The official Fatwa Council of the United Arab Emirates has denounced the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist organisation” and urged Muslims to steer clear of the group.
The statement came during an online meeting of the council led by Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah and supports a similar pronouncement by Saudi Arabia’s Council of Senior Scholars.
The Council called on all Muslims to reject division and to refrain from affiliation or sympathy with groups that “work to divide the ranks and inflame discord and bloodshed,” UAE news agency WAM reported.
It reiterated that “it is not permissible to pledge allegiance to anyone other than the ruler,” and said the community should show “respect and commitment” to leaders.
Recently a similar move by Saudi Arabia to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood was condemned in a statement by global Islamic scholars.
In a joint statement, religious scholar associations from Sudan, Libya, Lebanon, Palestine and other countries backed the Muslim Brotherhood as “defenders” of Islam.
“The Muslim Brotherhood is a missionary group … including a large number of scholars, preachers and Mujahideen have joined the effort to defend the doctrine of Islam and its Sharia,” the associations said.
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Talat Fehmi, a spokesperson for the Muslim Brotherhood, told Anadolu Agency that the organisation denies all accusations made by the council.
“The Brotherhood … is far from violence, terror and tearing apart the Ummah. Since its establishment, it has been calling people to Allah with good advice,” Fehmi said.
The Brotherhood was blacklisted by Egyptian authorities in 2013 after the ouster of Mohamed Morsi – Egypt’s first democratically elected president – in a military coup led by current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The spiritual head of the MB, Sheykh Yusuf Al Qaradawi, is based in Doha, Qatar. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain cut ties with Qatar in 2017 and imposed an air, land and sea blockade on the Gulf state over what they claimed was Doha’s financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran – Saudi Arabia’s regional arch-rival.
