Global Muslim Brotherhood Founds “International Organization to Support the Prophet of Islam”

Turk­ish media has report­ed about the inau­gur­al cer­e­mo­ny of a new orga­ni­za­tion found­ed by Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Turk­ish gov­ern­ment-con­nect­ed lead­ers. Accord­ing to the Doğruhaber report:

Octo­ber 27, 2021: “Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion to Sup­port the Prophet of Islam” was inau­gu­rat­ed on Tues­day with a cer­e­mo­ny in Istan­bul, Turkey’s most pop­u­lous city as well as its cul­tur­al and finan­cial hub.[…]

The Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion to Sup­port the Prophet of Islam was found­ed by 50 Islam­ic schol­ars from var­i­ous Mus­lim coun­tries on the first anniver­sary of the “Sup­port Prophet Mohammed” cam­paign. The cam­paign was start­ed by Egypt­ian schol­ar Sheikh Muhammed Saghir one year ago after the insults and smear cam­paigns had been launched against Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) in the west­ern coun­tries, espe­cial­ly France. Among the founders of the “Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion to Sup­port the Prophet of Islam” are Enver Kılıçarsan, the head of İTTİHADUL ULEMA, Abdul­va­hap Ekin­ci, the pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Islam­ic Schol­ars Orga­ni­za­tion, and Mehmet Görmez, the head of Insti­tute of Islam­ic Thought, Aca­d­e­m­ic Yasin Aktay, Mau­rit­ian Islam­ic Schol­ar Sheikh Muhammed Has­san Dedo and Ali Qaradaghi, the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Scholars.

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The report names the fol­low­ing as founders of the new orga­ni­za­tion, many of whom are Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) lead­ers or have con­nec­tions to the Turk­ish government:

• Ali Qaradaghi- Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS)

• Muham­mad Has­san Al-Dido- Chair­man of the IUMS Medi­a­tion and Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion Committee

• Abdul­va­hap Ekin­ci- pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Mus­lim Schol­ars Asso­ci­a­tion (Turk­ish: Ulus­lararası Müs­lü­man Âlim­ler Derneği), which calls itself the Turk­ish branch of the IUMS.

• Mehmet Görmez- for­mer pres­i­dent of the Turk­ish Direc­torate of Reli­gious Affairs (Diyanet) and head of the Insti­tute of Islam­ic Thought, whose board of trustees con­tains sev­er­al for­mer Diyanet offi­cials, Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers, and oth­er Islamists.

• Yasin Aktay- AKP Vice Chair­man of For­eign Affairs

• Enver Kılıçarslan- Chair­man of the Union of Schol­ars and Madrasahs (İtti̇hadul Ule­ma), an Islam­ic edu­ca­tion asso­ci­a­tion found­ed in the Kur­dish region of Turkey.

Speak­ers at the event includ­ed Qaradaghi, Muhamed Al-Sagheer (some­times translit­er­at­ed as al-Saghir), an Egypt­ian Mus­lim Broth­er­hood schol­ar and Chair­man of the IUMS’s Da’wa and Pros­e­ly­ti­za­tion Com­mit­tee, and Khaled Meshaal, for­mer head of the Hamas polit­i­cal bureau.

Found­ed in 2004, the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars is an inter­na­tion­al body of Mus­lim the­olo­gians whose lead­er­ship is close­ly tied to the GMB and, until recent­ly, was led by GMB spir­i­tu­al guide Youssef Qaradawi. Sev­er­al promi­nent Euro­pean Mus­lim faith lead­ers tied to the GMB were IUMS mem­bers and/or have served as IUMS Trus­tees, includ­ing for­mer Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Islam­ic Stud­ies pro­fes­sor Tariq Ramadan and Ahmed Jabal­lah, a senior leader in the French and Glob­al Mus­lim Brotherhood.

The Direc­torate of Reli­gious Affairs (Turk­ish: Diyanet İşl­eri Başkan­lığı or Diyanet) is a Turk­ish state insti­tu­tion respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing reli­gious affairs. The Diyanet was found­ed in 1924 to monop­o­lize con­trol of Sun­ni Islam in Turkey under the state. The Diyanet drafts a week­ly ser­mon deliv­ered at all of Turkey’s mosques, and their imams are civ­il ser­vants employed by the state.