Islamist movements often invoke in the language of unity, the idea of a single Muslim ummah. Yet when confronted with geopolitical conflict, that unity fragments. Iran’s confrontation with the United States makes this contradiction impossible to ignore. These divisions reflect political alignment with state power more than ideology.
The 1979 Iranian Revolution once seemed to challenge these divisions. Many Sunni Islamists viewed Tehran’s defiance of Western influence as a model of Islamic resistance. But that convergence proved temporary. Over time, admiration gave way to distrust. By 2013, Yusuf al Qaradawi, a leading Muslim Brotherhood acolyte, denounced Hezbollah as the “Party of the Devil.” What began as ideological alignment evolved into rivalry.
Iran’s Shi’i clerical system sits uneasily alongside Sunni Islamist visions of political order.
This shift reflects political calculation. Sunni Islamist movements long have been wary of Iran’s ambitions. During the 1980s, Arab Sunni governments, backed by Washington, worked to contain Iranian influence while supporting alternative Sunni networks. Gulf Arab funding strengthened clerics and institutions aligned with state priorities, gradually pulling religious authority away from Tehran’s orbit. Doctrinal differences also drove these tensions. Iran’s Shi’i clerical system sits uneasily alongside Sunni Islamist visions of political order. In practice, sectarian identity and geopolitical interest outweigh claims of pan-Islamic unity.
These tensions are visible in the current U.S.-Iran confrontation. Tehran presents its position as part of a broader struggle on behalf of the Muslim world, with officials such as Ali Larijani, the late secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, appealing to the ummah while lamenting the lack of support from Islamic states. Most Sunni Islamist leaders have either remained silent or openly criticized Iran’s actions targeting fellow Muslim countries.
The Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars, often linked to Muslim Brotherhood networks, illustrates this clearly. While continuing to frame the “Zionist American project” as the region’s principal threat, the organization condemned Iranian missile strikes on neighboring Arab states. This balancing act is characteristic of Islamist movements across the region. Islamist movements preserve ideological consistency while avoiding positions that conflict with state interests or domestic political realities.
Arab governments have reinforced this divide. No Arab state defended Iran’s actions against Gulf Arab territory. Egypt convened an emergency Arab League meeting and proposed a joint force to protect regional sovereignty. Gulf Arab monarchies blamed Tehran for escalation and strengthened security cooperation with the United States. Islamist parties within these systems have mirrored official positions. In matters of security, national interest continues to take precedence over transnational rhetoric.
Sunni Islamist actors have offered limited and largely transactional support for Iran. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both beneficiaries of Iranian assistance, have defended Tehran’s “right to respond,” while a small number of exiled Muslim Brotherhood figures have expressed similar views. These remain exceptions. Major Sunni Islamist movements have avoided mobilizing sustained political support for Iran in opposition to the states in which they operate.
Major Sunni Islamist movements have avoided mobilizing sustained political support for Iran in opposition to the states in which they operate.
Taken together, this shows a pattern. Contemporary Islamist movements function less as vehicles of transnational unity and more as political actors embedded within regional power structures. Alliances, funding networks, and cynical calculations shape their behavior more than abstract appeals to the ummah. Islamism, in this sense, reflects the same geopolitical realities it claims to transcend. Recognizing this distinction requires separating Islam as a religious tradition from Islamism as a modern political project. In classical thought, the ummah referred primarily to a moral community, not a unified geopolitical order. Scholars such as Ibn Khaldun understood political authority in terms of power, cohesion, and circumstance, not as the expression of a permanent, borderless system. The transformation of the ummah into a political program is a modern development.
Iran’s confrontation with the United States exposes the limits of that project. For many Sunni Islamist movements, Iran is no longer a symbol of resistance but a competing regional power pursuing its own strategic interests. The language of unity travels easily across borders, but political loyalty does not. Islamism operates less as a transnational project than as a political language constrained by state power.
For policymakers, the implication is clear. Islamist rhetoric about unity should not be taken at face value. These movements respond to incentives, alliances, and state pressures much like other political actors. Ideology matters, but any strategy that assumes ideological cohesion will misread the region. A more effective approach begins by recognizing a simple reality. For many groups, political interests, not religious slogans, determine the limits of their solidarity.
