Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, facing a difficult election on May 14, announced on April 30 that Turkish intelligence had killed Abu Hussein al-Quraishi — the latest self-styled “Islamic State Caliph” — in Afrin, a Syrian territory under the control of the Turkish military and its proxy Free Syrian Army fighters. 

Why would Erdogan, known for a Muslim Brotherhood-inspired agenda mixed with Turkish nationalism, decide to display such window dressing, which broke with his long-standing leniency toward jihadi groups? Mainly because political Islam has become a liability in the Middle East and North Africa as a whole. In the Turkish case, distancing himself from Islamist radicals is targeting a cluster of centrist voters alienated by his mixed record.

The incident is only the latest case of MENA powers distancing themselves from political Islam. Tunisian President Kais Saied's authoritarian regime jailed Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the Ennahda party, which had been a key player since the 2011 Arab Spring. Reactions were scarce, and the president believes that the move might boost his own authoritarian legitimacy with the support of the secularist middle classes. 

In neighboring Algeria and Morocco, Islamist parties have also been ousted from office. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s rule in Egypt was built from its inception on crushing the Muslim Brotherhood. And, most importantly, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to power since 2017 sapped the funding of political Islam worldwide and eliminated its political language from the kingdom. The puritanical brand of Islamism has gradually been erased from the public square in today’s Saudi Arabia, where concerts, film festivals and tourism thrive while female segregation comes to an end.