Erdogan’s Muslim Brotherhood Support Continues Despite Regional Pressures

Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdo­gan’s Mus­lim Broth­er­hood sup­port remains unwa­ver­ing as he con­tin­ues to demon­strate his long­stand­ing com­mit­ment to cler­ics linked to the orga­ni­za­tion despite ongo­ing efforts to improve rela­tions with region­al pow­ers that have des­ig­nat­ed the group as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion. On 9 Sep­tem­ber 2025, oppo­si­tion news plat­form Nordic Mon­i­tor report­ed that Erdo­gan host­ed the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS) at the his­toric Hayred­din Pasha Man­sion in Istan­bul, main­tain­ing his ties with Broth­er­hood-affil­i­at­ed net­works even while pur­su­ing nor­mal­iza­tion with Egypt, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, and Sau­di Ara­bia. The arti­cle begins:

Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan con­tin­ues to demon­strate his long­stand­ing sup­port for cler­ics linked to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood despite ongo­ing efforts to improve rela­tions with region­al pow­ers that have des­ig­nat­ed the group as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion. On August 28, 2025, Erdo­gan host­ed the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS) at the his­toric Hayred­din Pasha Man­sion in Istan­bul. The meet­ing was attend­ed by Ali Erbaş, head of Turkey’s Direc­torate of Reli­gious Affairs (Diyanet), and Mehmet Görmez, pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Islam­ic Thought Foun­da­tion and the Insti­tute of Islam­ic Thought. The IUMS del­e­ga­tion was in Turkey to par­tic­i­pate in a con­fer­ence on Gaza, co-orga­nized with the state-sup­port­ed Foun­da­tion of Islam­ic Schol­ars in Turkey. The event brought togeth­er 150 Islam­ic schol­ars from 50 coun­tries and high­light­ed Ankara’s con­tin­ued role as a gath­er­ing point for reli­gious lead­ers who align them­selves with Erdo­gan’s polit­i­cal posi­tion­ing with­in the Islam­ic world. The rela­tion­ship between Erdo­gan and the IUMS is long­stand­ing and deep and has been par­tic­u­lar­ly vis­i­ble dur­ing key polit­i­cal moments.

Read more: https://nordicmonitor.com/2025/09/erdogan-continues-to-support-brotherhood-ties-to-shape-his-image-among-muslims/

Key Points

• Erdo­gan host­ed the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS) at Istan­bul’s Hayred­din Pasha Man­sion on 28 August 2025.
• The IUMS released a 2023 state­ment signed by 55 schol­ars call­ing on Mus­lims to sup­port Erdo­gan’s pres­i­den­tial reelection.
• Erdo­gan wel­comed US Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions sec­re­tary-gen­er­al Ous­sama Jam­mal to Ankara on 10 Sep­tem­ber 2023.
• Egypt, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, and Sau­di Ara­bia con­tin­ue to des­ig­nate the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood as a ter­ror­ist organization.

Turkey’s Support for the Global Muslim Brotherhood

Turkey under Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has become a major plat­form for the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, host­ing gath­er­ings and anti-Israel con­fer­ences that reg­u­lar­ly fea­ture promi­nent Broth­er­hood-linked schol­ars along­side Turk­ish offi­cials and inter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pants. Through state-backed insti­tu­tions like Diyanet, Ankara extends its influ­ence across Euro­pean Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties, pro­mot­ing nar­ra­tives aligned with the Broth­er­hood’s goals. The Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS), close­ly tied to the Broth­er­hood, has found a recep­tive envi­ron­ment in Turkey for advo­cat­ing on Pales­tine, often in part­ner­ship with Turk­ish gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives and media. This con­ver­gence is part of a broad­er strat­e­gy by Erdoğan’s gov­ern­ment to posi­tion Turkey as a leader of polit­i­cal Islam, lever­ag­ing reli­gious net­works, dias­po­ra mobi­liza­tion, and diplo­mat­ic cam­paigns to chal­lenge West­ern poli­cies on Israel-Pales­tine and con­sol­i­date a transna­tion­al Islamist alliance.

Since 2006, Turkey has func­tioned as a new cen­ter for the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, with Erdoğan main­tain­ing deep ide­o­log­i­cal ties to the move­ment dat­ing back to his affil­i­a­tion in the 1970s with the World Assem­bly of Mus­lim Youth. The Turk­ish pres­i­dent has con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ed sup­port for cler­ics linked to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood despite ongo­ing efforts to improve rela­tions with region­al pow­ers that have des­ig­nat­ed the group as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion. On mul­ti­ple occa­sions, Erdoğan has host­ed del­e­ga­tions from the IUMS at the pres­i­den­tial palace in Ankara and at his­toric venues in Istan­bul. These encoun­ters illus­trate Erdoğan’s effort to main­tain ties with Broth­er­hood-affil­i­at­ed net­works at a time when Egypt, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, and Sau­di Ara­bia con­tin­ue to des­ig­nate the move­ment as a ter­ror­ist organization.

Erdoğan has also cul­ti­vat­ed strong rela­tion­ships with US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood rep­re­sen­ta­tives, host­ing del­e­ga­tions from the US Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions at the Turk­ish Pres­i­den­tial Com­plex in both August 2020 and Sep­tem­ber 2023. Dur­ing these meet­ings, Erdoğan empha­sized the impor­tance of the glob­al Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty stand­ing unit­ed against Islam­o­pho­bia and sought sup­port against what he described as hos­tile lob­by­ing activ­i­ties in the Unit­ed States. In 2020, Erdoğan sent a video mes­sage to the Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety express­ing sup­port for the orga­ni­za­tion and stat­ing that the Turk­ish state is ready to sup­port MAS, Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions in the Unit­ed States, and any ini­tia­tive or project under­tak­en by the Mus­lim-Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty. The IUMS released a 2023 state­ment signed by 55 schol­ars call­ing on Mus­lims to sup­port Erdoğan’s pres­i­den­tial reelec­tion, with some ana­lysts sug­gest­ing the state­ment had been pre­pared with input from Erdoğan’s office.

Exter­nal references:

• Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdo­gan receives del­e­ga­tion of Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Scholars
• Erdoğan’s Soft Pow­er Arm: Map­ping the Mus­lim Brotherhood’s Net­works of Influ­ence in Turkey
• Erdo­gan main­tains Mus­lim Broth­er­hood ties amid finan­cial expec­ta­tions from UAE and Sau­di Arabia

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.