Global Muslim Brotherhood Scholars Union Welcomes Taliban Delegation In Doha, Vows Future Collaboration

On 18 Sep­tem­ber 2021, the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS) wel­comed a del­e­ga­tion from the new­ly estab­lished Islam­ic Emi­rate of Afghanistan to their head­quar­ters in the Qatari cap­i­tal Doha. Accord­ing to an IUMS Face­book post:

The del­e­ga­tion of the emi­rate express­es the thanks of Prime Min­is­ter Mul­lah Moham­mad Has­san Akhund and the new gov­ern­ment to the Union for its keen­ness, sup­port, […] and efforts to serve #Afghanistan in order to achieve the inter­ests and aspi­ra­tions of #Afghan peo­ple, and in order to serve the secu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty #Afghanistan. [Trans­lat­ed from Ara­bic orig­i­nal using Yandex.]

Read the rest here.

Top IUMS lead­ers attend­ed the meet­ing, includ­ing IUMS Pres­i­dent Ahmed Al-Rais­souni, IUMS Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Ali Al-Qaradaghi, and Mohamed Al-Yafei, Direc­tor of the IUMS Qatar branch. The Tal­iban del­e­ga­tion con­sist­ed of Deputy Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs Sher Muham­mad Abbas Stanikzai, accom­pa­nied by Tal­iban Polit­i­cal Bureau mem­ber Mawlawi Mutai ul Haq and Tal­iban spokes­men Suhail Sha­heen and Moham­mad Naeem.

Accord­ing to anoth­er Ara­bic-lan­guage Face­book post, dur­ing the assem­bly, IUMS Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Al-Qaradaghi expressed his hap­pi­ness with the suc­cess­es of the Tal­iban, which he described as the suc­cess­es of all Mus­lims. He also said the IUMS could help the Tal­iban to orga­nize eco­nom­ic mat­ters and poli­cies. IUMS Pres­i­dent Al-Rais­souni pro­posed hold­ing joint sem­i­nars and con­fer­ences on edu­ca­tion­al, polit­i­cal, and eco­nom­ic issues for each to ben­e­fit from the expe­ri­ences of the oth­er. Tal­iban Deputy Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs Stanikzai, who helped estab­lish and from 2015 until 2020 led the Tal­iban’s polit­i­cal office in Doha, asked IUMS schol­ars to help build and pre­serve the Afghan state through advice and guidance.

Found­ed in 2004, the IUMS is an inter­na­tion­al body of Mus­lim the­olo­gians whose lead­er­ship is close­ly tied to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (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.