Egypt Puts Sweden's Islamic Association on Its Terror List

STOCKHOLM - A court in Cairo has put the Islamic Association in Sweden on Egypt's terrorist list.

Researchers have for years described the association as the Swedish branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is now one of 35 Islamic organisations in Europe designated as terrorist entities for five years. Another 36 individuals were added to the list - and one of them shares the name of the association's former chairman, who went on to lead the Brotherhood's European umbrella body.

The ruling was handed down on 10 November by the second criminal circuit of the Cairo Criminal Court, sitting in Badr. The case, number 11108/2026, is being investigated by Egypt's Supreme State Security Prosecution. The decision was published the same day in the official gazette, al-Waqa'i al-Misriyya.

The full list of organisations and individuals was released by the state news agency MENA and reproduced by the daily Al-Masry Al-Youm and other Arabic media.

In sixth place stands "al-Rabita al-Islamiya fi al-Swid" - the Islamic Association in Sweden. It is exactly the Arabic name the association uses for itself.

The whole Brotherhood network

At the top of the list is the Council of European Muslims and all its branches. The organisation was formerly known as the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe, FIOE, founded in 1989. According to its own statutes, the Islamic Association in Sweden is a member of FIOE.

Sister organisations from almost every corner of Europe follow, among them the Muslim Association of Britain, Muslims of France, Islamic federations in Norway and Finland, and the Danish Islamic Council. Every Nordic country is represented.

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The list also includes seven pan-European bodies, among them the European Council for Fatwa and Research, the European Council of Imams and the European Institute of Human Sciences in France, which trains imams.

For the organisations, the ruling means a ban on all activity in Egypt. Premises are to be closed, assets frozen, and funding or fundraising for them becomes a criminal offence.

A Swedish name among the 36

The 36 individuals include several of the best-known names in the Muslim Brotherhood's European network: Abdallah Ben Mansour, who heads the Council of European Muslims, the German figure Ibrahim El-Zayat and the British activist Anas al-Tikriti.

In third place stands Shakib Arslan bin Makhlouf. According to Al Arabiya, the listed Shakib bin Makhlouf is of Moroccan origin, lives in Sweden and has served as chairman of FIOE.

The name matches Chakib Benmakhlouf, a Swedish citizen who has chaired the Islamic Association in Sweden and led FIOE for two terms until 2014. He appears among several leading FIOE names, two places ahead of his predecessor as FIOE chairman, Ahmed al-Rawi.

The Egyptian ruling gives neither nationality nor date of birth, however, so it has not been formally confirmed that the listing refers to him.

In 1990, Benmakhlouf was elected the first chairman of Young Muslims of Sweden. He also sat on the first board of the Ibn Rushd adult-education association, founded at the Stockholm Mosque in 2001, which went on to receive state grants for many years.

For the listed individuals, the ruling means travel bans, revoked passports and frozen assets.

Denied the link for years

This is not the first time the association has been branded a terrorist organisation. In November 2014, the United Arab Emirates put the Islamic Association in Sweden on its terror list, citing its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Then-chairman Omar Mustafa insisted the association had nothing to do with the Brotherhood.

A 2017 study commissioned by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency identified the association as a central part of the Brotherhood's network in Sweden. The study drew sharp criticism from other researchers, but in a follow-up report the next year, social anthropologist Aje Carlbom reached the same conclusion.

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Another former chairman, Abdirizak Waberi, sat in the Swedish Parliament for the centre-right Moderates from 2010 to 2014. In 2022 he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for gross embezzlement of 12 million kronor from the Muslim free school Römosseskolan in Gothenburg. Much of the money was sent to Somalia.

Ibn Rushd lost its state funding from 2025, after the Swedish National Council of Adult Education concluded that it could not run its activities in line with the state's purposes.