84 Middle east Policy, Vol. XXi, No. 3, Fall 2014 Qatar and the MusliM Brotherhood: PragMatisM or Preference? David Roberts Dr. Roberts is a lecturer in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London, based in Qatar. * © 2014, The Author Middle East Policy © 2014, Middle East Policy Council Q atar has been one of the most ac- tive states during the Arab Spring. It has broadly supported the upris- ings with media coverage on Al Jazeera, the Doha-based news channel, as well as with inancial, diplomatic and ma- terial support for protagonists. Often Qatar threw its support behind Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood to the extent that some kind of direct, intimate relationship was assumed to exist between the two. Clearly, there are important and obvi- ous links between Qatar and the Brother- hood. Qatar has long hosted one of its most inluential clerics, Yusuf Al Qaradawi, and provided him with a platform on Al Jazeera to exponentially increase his inlu- ence. Qatar also assiduously supported the Brotherhood-led Mohammed Morsi government in Egypt with tens of billions of dollars and free liqueied natural gas (LNG). 1 Yet there is a puzzle at the heart of this apparent relationship, for it is not im- mediately clear why Qatar would support such a group. There is no groundswell of Brotherhood support in Qatar, and the lo- cal Brotherhood organization closed itself down in 1999. Indeed, the state’s oficial creed of Islam is Salai, which is distinct from that of the Brotherhood. In lieu of any compelling explanations, analysts typically suggest Qatar’s pursuit of “inluence” as the key motivating factor. However, it is not clear what this quest for inluence means, why it is worth undercut- ting regional relationships, or what Qatar gets out of such understandings. 2 A historically based analysis highlights the formative role Brotherhood members played in establishing and stafing some of Qatar’s early bureaucracies. As mir- rored throughout the Gulf, they played a particularly important role in educational institutions. However, because the small, relatively wealthy Qatari state provided its people with necessary educational, health and social services — typical means by which the Brotherhood expanded its inlu- ence — the group remained present but aloof. Instead, with no real social inroads, the group in Qatar naturally developed an external focus. A brief examination of the evolution of the education system in Qatar will not only highlight the importance of the Brother- * An earlier version of this article was written for the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) for which the author would like to thank POMEPS, University Ca’Foscari in Venice, CIRS at Georgetown University in Qatar, and the London School of Economics.