Emirates classifies the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation

The Fatwa Council of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has classified the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation and urged Muslims to stay away from the group.

The statement came during an online meeting of the council led by Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah. The UAE Fatwa Council declared its full support for the statement by the Council of Senior Scholars, which echoes previous proclamations by the UAE and Saudi Arabian governments that they regard the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation because of its support for violent extremist groups, disputes with leaders and disobedience.

During the meeting all Muslims were also asked to denounce the divisions and avoid supporting, sympathising with and joining organisations that aim to instigate divisions, trigger conflicts and shed blood.

The United Arab Emirates thus joins other Arab countries such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Egypt which had already classified the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. The group's spiritual leader, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, lives in Qatar, despite having been sentenced to life imprisonment in his native Egypt and expelled from France and the United Kingdom for his extremist views. 

Several analysts have already detailed the link between the Muslim Brotherhood and other nations identified as jeopardising stability in the Middle East and the Mediterranean owing to their interventionist and belligerent stances or more or less direct relationship with cross-border terrorism such as the Qatari monarchy and Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey. 

Indeed, the Qatari kingdom suffers from a political and economic embargo established in 2017 by the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain, which accuse the nation led by Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani of supporting cross-border terrorism and links with organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, much has already been written about Turkey's relationship with elements linked to Jihadist terrorism in the past. The Eurasian country is involved in the civil wars in Libya and Syria through the use of paid mercenaries linked to formations in former times with Jihadist groups of the calibre of al-Qaeda and Daesh.