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UAE: New book exposes Brotherhood’s evil designs

Abu Dhabi - In the new book, Prof. Al-Suwaidi shows how the Muslim Brotherhood got ambitious and made an attempt to overthrow the UAE government.

A new book on how the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ tried to foment trouble in the UAE has hit the shelves in Abu Dhabi.

The book entitled: “The Muslim Brotherhood in the United Arab Emirates - Miscalculations” authored by Prof. Jamal Sanad Al-Suwaidi, vice chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, covers a large research vacuum on this subject which has hitherto never been adequately studied.

In the new book, Prof. Al-Suwaidi shows how the Muslim Brotherhood got ambitious and made an attempt to overthrow the UAE government, taking advantage of the chaos unleashed during the Arab Spring and the March 2011 petition; where the group made a move to seize power and rule the UAE, thinking it could follow the success of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Tunisia. These ambitions turned out to be delusional, based on miscalculations.

“This book focuses on the emergence and history of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UAE, aiming to study its practices, dissect its behaviours and its intellectual and political visions; based on the full realisation that the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideas do not reflect Islam or its pure image, because surrendering to its claims in this regard is a serious offense to the true religion,” Prof. Al-Suwaidi said on Tuesday during a press conference to announce the launch of his book.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been trying to lure people across the Arab and Muslim world to their fold by pandering to their basic needs such as food and water, while taking advantage of their poverty, disease, and ignorance. This may have worked in some developing countries. but it failed to evoke any sympathy among Arab Gulf states, which are characterised by financial abundance, and advanced social welfare systems, explains the author in the book.

“The book aims to prove that one of the most important reasons for the Muslim Brotherhood’s decline in the Arab world is their miscalculations and lack of realistic political visions to deal with the requirements of leadership and governance.”

He said this was evident by their miscalculations in understanding the events of the Arab Spring, as well as their inability to understand the 2011 petition in the UAE, which they believed was the way to power and rule.

Book reviews history of Muslim Brotherhood

In the new book, Al-Suwaidi reviews the history of the Muslim Brotherhood in terms of origin, foundation, and proliferation, as well as the group’s objectives, means of achieving these objectives, its ideology, its approach, its vision of the system of government in general, as well as its attitude towards parties, shura and democracy, up to the participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in politics, and their involvement in political institutions such as parliaments, legislative and executive councils, to identify the implications of this, and the general system governing the group in this regard.

Al-Suwaidi takes us back to the sixties and seventies to trace the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UAE, and its officially declaration it in 1974 under the name of the Reform and Social Guidance Association in the Emirate of Dubai, and the establishment of branches in Ras Al Khaimah and Ajman under the banner of social charity work, while not allowing them to establish branches in both Sharjah and Abu Dhabi.

How Muslim Brotherhood took control of educational sector.

In the fourth chapter, Prof. Al-Suwaidi reviews how the Muslim Brotherhood had taken control of the vital points of the UAE’s educational process by controlling the Ministry of Education and schools’ curriculum, controlling the UAE University, and monopolising the system of educational missions’ system in the country, all aimed at controlling the culture and values of society.

The Emirati professor concludes in his book that the calculations of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UAE are extremely erroneous, as it believed that the success of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the so-called Arab Spring, and its arrival to power in 2012, were the beginning of the brotherhood’s assumption of power and governance in all Arabic and Muslim countries, including the UAE.

“The Muslim Brotherhood in the UAE falsely said that the group is very popular among the Arab peoples, and that it is the legitimate alternative to political regimes in the UAE and the Arab world,” says parts of the book.

Prof. Al-Suwaidi goes on to show how the UAE’s actions in dealing with the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood between 2011 and 2013, when the group tried to seize power in the UAE, were timely, and that if the government had delayed its action by one year, the group would have taken over the Emirates.

The book, which is in Arabic language, will soon be translated to English.

ismail@khaleejtimes.com