India may not be majority Muslim, but it remains host to the world’s third-largest Muslim population. Although Indian officials focus largely on Pakistan’s efforts to recruit and radicalize Indian Muslims, increasingly Qatar takes advantage of New Delhi’s relative blind spot to its efforts to further radicalize millions of Indian Muslims.
While Qatar’s ties with and efforts to mediate for terror outfits such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, Al-Nusra Front, and Hamas are well-documented, Indian security forces no longer can afford to ignore Qatar-based individuals and institutions that pose a threat to India. Qatari interests today fund Kashmir-based jihadist groups, Islamist non-governmental organizations, left-leaning activists in India, Islamic religious and cultural groups, and charities.
Leaked documents from Qatar-based Sheikh Eid Bin Mohammad Al Thani Charitable Association, also known as the Eid Charity, show the depth of Doha’s penetration in India’s jihadist landscape. In 2013, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated Abd al-Rahmani al-Nu’aymi, one of the Eid Charity’s founders, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist for his alleged involvement in funding Al Qaeda and its affiliates in Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Iraq. Between 2008 and 2017, the Eid Charity funneled $7.82 million to eight Wahhabi-Salafi organizations in India. These organizations reportedly used these funds to build mosques, encourage conservative Islamic practices, and promote Wahhabism in India.
Qatari interests today fund Kashmir-based jihadist groups, Islamist non-governmental organizations, left-leaning activists in India, Islamic religious and cultural groups, and charities.
Qatari foundations and entities provided funding to several Islamist entities in Kerala, a Wahhabi hotbed in Southern India, many of which appear to be proxies or to engage in covert activities. Qatar’s Sheikh Thani Ibn Abdullah for Humanitarian Services provided the Salafi Charitable Trust Narikkuni with $4.9 million. Sheikh Thani Ibn Abdullah for Humanitarian Services previously funded the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s Syria-affiliate. Further, Salafi Charitable Trust’s Hussain Madavoor remains close to Melevettil Muhammad Akbar, an extremist preacher famous for radicalizing youth. Akbar’s Peace Foundation previously employed the late Abdul Rashid Abdullah, Islamic State Khorasan Province’s mastermind in Kerala (2016), and several Islamic State recruits from Kerala had ties with Akbar’s Peace Foundation. In 2018, immigration officials arrested Akbar at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad after a lookout notice by the Kerala police for radicalizing schoolchildren, as he sought to escape to Qatar. Qatar also funded Kerala’s Salafi Philanthropic Society, the Symposium Education Charitable Society, and the Peace Educational Center.
The late Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, a hardline Qatar-based preacher with a past with the Muslim Brotherhood, remains popular amongst the Salafi and Wahhabi groups in India. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government abrogated Article 370 of the Indian constitution in 2019 to cancel Kashmir’s special status within India, Qatar has sought to leverage the Muslim Brotherhood in Kashmir against the rest of India. In 2023, for example, Qatar hosted Zakir Naik, an extremist Indian Wahhabi preacher, at the Expo 2023 in Doha. Naik’s popularity in Kashmir reflects the radicalization of Kashmiri youth. Reportedly, Naik’s preaching radicalized those who perpetrated the Islamic State terrorist attacks in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2016, and also the Hyderabad Islamic State branch chief.
Al Jazeera also promotes an anti-India and anti-Modi narrative on human rights, minority issues, and democracy in India. A Qatari lawyer reportedly transferred funds to West Bengal in the 2019 state elections to a regional party known for its pro-Islamist leanings and links to extremist groups.
Qatar-based social media handles also coordinated the entire anti-India campaign after Bharatiya Janata Party’s senior member, Nupur Sharma, made allegedly offensive remarks regarding the Prophet in a TV show, in May 2022, enraging Indian Muslims and many Muslim nations. Qatar summoned the Indian ambassador to demand an official explanation. Social media handles aggressively promoted a narrative that Muslims face genocide in India. In India, the Islamists organized violent protests in a few cities and killed many Hindus for supporting Nupur Sharma on social media.
Today, Qatar is India’s largest natural gas supplier. Its sovereign wealth fund has a $ 1.5 billion investment in India. During the Qatari emir’s February 2025 visit, Modi broke with protocol to receive him. Doha and Delhi elevated their ties to “Strategic Partnership.” The diplomatic niceties, however, should not mask growing concern about Qatar’s covert activities in India to fan communal polarization.
