British academic: The UAE is using Sufism to find an ideological and religious basis for its aggressive policy in the region

Dr. says. Andreas Craig, lecturer in security studies at Kings College in London, said that the UAE is not different from other powers that use religion to serve its policies, but it adopts another version of political Islam.

Craig, a fellow at the Institute for Middle East Studies, said in an article on the British Middle East Eye website that what prevails in the West today is that the UAE adopts secularism in its foreign policy that does not correspond to reality.

He added that Abu Dhabi’s version of “tolerance, religious coexistence” is false and serves to promote another form of Islam characterized by political calm, which is Sufism.

The power of religion and ideology
He went on to say that the UAE fully knows the power of religion and ideology to mobilize civil society or prevent its mobilization in the Arab world, and for this reason Sufism has chosen an ideological and religious basis to suit its position in the region's foreign policy.

He said that the Emirati novel was intentionally designed to attract the Western audience, especially the American after the events of September 11, 2001, the rise of Islamists during the Arab Spring and the emergence of the Islamic State, but its “hostility” to Islam in the political field has another sinister face, which is the non-politicization of civil society and in the same Time is a monopoly of social and political power and power by the state.

He pointed out that the UAE’s fear of Islamists is linked to a deeper fear of the “soft, attractive force” of political Islam opposed to the authoritarian regimes in the region, and that the Emirati elites ’concern for political Islam stems from the belief that Islamic beliefs when they involve political goals cannot be controlled by the state or the system Thus, it will create a dynamic that threatens the status quo as the Arab Spring revolutions.

The first force hostile to change
The writer went on to say that when the status quo began to falter in 2011, the UAE quickly mobilized its financial and military capabilities to shape the socio-political future of the region from Libya, Egypt and Yemen to Sudan to become the first force hostile to change and revolutions that supports the hostile regimes of civil society, and stands with the rule of the military and holed up against gravity Political Islam.

Therefore, the UAE needed an alternative narration of Islam that covered authoritarian practices and portrayed them as counter-terrorism operations and in favor of secular "tolerance".

Rulers chose the Sufi emirates, the politically quietest and most powerful "branch" in Islam, to embrace its more fundamental virtues, which appeals to the West.

This Sufi state was skillfully used to represent "true Islam" which provides a clear treatment for "extremist" elements of Salafism, while providing a simplistic basis for combating "extremism" entirely based on "religion" and thus neglecting the social and political evidence that drives "extremism".

Quiet version
Therefore, Abu Dhabi sponsored "religious" centers in Libya, Egypt and the UAE, to publish a "quiet" version of Islam, but after careful consideration, we find that this copy is also equally political as other forms of political Islam.

After that, the lecturer reviewed examples of politicization of what the UAE and its allies claim are out of politics, and began with the 2016 Grozny Conference on Sunni Islam funded by the UAE and Egypt and coordinated with Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov who ended in rejecting "political activity." The writer said that this message, which was broadcast by the conference, is essentially a political one.

The following example - the author says - is a platform for promoting peace in Muslim societies led by scholar Sheikh Abdullah bin Baih, who called for the separation of the mosque and the state. It has a sure political message, which is not to politicize civil society and make the obedience of the guardian a virtue of Islam.

Justification network
When retired Major General Khalifa Hifter used, without discrimination, violence to attack the United Nations-backed government, and when Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi violently attacked his opponents, or when the Transitional Council in southern Yemen opened torture camps, the UAE provided a network of ideological and religious justification.

The writer added that the UAE has become active in giving legitimacy to Haftar and Al-Sisi - and its system is - by using tolerance in Islam for "religious coexistence" and at the same time legitimizing intolerance against opponents of the existing socio-political situation.

He concluded by saying that Abu Dhabi’s use of religion created a false dual polarization in Islam between Sufism and other forms of political Islam, one in the grip of the regime and the other controlled by its opponents.