Muslims should be offended when people worship Jesus as a god, and wishing someone a “Merry Christmas” is a worse sin than murder, a Canadian Islamic cleric has said during a sermon.

Sheik Younus Kathrada was preaching to the Muslim Youth of Victoria in British Columbia ahead of Christmas when he said that congratulating non-Muslims on their holidays means approving them.

“If a person were to commit every major sin – committing adultery, dealing with interest, lying, murder… 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,” Kathrada said, according to the video posted on the organization’s YouTube page.

He later added that “this doesn't mean that we treat the non-Muslims in a bad way or that we deal with them unjustly. I’m not saying, and I’ve never said, go out and just kill them, and do this to them… No!”

Canadian Cleric Younus Kathrada: Congratulating Christians for Christmas is Worse than Murder pic.twitter.com/1S73XPjfRk — MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 24, 2018

After the excerpts of his sermon were published by a Washington-based Middle East Research institute on their social media, Kathrada’s Facebook page was filled with “Merry Christmas” wishes.

The South Africa-born cleric is no stranger to controversies. He was investigated by the Canadian anti-terror squad following his 2004 remarks that Jews are “brothers of monkeys and swine” during a sermon in Vancouver.

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He also criticized Muslims who wanted to build bridges between the two religious communities. Kathrada said his words were taken out context as he was talking about the Palestine-Israel conflict. He then went on to live in Malasya for several years and returned to Canada in 2016.

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