Dubai: Qatar was urged to stop a cleric from continuing to insult the UAE, following a televised Friday prayer sermon in which he accused the UAE of being “against Islamic rule”.
The Egyptian-born Yousuf Al Qaradawi, speaking live on Qatari state TV from a Doha mosque, was talking about the developments in Egypt that followed the ouster of former president Mohammad Mursi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, last July by a popular uprising.
Al Qaradawi heads the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated International Federation of Muslim Scholars (IFMS). He said the new Egyptian administration was “ruling against Allah’s will” and that Mursi must be reinstated to realise a government by Islamic rule. He criticised the UAE for supporting the current Egyptian government claiming the UAE “has always been opposed to Islamic rule”.
UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Mohammad Gargash condemned the comments. “It is shameful that we allow Al Qaradawi to continue his insults of the UAE and ties [that bind] the peoples of the Arabian Gulf,” he wrote on his official twitter account.
Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Deputy Chairman of Dubai Police and Public Security, wondered on his twitter account why Qatar allowed such comments against the UAE by a cleric who is “known to have ties to terrorist groups”.
At least two members of Al Qaradawi’s IFMS were convicted in the UAE last year on charges of plotting to de-stabilise the government and forming a clandestine Muslim Brotherhood cell in the UAE. Another 30-member Brotherhood cell was convicted last week of plotting against the UAE security.
Analysts said the recent convictions were the reason behind Friday’s “Al Qaradawi rants against the UAE”. They urged the Qatari government to move against the cleric who has “been calling for violent opposition to the Egyptian government, especially after the successful constitutional referendum”.
“Because of your fatwas, thousands have been killed,” Lt. General Dahi tweeted, addressing Al Qaradawi, describing him as “the cleric of sedition”.
