Which countries explicitly prohibit Muslims from holding political office as of 2025?
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Executive summary
Available sources here do not list any countries that explicitly prohibit Muslims from holding political office; reporting and documents returned focus on travel bans and organisations (for example, bans on the Muslim Brotherhood) rather than laws barring Muslims from office (not found in current reporting) [1] [2] [3] [4]. Most cited material concerns U.S. travel restrictions targeting nationals from certain majority‑Muslim countries and bans on Islamist organisations in various states [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. No direct evidence in these sources of bans on Muslims holding office
None of the provided search results describes a law that explicitly bars Muslims from serving in political office. The documents and news items in the packet discuss travel bans affecting nationals of certain majority‑Muslim countries, expanded visa restrictions, and governmental designations of the Muslim Brotherhood as a banned organisation — but they do not report any nation-state statute that says “a person who is Muslim may not hold public office” [1] [2] [3] [4]. In short, available sources do not mention any country explicitly prohibiting Muslims from holding political office [1] [2] [3] [4].
2. What the sources do document: travel bans and national‑security restrictions
The bulk of these search results covers U.S. executive orders and subsequent iterations of travel restrictions that critics labeled or described as targeting Muslims. Wikipedia and advocacy summaries outline Trump-era bans on travel from several majority‑Muslim countries and later expansions or revisions; these measures restrict entry and visa issuance, not eligibility for political office [1] [2] [5] [6]. News analysis in 2025 also reports a new U.S. travel‑restriction package affecting a broader set of countries, again framed as immigration and national‑security policy rather than a ban on Muslims holding office [2] [4].
3. Bans on Islamist organisations are not the same as banning individual Muslims from office
One source lists countries that have outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood — including Egypt, Libya, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — which is an organisational designation, typically tied to national security or anti‑terror laws [3]. Designating an organisation as terrorist or banning an organisation is different from a constitutional or statutory rule that disqualifies an individual from public office solely because they are Muslim. The provided reporting does not say these countries disqualify individual Muslims from holding political office because of their faith [3].
4. Why readers might conflate these issues — and where the sources show bias or political framing
Several sources explicitly note that critics labeled U.S. travel restrictions a “Muslim ban” because many targeted countries have Muslim majorities and because of prior political rhetoric [1] [2] [7]. Advocacy groups and civil‑rights organisations frame these policies as discriminatory; legal advocates highlighted court challenges and constitutional concerns [5] [6] [7]. Meanwhile, government spokespeople framed later orders as based on security and data deficiencies, not religion — a competing narrative visible in the BBC and Reuters summaries of the 2025 actions [2] [4]. Those competing framings can lead readers to conflate travel/organisation bans with direct bans on Muslims holding domestic political office.
5. Limitations of the available reporting and recommended next steps
The packet is narrowly focused on U.S. travel bans, expanded country lists, and the banning of particular Islamist groups; it lacks any comparative legal survey of constitutions, electoral laws, or court rulings in other countries about religious fitness for office (available sources do not mention such legal prohibitions). To answer the original question definitively, one needs a global review of constitutional texts, electoral laws and court decisions or credible human‑rights reports compiled after 2024. I recommend consulting primary national legal codes, international‑law databases, and reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, or the UN Special Rapporteur for an authoritative list.
6. Bottom line
Based on the provided sources, no country is documented here as explicitly forbidding Muslims from holding political office; the materials instead document travel restrictions and organisational bans often criticized as anti‑Muslim [1] [2] [3] [4]. For a definitive, up‑to‑date answer across all countries, supplementary legal research and sources beyond this packet are required (available sources do not mention a global list of such prohibitions).