The United Arab Emirates has cut funding for its citizens studying at UK universities over fears that students may be radicalized on UK campuses.
Many have pointed out that it is unprecedented for a Muslim country to fear that its students may be radicalized by Islamism – in the UK.
But where do the fears stem from?
Much of the UAE’s concern about British campuses relates to fears about the Muslim Brotherhood’s presence in the UK. The Muslim Brotherhood movement is a proscribed terror organization in the UAE, and the country has taken hardline stances against all affiliated groups and individuals.
However, reports in recent years have indicated that the movement, which seeks a single caliphate, is becoming increasingly more influential in the UK.
Several prominent student groups, especially The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), have been cited as having links to the Muslim Brotherhood. FOSIS, established in 1963, purports to represent and support over 350,000 Muslim students and Islamic Societies (ISocs) across the UK and Ireland. Research such as “The Muslim Brotherhood in Britain” by Innes Bowen analyzes the affiliation between the two.
Examining the origins of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK
A 2015 paper by Lorenzo Vidino, director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, explained that many senior Muslim Brotherhood figures in the UK arrived in the country as students, often scions of wealthy families who already belonged to the Brotherhood.
Vidino’s paper also said many junior members of the brotherhood are students in various British universities. He provided the example of Abdullah el-Haddad, a young, British-born, and London-based engineering student who comes from one of the Brotherhood’s most prominent families and served as a spokesperson for the movement.
His father – Essam el-Haddad – spent significant time in the UK, obtaining his PhD from Birmingham University’s Medical School and co-founding Islamic Relief Worldwide. He was a senior member of the Brotherhood before being arrested and imprisoned in Cairo.
Essam’s other son – Gehad – was the most recognized face of the Muslim Brotherhood in foreign media before he too was arrested. Gehad studied on a Chevening Scholarship at De Montfort University, Leicester.
Then there are also academics and lecturers said to have links to the Muslim Brotherhood. A notable example was Tariq Ramadan, who was a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, until 2017. Ramadan is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. His father was also a prominent figure in the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Across British and Irish campuses, Muslim Brotherhood networks have turned lecture halls into echo chambers of extremism, where antisemitism is normalized, and violence is intellectually laundered as resistance,” said Emirati Expert in Strategic and Political Affairs Amjad Taha on Sunday.
It is not just the Muslim Brotherhood that the UAE may be concerned about. Since October 7, multiple university students and societies have been accused of having ties to Hamas (an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.) For example, in May 2025, 18 university societies endorsed a legal bid to de-proscribe Hamas as a terrorist organization under section 4 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Among them are the Student-Staff Coalition for Palestine at the University of Birmingham and the London School of Economics Palestine Society.
Multiple university societies, such as the University College London (UCL) Marxist Society, have also been suspended for calling for “intifada until victory,” violent resistance, or actively supporting proscribed terror groups.
Some societies have also been condemned for inviting Hamas-affiliated or Muslim-brotherhood-affiliated speakers.
Qatar, which is extensively intertwined with Muslim Brotherhood ideology and individuals, also funnels hundreds of millions into UK universities every year. The UK does have a program in place to prevent radicalization on campus, called Prevent. The aim of the government-led, multi-agency program is to stop people from becoming terrorists, and it forms part of the national counter-terrorism plan (CONTEST).
In summer 2025, it was revealed that the number of cases referred to Prevent from within higher education institutions had doubled from the past three years and reached a record high. The data showed that 265 cases were escalated and sent to a Prevent officer in 2023-24. Of those escalated by providers, 27% were related to Islamist radicalization.