The UAE, Qatar, and the Question of Political Islam

Abstract

In this chapter, Davidson looks at the rise of two worldviews in Doha and Abu Dhabi since the 1990s embodied by two individuals whose vision for the wider region could not be more diametrically opposed: Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani and Mohammad bin Zayed al Nahyan, respectively. The efforts by both leaders to reform their countries to escape the Saudi sphere of influence set Qatar and the UAE on two different paths that for the first time clashed in Libya in 2011. While Qatar somewhat naively saw the Arab Spring as an opportunity to rid the region of authoritarianism, the UAE feared that Qatar’s support for opposition groups and non-state actors could undermine the myth of authoritarian stability. MbZ’s vision for secular, centralized strong states in the Middle East was at odds with Qatar’s harboring and support for activists from the Islamist camp. It is this dispute over worldviews and ideologies between Qatar and the UAE that is arguably at the heart of the Gulf rift.