UAE president pardons son of Muslim Brotherhood’s late spiritual leader

Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi was extradited from Lebanon to UAE and sentenced to 10 years in jail for activities that ‘undermine public security’

By AFP and ToI Staff 5 September 2026, 10:10 am

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Abdul Rahman Yusuf al-Qaradawi, son of Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, speaks during a demonstration to denounce the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi outside the Saudi Arabian consulate headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 5, 2018. (OZAN KOSE / AFP)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed on Friday pardoned Abdul Rahman Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the son of the Muslim Brotherhood movement’s late spiritual leader, after Qaradawi was extradited from Lebanon to the UAE and sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Qaradawi, an Egyptian opposition activist and poet, was extradited in January 2025 and sentenced last week. The Muslim Brotherhood is designated as a terrorist organization in both Egypt and the UAE.

“A pardon was issued today… by His Highness the President… for Abdul Rahman Yusuf al-Qaradawi,” the United Arab Emirates’ official WAM news agency said in a statement.

The Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal had sentenced Qaradawi to 10 years in prison and a fine. He was facing charges of “activities that aim to stir and undermine public security,” WAM said when he arrived in the UAE.

Qaradawi, the son of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, was arrested in Lebanon in late 2024 after crossing from Syria. The arrest was linked to an Egyptian ruling sentencing him to five years’ jail on charges of “opposing the state and inciting terrorism,” Lebanese authorities said at the time.

Egypt and the UAE both requested his extradition from Lebanon, according to a Lebanese judicial official.

Then-Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, right, kisses the hand of Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi upon Qaradawi’s arrival at the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip, May 8, 2013. (Said Khatib/AFP)

The monarchical UAE is a staunch opponent of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood and its political Islam, which gained in influence after the 2011 Arab Spring pro-democracy protests.

Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi was a political organizer against the government of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in 2011 and briefly replaced by a Muslim Brotherhood-led government.

Qaradawi’s father Yusuf was imprisoned several times in Egypt over his links to the Muslim Brotherhood. The elder Qaradawi had long advocated suicide bombings against Israelis, and was considered close to Hamas, which began as the Muslim Brotherhood’s Gazan offshoot.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi died at the age of 96 in Qatar, where he had lived in exile following the Egyptian military’s 2013 overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood-led government that succeeded Mubarak.