As described by the Counter Extremism Project, the Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational Sunni Islamist movement, founded in Egypt in 1928, that seeks to implement sharia (Islamic law) under a global caliphate. The group has already been labeled a terrorist organization by the governments of Bahrain, Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates.

In Britain, the first Brotherhood clubs opened 60 years ago. “None were openly identified with the Muslim Brotherhood and membership of the Muslim Brotherhood remained (and still remains) a secret,” the Jenkins-Farr report said. According to a recent briefing by the Counter-Extremism Project, these groups include mosques, education centres and even sports clubs.

CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler writes: “The Muslim Brotherhood has always been exceptionally difficult to counter in the West. While there’s a clear track record of individuals connected to the Brotherhood’s network who later appeared in Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, the group has been strategically careful never to explicitly promote or call for violence in Western countries. This created a significant challenge: the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and direct violence has always been tactical and geographically limited. The organization has used violence in Türkiye, Syria, and Egypt, but deliberately avoided it in Europe and North America, allowing it to claim protection under freedom of religion and speech.”

The late Qaradawi served as spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and was best known, the Counter Extremism Project notes, for advocating “the murder of Americans, gay people, and Jews through his writings, speeches, and fatwas.” In 2022, Ibrahim posted on Twitter a video of him speaking with Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the U.S. designated terrorist group Hamas. Speaking in English, Ibrahim states that his own election victory is also a victory for the “Palestinians and the ummah” and pledged to “work together, inshallah, to redeem the lost image and also role of the ummah.” Ibrahim subsequently also spoke to Hamas’s political leader Khaled Meshal, former chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau.

According to Hans-Jakob Schindler of the research organization "Counter Extremism Project," Qaradawi was "generally regarded as the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood."