Bahrain's decision to join the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in withdrawing its ambassador from Doha in March of this year in protest at Qatar's longtime backing of the Muslim Brotherhood raises some interesting questions and not a few dilemmas for the Gulf island state. Saudi Arabia has long nursed a grievance against the Qataris over the Ikhwan or the Brotherhood, one that was brought into sharp focus with the rise and fall of Egypt's Mohamed Morsi government. Qatar had poured billions into shoring up Morsi's brief presidency and through their Al Jazeera network continued to support him after he was ousted, much to the Saudi government's chagrin. And the UAE has conducted a harsh campaign against Al Islah, a conservative religious society closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has seen dozens sentenced to long jail terms, after being convicted of plotting the overthrow of the government there. Al Islah and its supporters insist the charges are baseless and international human rights organisations including Amnesty International have condemned the trials and convictions as a travesty of justice. Bahrain, on the other hand, has had a long and tolerant relationship with the Brotherhood, one that stretches back to the late 1930s. Indeed, it is said that Bahrain was the first port of call for the Brotherhood as it spread its message to the Gulf from Egypt, with the establishment of an Al Islah society in the township of Muharraq in May, 1941. From that point the Brotherhood ideology quickly spread in the Gulf. The Saudis welcomed the Ikhwan with open arms in the 1950s and 1960s. Egyptian Muslim Brothers many of them professional and well educated, among them teachers fleeing President Nasser's wrath, found safe haven with King Saud who used them to help educate a mostly illiterate population. And the Brotherhood flourished elsewhere in the region. After all, as an organisation that eschewed political activity while promoting shared Islamic values, it appeared to pose no threat to the authority of the ruling Gulf families. The families were keen not just to spend their newfound oil wealth on themselves but to use some of it to modernise largely tribal societies that had changed little for centuries. The building of school systems was high on the agenda. However the modernising drive faced the opposition of deeply conservative and powerful clerics wary of the importation of non-Islamic values, and suspicious of western education. For the ruling families, and especially the al Saud, the Brotherhood and its offshoot organisations seemed a perfect response to those concerns. And so the Ikhwan with no apparent interest in political power, became imbedded in Gulf societies. The relationship, with occasional bumps in the road, slumbered along comfortably for decades. But when, in the wake of the Arab Spring, the Brotherhood in Egypt became more and more politically engaged and then took the momentous decision to run for elected office, growing unease gave way to near panic. In the UAE sweeping arrests of Islah members followed hard on the heels of Morsi's election triumph in June 2012. The Saudis, longtime allies of President Hosni Mubarak and already deeply annoyed with America's ambivalent response to the overthrow of the Mubarak dictatorship, were aghast to see the Qataris, with their hydrocarbon billions rush to fund a Brotherhood government. Meanwhile, Bahrain's ruling Al Khalifa family already had its hands full coping with the aftershocks of a popular uprising that had been ruthlessly crushed in 2011 with the help of Saudi and other GCC forces. The al Khalifas are Sunni Muslims in a country with an indigenous Shia majority population and most of the protesters calling for democratic reform are Shia. Unsurprisingly then, a key ally for the government in cracking down on dissent is the Sunni community and its Brotherhood members. And how important is that support? Rather tellingly, when a Bahraini Al Islah member, Salah Yafai, was arrested in the UAE in 2013, it was pressure from Bahrain's Muslim Brothers, highlighted in an article that I wrote for the BBC, that forced King Hamad to intervene with the UAE. Mr Yafai was released from a secret prison and repatriated to Bahrain less than 24 hours after the article was published. Compounding the awkward situation the al Khalifas find themselves in is the fact that two government ministers, Dr Fatima al Balooshi, the minister for Social Development and Dr Salah bin Ali Mohammed, the Human Rights minister, are said to be Muslim Brotherhood members. Other brotherhood members or supporters hold key positions in government and the Bahraini ambassador to Germany is also reputed to staunchly espouse the Ikhwan ideology. This is the organisation the Saudis - without whom the al Khalifas would be in serious difficulty - declared to be a terrorist group in March of this year. In the tense and febrile atmosphere of Bahrain with its ongoing protests in Shia villages, the government is treading uneasily with the issue of the Brotherhood. When it was reported, incorrectly, that the Foreign Minister had said in a recent press conference in Islamabad that the Brotherhood was not a terrorist organisation he was at great pains to clarify what had or had not been said. "I never said or mentioned that the Muslim Brotherhood was not a terrorist group," was how the minister, Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa put it, taking to his twitter account. And just to be perfectly clear he added: "Each country, while upholding the common stance vis-à-vis the Muslim Brotherhood, deals with its members according to their acts towards the state. This is what I said and meant at the media conference in Islamabad. It is very clear and it does not lend itself to any interpretation." So, as long as the brotherhood does not pose a threat in Bahrain, as it apparently does in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, there is something of a don't push us and we won't push you attitude, an unspoken understanding. As one observer in Manama wryly told me: "Al Menbar (the political wing of the brotherhood in Bahrain) has gone pretty quiet recently in criticising the government which is a shame in a way. They were doing some good work in parliament asking questions about corruption and the royal family." You can follow Bill Law on Twitter: @billlaw49
