{"id":10076,"date":"2026-02-18T17:22:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T04:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=10076"},"modified":"2026-02-18T17:54:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T04:54:45","slug":"a-goliath-of-global-mischief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=10076","title":{"rendered":"A Goliath of global mischief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

OPINION: A.S. Ibrahim.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the vast expanse of the Arabian Peninsula, tiny Qatar\u2014smaller than Connecticut\u2014casts an outsized and dangerous shadow. Fueled by gas riches, it channels billions into Muslim and non-Muslim lands alike, including the heart of America, advancing an Islamist agenda that sows division and extremism under the guise of philanthropy. Most alarming is Qatar\u2019s playbook: a calculated campaign of funding universities to shape Islamist-friendly education and financing radical mosques to propel political Islam. These are not benign investments. They amount to a stealth assault on Western values, empowering radicals while Qatar postures as a benevolent mediator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make no mistake: Qatar\u2019s influence operates quietly behind the scenes. By some reports, since 2001 this small petrostate has\u00a0funneled\u00a0more than $6 billion into U.S. universities\u2014much of it\u00a0unreported\u00a0and cloaked in secrecy. The Qatar Foundation\u00a0operates\u00a0as the chief laundromat, routing funds through nonprofit fronts to evade disclosure laws and\u00a0embed\u00a0pro\u2013Muslim Brotherhood narratives into curricula. Middle East studies programs are particularly targeted, their scholarship bent toward Islamist sympathy. This is no accident; it is deliberate infiltration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider the concentrated cash injections into elite institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reports indicate that Cornell has\u00a0pocketed\u00a0a staggering $1.95 billion, while Texas A&M has\u00a0received\u00a0more than $485 million, both operating branch campuses in Doha that double as hubs for Islamist influence. Faculty, lured by the money, weave pro-Qatari and anti-Israel threads into syllabi, suppress criticism of Hamas, and transform lecture halls into propaganda mills. Liberals na\u00efvely insist that Qatar\u2019s natural gas wealth merely enables neutral foreign funding\u2014as though this were harmless cultural exchange. But let\u2019s be honest: Islamists are never transparent about their goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Qatar denies wrongdoing,\u00a0cloaking\u00a0its activities in humanitarian rhetoric. Yet even Muslim nations like the UAE and Saudi Arabia\u00a0rightly\u00a0label Qatar Charity a terrorism enabler. The United States itself\u00a0designated\u00a0its affiliates in 2008 before curiously easing scrutiny. Unproven? Hardly. These unreported billions correlate with surges in pro-Hamas activism and speech intolerance on American campuses, where Qatari dollars purchase advocacy for Islamic causes and convert ivory towers into echo chambers for Hamas, CAIR, and Muslim Brotherhood sympathies.
Qatar\u2019s influence peaks in its role as a safe haven for the Muslim Brotherhood and a paradise for Hamas terrorists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally pernicious is Qatar\u2019s flood of cash into mosque construction and Islamist propagation across the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Qatar Charity has reportedly poured hundreds of millions into over 140\u00a0mosques\u00a0and schools in Europe since 2004, with the vast majority linked to Muslim Brotherhood centers. These institutions fracture communities and export a toxic hybrid of Wahhabi and Brotherhood extremism through front organizations designed to evade scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the United States, the infiltration is no less brazen. Qatar funds mosques identified as Brotherhood-affiliated, using charitable facades to conceal their true purpose. The result is predictable\u2014mosques that churn out radical sermons, glorify jihad, stoke anti-Western hatred, and radicalize congregants, sowing discord in democratic societies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Qatar\u2019s influence peaks in its role as a safe haven for the Muslim Brotherhood and a paradise for Hamas terrorists. Though Doha operates in the shadows, its support for extremism is impossible to ignore. This is precisely why so many\u2014yes, Arab Muslim nations\u2014despise Qatar, openly condemning it for patronizing terrorists who destabilize countries deemed insufficiently Islamic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly\u00a0lambasted\u00a0Qatar for embracing terrorists and sectarian movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Iranian-backed militias, arguing that this behavior endangers regional security and\u00a0justified\u00a0the 2017 blockade. The UAE echoes these accusations, charging Qatar with funding and sheltering Brotherhood dissidents and viewing political Islam as a mortal threat to Gulf monarchies\u2014one that erodes secular governance and demands terrorist designation. Egypt\u00a0joins\u00a0the chorus, denouncing Qatar\u2019s hostile interference through financial and media support for the Brotherhood, including harboring exiled leaders and fueling anti-government agitation that directly undermines Cairo\u2019s stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why does Qatar persist in these activities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its backing of radical Muslim groups, terrorism financing, and influence operations stems from a calculated foreign policy designed to punch above its weight. As a diminutive Gulf state, Qatar leverages support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to forge alliances, dominate Arab politics, and insert itself into conflicts from Syria to Gaza under the banner of \u201cmediation.\u201d This strategy also counters pressure from regional heavyweights like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who view these groups as existential threats. The 2017 blockade only hardened Qatar\u2019s resolve to cultivate rival Sunni networks beyond Riyadh\u2019s reach. Yes, all are Muslim\u2014but their mutual hatred eclipses any claim of Islamic harmony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Qatar\u2019s elite see the Brotherhood as a pragmatic\u00a0instrument\u00a0for modern Islamic governance, aligning neatly with the nation\u2019s ambition to elevate Islamism over secular rivals. Worst of all, Qatar tolerates\u2014and enables\u2014informal financial networks and charities like Qatar Charity to siphon funds to al-Qaeda, prioritizing regime survival over genuine counterterrorism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, Qatar\u2019s tiny footprint on the map conceals a colossal challenge to the West. In the game of thrones, the smallest scorpion often delivers the deadliest sting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the Author: A.S. Ibrahim:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A.S. was born and raised in Egypt and holds two doctorates with an emphasis on Islam and its history. He is a professor of Islamic studies and director of the Jenkins Center for the Christian Understanding of Islam at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OPINION: A.S. Ibrahim. In the vast expanse of the Arabian Peninsula, tiny Qatar\u2014smaller than Connecticut\u2014casts an outsized and dangerous shadow. Fueled by gas riches, it channels billions into Muslim and non-Muslim lands alike, including the heart of America, advancing an Islamist agenda that sows division and extremism under the guise of philanthropy. Most alarming is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[297,255,667],"coauthors":[361],"class_list":{"0":"post-10076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-opinion","8":"tag-middle-east","9":"tag-opinion","10":"tag-saudi-arabia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10079,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10076\/revisions\/10079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10076"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=10076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}