Global Muslim Brotherhood Scholars Group Rejects French Charter Of Republican Values

Ara­bic media is report­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS) has called on the French gov­ern­ment to stop inter­fer­ing with the “pri­va­cy of Islam,” reject­ing a new French Char­ter of Repub­li­can Val­ues aim­ing to cur­tail for­eign influ­ence over Mus­lim groups and mosques. Accord­ing to the Al Quds Al-Ara­bi arti­cle:

Jan­u­ary 21, 2021 The Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars called on the French gov­ern­ment to stop inter­fer­ing with the pri­va­cy of Islam, and to deal with it as it deals with oth­er reli­gions. In a state­ment by Pro­fes­sor Dr. Ali Al-Qarah Daghi, Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars, the Union stressed that “the French mosque doc­u­ment con­tra­dicts the tenets of Islam and the free­dom of belief guar­an­teed in all the world, includ­ing Paris.” [Trans­lat­ed from Ara­bic using Google.]

Read the rest here.

The French Char­ter of Repub­li­can Val­ues comes as part of new French poli­cies incor­po­rat­ing Mus­lim faith lead­ers in the fight against rad­i­cal­ism and “Islam­ic sep­a­ratism” among the country’s grow­ing Mus­lim pop­u­la­tion. After the behead­ing of a French geog­ra­phy teacher who had shown car­i­ca­tures of the Prophet Muham­mad to his class in mid-Octo­ber 2020, the country’s gov­ern­ment ordered a crack­down on groups accused of rad­i­cal­ism, car­ry­ing out dozens of raids and tem­porar­i­ly shut­ting down mosques.

Found­ed in 2004, the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS) is an inter­na­tion­al body of Mus­lim the­olo­gians based in Doha, Qatar, whose lead­er­ship is close­ly tied to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB), a transna­tion­al Islamist influ­ence net­work cov­ered by the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR). Until recent­ly, it 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. In Decem­ber 2020, the IUMS encour­aged a boy­cott of French prod­ucts, ded­i­cat­ing a spe­cial online sem­i­nar to this issue. In March 2021, IUMS leader Ali Al-Qaradaghi sent an open let­ter to the French Min­is­ter for Cit­i­zen­ship, call­ing homo­sex­u­al­i­ty an “aggres­sion” against human nature and denounc­ing the Minister’s request for mosque imams to rec­og­nize the right to same-sex mar­riage in their sermons.

In Feb­ru­ary and March 2021, the GIOR report­ed an “Inter­na­tion­al Coali­tion Against Islam­o­pho­bia,” con­sist­ing of Euro­pean civ­il soci­ety NGOs and groups tied to the GMB, had sub­mit­ted a for­mal com­plaint against France to the UN Human Rights Coun­cil as well as a legal com­plaint let­ter to the Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, demand­ing judi­cial and polit­i­cal action against France. While the sig­na­to­ries of the actions stat­ed that they were orga­ni­za­tions “com­prised of or who rep­re­sent French Mus­lim cit­i­zens,” only four out of more than forty were actu­al­ly based in France. Among them is LALLAB, a so-called sec­u­lar Mus­lim fem­i­nist orga­ni­za­tion that has been mired in con­tro­ver­sy, includ­ing accu­sa­tions of ties to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, which it denies. The com­plaint called Pres­i­dent Macron’s Imam Char­ter to be dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and weaponiz­ing hatred against Mus­lims, ignor­ing that the Char­ter was approved unan­i­mous­ly by the French Coun­cil of Mus­lim Wor­ship, rep­re­sent­ing Islam in its rela­tions with the state.

Past report­ing by the GIOR about Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups try­ing to influ­ence French pol­i­tics regard­ing Islam has also included:

• An Octo­ber 2020 report that the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood had warned Mus­lims against trav­el­ing to France, aid­ing Turk­ish boy­cott efforts after France had pledged to tack­le Islamist separatism.

• A Novem­ber 2020 analy­sis of how for­eign and transna­tion­al actors, includ­ing Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups, influ­ence France’s offi­cial Mus­lim rep­re­sen­ta­tive body.

• A March 2021 report that a new­ly estab­lished super­vi­so­ry body over­see­ing the train­ing of the country’s imams includ­ed two French Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leaders.