The contemporary wave of Political Islam was influenced and shaped by the Muslim Brotherhood. The foundational ideology of Al Qaeda, Islamic State (ISIS) and other Islamist terrorist groups is inspired, influenced and sourced from the Muslim Brotherhood. Both at its place of birth and nucleus, Egypt has proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood. Nonetheless, the politico-religious movement has spread, surged and sparked violence both in battlefields and off-the-battlefield.
The Muslim Brotherhood promotes exclusivism, extremism, violence and terrorism. An insidious threat, the Muslim Brotherhood can adapt to the operating environment functioning both clandestinely and openly. The most notorious branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is Hamas, the Palestinian group that led the massacre of 1,200 and abduction of 254 Israelis and foreigners on October 7, 2023.
This catastrophic attack ignited the on-going war in the Middle East.
As of March 2026, the United States government designated four chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organisations. The US has not issued a blanket ban on the entire global movement. On January 13, 2026, following an executive order from President Donald Trump, the U.S. government imposed the following designations:
Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood: Designated by the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT).
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Designated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury as an SDGT.
Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood: Designated as an SDGT by the Treasury Department.
Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood: Blacklisted as a FTO on March 9, 2026.
The legal and financial consequences of the ban are material support, asset freezing, and travel restrictions. Material support or resources to a designated chapter is a criminal offence. Any assets held by the designated chapter within U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in transactions with them. Members and representatives of a FTO are inadmissible to and deportable from the United States. The US took this action under Executive Order 14362 aimed at dismantling chapters perceived as threats to U.S. interests, specifically citing their alleged support for Hamas. Averse to a global ban, the US administration has focused on specific regional branches rather than the movement’s entire transnational network, though officials indicated these designations are part of an “ongoing, sustained effort”. The US decision has an impact both globally and domestically. Following these federal moves, some state governors, such as those in Texas and Florida, also designated the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organisations at the state level.
With the U.S. designation of the Lebanese, Egyptian, Jordanian, and Sudanese chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organisations, the US has effectively banned financial and material support for these specific branches. The U.S. Department of State designated four chapters but left out the Yemeni chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Yemeni Congregation for Reform or the Al Islah Party.
When the Trump administration designated several branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist entities, it appeared to signal a turning point, a recognition that political Islam must be judged by outcomes, not rhetoric. But almost immediately, that logic encountered a contradiction. Yemen has been left out. This omission is not accidental, and it is not neutral.
Yemen is one of the most active theaters for Al-Qaeda today. It is also a country where Muslim Brotherhood–linked political Islam has played a direct and sustained role in shaping the conflict. If the designation framework is meant to be coherent, Yemen should have been central to the discussion, not absent from it.
In Yemen, the Islah Party operates as the local expression of the Muslim Brotherhood. While it presents itself as a political movement, its ideological foundations overlap with the same ecosystem that has historically enabled jihadist mobilisation. This overlap matters not because of slogans, but because of how conflicts actually function on the ground.
During multiple phases of the war, Islah-aligned forces and Al-Qaeda elements mobilised in parallel against shared enemies, particularly the Houthis. The Houthi movement sponsored by the Iranian regime presents a threat to the region. Individuals with jihadist backgrounds were at times absorbed into broader “anti-Houthi” structures as a consequence of political prioritisation.
This dynamic was enabled by a broader regional approach that treated al Islah as a politically useful partner — a necessary component of the anti-Houthi camp. Short-term battlefield considerations were prioritised over long-term ideological and security risks. This choice helped insulate al Islah from scrutiny and accountability, even as evidence accumulated of permissive environments that allowed extremist networks to persist.
The Muslim Brotherhood, founded by Hasan Al Banna in Egypt in 1928, has developed into a transnational network with chapters across the Middle East and beyond. Its most influential ideologue Sayyid Qutb, through his book ‘Milestones’, promoted “takfirism”, that identified Muslims as apostate and states as un-Islamic, and advocated extreme violence to build the ‘perfect Islamic society’. The Brotherhood assassinated many leaders including Egyptian prime minister Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha in 1948. There were several attempts by the Brothers to assassinate Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser and eventually they assassinated President Anwar-as-Sadat.
The Brotherhood was a fringe group in the politics of the Arab world until 1967. After the Israeli defeat of the Arabs in the Six-Day War, Islamism replaced popular secular Arab nationalism. Hamas, an Islamist group, replaced the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, a secular group. The preamble to Hamas’ founding charter contains the following quote from the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
The Hamas Charter dates Hamas’ ideological roots to well before the establishment of Israel and sees itself as part of a “chain of the struggle” against not only the state of Israel but also Jews (“Zionists”) who lived there before it became Israel in 1948. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz ad-Din al-Qassam and his brethren the fighters and members of Muslim Brotherhood.
As the Muslim Brotherhood opposed communism, Saudi Arabia initially supported the group. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was legalised in 2011 and its leader Mohamed Morsi won the election in 2012. However, as it failed to moderate its views or embrace democratic values, the military ousted the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt once again banned the group in 2013.
Wherever the Muslim Brotherhood operates, it creates a permissive environment for extremist and terrorist groups to establish a presence and grow. From Egypt, the Brotherhood spread to Africa, Middle East and Asia. Western countries from Canada to the UK, Europe and Australia welcomed Brothers stating that they were oppressed. In turn, the Brothers established ethnic and religious enclaves that became the breeding grounds for extremism.
Egypt’s neighbouring Africa and the Middle East suffered from terrorism. Under Muslim Brotherhood-dominated governance led by National Islamic Front (NIF), Sudan hosted the Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (April 1991–May 1996). The NIF, the MB party led by Hassan Al Turabi, worked with the Sudanese military led by General Omar Bashir to facilitate the rise of Al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa. Even after Al Qaeda relocated from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996, the network it built unleashed attacks both in Africa and beyond. Al Qaeda operators attacked US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. In the next phase, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force (IRGC-QF) and its proxies built an appreciable presence. In addition to IRGC-QF, Hezbollah from Lebanon and Hamas resources the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan.
The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood, trained and supported by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has been designated by the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation and Specially Designated Global Terrorist for mass executions of civilians, Rubio said. “We will continue to use all available tools to deprive the Iranian regime and Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources they need to engage in or support terrorism.”
The designation comes after a February study by the New York-based Gatestone Institute for Strategic Studies highlighted the Brotherhood’s obstruction of peace initiatives, including the rejection of a US-backed humanitarian truce during Ramadan. US officials have accused Sudan’s Muslim Brotherhood, together with remnants of the ousted Bashir regime, of exacerbating the conflict between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. In Sudan, the Muslim Brotherhood is aligned with Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan “serving as the ideological and organisational backbone of his military regime.”
Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood al Islah is no exception. The genesis of the al Islah party can be traced back to the 1940s, when “Yemeni university students in Egypt were exposed to the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Founded on September 13, 1990 after the merger of North Yemen and South Yemen, Leslie Campbell wrote, al Islah is an amalgam of “tribal forces, which were powerful in rural areas; the Muslim Brotherhood, which was strong in urban areas; and Salafi sheikhs, who ran a network of religious schools.”
During a party conference in 1996, Campbell wrote how the Muslim Brotherhood faction won control of the general secretariat. “Four men aligned with the Brotherhood rose to the top: Mohammed Abdullah Yadoumi, Islah’s secretary-general; Mohammed al Saadi and Abdulwahab al Anisi, his assistants; and Mohammed al Qahtan, who headed the Executive Council. The Brotherhood-oriented leaders quietly built the backbone of the party, happy to benefit from [the founder Sheikh Abdullah al] Ahmar’s patronage but not acquiescing to the tribal scions.” Nonetheless, Abdulrazak Al-Hijri, Acting Secretary General, al Islah denied his party’s links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Banned by Saudi Arabia in March 2014 due to its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, al Islah was recognised by Riyadh after the death of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, due to their role in fighting the Houthis. Nonetheless, the UAE opposed al Islah due to its links to the Muslim Brotherhood. In contrast to Saudi Arabia, the UAE pursued a fundamentally different strategy in Yemen. Rather than accommodating Muslim Brotherhood-linked actors, the UAE adopted a security-first counterterrorism approach. It focused on dismantling Al-Qaeda’s operational networks directly – targeting leadership, financing, and territorial control – while working to restrict the political and security space available to Islamist actors viewed as structurally destabilising.
The divergence between these two approaches reflects a deeper policy dilemma. One approach manages Islamist actors as political assets. The other treats their ideological ecosystem as a long-term security threat. The decision to exclude Yemen and al Islah from the recent designation framework effectively aligns international policy with the first approach. It prioritises coalition management and short-term stability over counterterrorism coherence. And this is where the problem becomes clear.
The Brotherhood and its chapters worldwide has proved to be resilient. Despite Egypt’s attempts to suppress it, the group survived and sustained. Cairo banned the Muslim Brotherhood in 1948, 1954, and once again in 2013. Nonetheless, the ideology spread and crystallised into operational cells, networks and groups both at home and overseas. The Muslim Brotherhood is listed as a terrorist organisation by many foreign governments and organisations, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Libya.
Based on the initial US investigation, Muslim Brotherhood chapters in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Sudan engage in or facilitate and support violence. In addition to their destabilisation campaigns that harm their own regions, the Muslim Brotherhood harmed and hurt United States citizens, and United States interests.
After the Hamas led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the Lebanese chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood al-Jamaa al-Islamiyah joined Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian factions to launch multiple rocket attacks against both civilian and military targets within Israel. A leader of the Egyptian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, on October 7, 2023, called for attacks against United States partners and interests, and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood leaders have long provided material support to Hamas. As these groups threaten the security of American civilians in the Levant and other parts of the Middle East as well as the safety and stability of its regional partners, the U.S. decided to act against them.
“Chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood purport to be legitimate civic organisations while, behind the scenes, they explicitly and enthusiastically support terrorist groups like Hamas,” the US Treasury said in a statement.
Salah Abdel Haq, acting general guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood living in Turkey, said the group “categorically rejects this designation and will pursue all legal avenues to challenge this decision which harms millions of Muslims worldwide.”
Abdel Haq added, “We deny all allegations that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has directed, funded, provided material support for or engaged in terrorism,” in his statement to Al Jazeera.
In August 2025, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that while the Brotherhood represents a “grave concern,” the FTO designation process has been stymied by the legal requirement that the U.S. government make its case and “show [its] work” to a court. Unlike Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, the US upholds higher legal thresholds and more rigorous internal reviews before designating a group.
The U.S. designated Hamas, the Palestinian Branch of the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organisation in 1997. But it has taken nearly three decades to criminalise the Brotherhood, the mother movement. While the focus of the recent designations of the Muslim Brotherhood are entities operationally linked to Hamas, the U.S. should consider the ideological dimension. As long as the Muslim Brotherhood ideology is intact, it will create the permissive conditions for the emergence of exclusivist, extremist, violent and terrorist cells, networks, and groups. To mitigate the threat, the US should convene a summit on developing a global response to fighting terrorism upstream. To understand how the Muslim Brotherhood gave birth to the contemporary wave of political violence and terrorism, their affiliates worldwide should be investigated and the findings made public before appropriate action is taken.
