversation appeared (from the clothing they were wearing on what was the Sabbath) to be Jewish, but the claimant was in no position to know their political views or their attitude towards the conduct of Israel’s military activities in Gaza," Johnson said.

The court also heard that Hijab attended a counter-protest at a rally for Israel near the Israeli embassy in London. The judge said Hijab had “lied” in respect of the events at Golders Green as well as at the counter-protest.

Hijab claimed that a dog at the rally was jumping on him before he threatened to kill the “dogs” at the Israel rally. The judge said: “The claimant had no basis for his inflammatory threats to kill dogs, or to suggest that dogs had been brought to the event as a provocation by Zionists.”

The judge also said that Hijab “further raised the temperature” at the protest by speaking about “‘vengeance’ and life beginning at death”. Hijab denied that he was encouraging violence and said his speech had “eschatological and theological implications,” but the judge dismissed this.

“The claimant was not genuinely seeking to explore matters of theology and eschatology with the group of masked men that he was addressing. The video is plain. He was deliberately acting irresponsibly, raising the temperature of a volatile and potentially dangerous situation with provocative and inflammatory language.”

The judge said Hijab “openly smirks” and “asks questions that might be expected of an immature schoolchild in a religious studies lesson, but which are completely inconsistent with a serious discussion”.

The earnings Hijab claimed to have lost included £30,000 for a Ramadan fundraising campaign with the charity Salam, a £3,500-a-month deal to be a brand ambassador for the charity One Ummah and a £1,500-a-month advertising contract with supplements company Nature’s Blends.

But the judge said Hijab did not provide “credible material” evidence to support these claims.

Johnson said messages that Hijab relied on from the charities “have the appearance of being contrived for the purpose of these proceedings”. They “provided material that would be necessary to support a claim for financial losses…when one might not generally expect such detail” and arrived at “roughly the same time, which was several weeks after the article, but very shortly before a letter of claim was sent”.

In his judgement, Johnson said that Hijab "sought, at every turn, to debate with counsel, responding to questions with (rhetorical) questions of his own, arguing his case rather than giving straightforward responses, and denigrating the character of the second defendant [Murray] to whom he bears palpable personal animosity”.

The judge also noted that Hijab "has many more social media followers than The Spectator has subscribers" and that his material is viewed more times than Murray’s article was read.

When he rejected the libel claim, the judge said the videos that Hijab publishes on his own platforms are “at least as reputationally damaging to him as the article” and so the article cannot have caused, or be likely to cause “additional serious reputational harm”.

Representing Murray, Patron Law celebrated the outcome. A spokesperson for the firm said: “Patron Law is delighted that our client Douglas Murray has successfully defended the libel claim made against him by Mohammed Hegab or Hijab to his YouTube followers. Douglas’s article was found to be substantially true and that in any event it had not got beyond the threshold of ‘serious harm’.

“Mr Justice Johnson found that the 2022 article meant and that it was substantially true to say that: “[Hijab]is a street agitator who has whipped up a mob on London’s streets, addressed an anti-Israel protest in inflammatory terms, and exacerbated frayed tensions (which had already spilled over into public disorder) between Muslim and Hindu communities in Leicester by whipping up his Muslim followers including by ridiculing Hindus for their belief in re-incarnation and describing Hindus as pathetic, weak and cowardly in comparison to whom he would rather be an animal.”

“But the judge went much further, finding that Hijab’s evidence comprised numerous lies, so that it was all unreliable. The claim was dismissed.

So far Douglas Murray has been involved in two libel actions this year and has won both of them.”

Hijab told the JC that he intends to appeal the ruling, saying: “The court accepted that the article was defamatory under common law, but dismissed the claim solely on the basis that ‘serious harm’ was not proven, despite clear, unchallenged evidence, including metadata, of reputational and financial loss.

“The judgment overwhelmingly favoured the defendants, without a single critical comment about either of them across more than 25 pages. It also failed to engage with my central argument: that while most Hindutva adherents are Hindu, the reverse is not true, just as most ISIS supporters are Muslim, but not all Muslims support ISIS. Ignoring this distinction fatally misrepresents my speech.”