**1. Introduction**

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, certain countries in the region tried to manage the course of events in their bid to become regional superpowers. This has been especially true for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, like Qatar or the United Arab Emirates, which is the country under question in this study (Young 2013).

Since their foundation in 1971, the Emirates have been a typical 'rentier state' (Issawi [1982] 2006, pp. 198–202; Noreng 2004, pp. 9–38) that uses its enormous resources as a means to legitimize the power sharing of several confederated dynasties; the most important among them being al-Nahyan and al-Maktoum dynasty, who govern Abu Dhabi and Dubai and hold the posts of presidency and premiership respectively (Foley 2002, pp. 38–40). The UAE were ranked, as of 2017, the 13th richest nation globally, holding the seventh and the sixth largest oil and natural gas reserves in the world (CIA The World Factbook 2017). Steps have been taken, though, to diversify the oil- and gas-dependent economy (Eno et al. 2016, pp. 102–4).

Regarding the monarchy's foreign relations, the excessive accumulation of wealth was manifested in active donor diplomacy. Billions of dollars have been paid so far in disbursements mainly to Africa, Afghanistan, the Arab countries and, to a lesser extent, the Americas, Europe and Oceania (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development 1971–2018). It is worth mentioning that for the years 2013–2014, the monarchy was the world's biggest donor of foreign aid, allocating 1.26 percent of its gross national income to o fficial developmental aid (Embassy of the United Arab Emirates 2019a).

Nevertheless, donations are not the sole factor in shaping Emirati regional policies. In recent years, the country asserted a more aggressive, 'hard power' diplomacy that culminated in military interventions in a number of fronts, such as Bahrain, Syria, Libya and Yemen; still, regional hegemony cannot be sustained without the credibility of 'soft power' (Nye 2005). Until 2013, divergent priorities and security concerns over the political future of the Arab countries under transition, i.e., the role of the decades-old Islamist movements (Stein and Volpi 2015, pp. 286–88; Schwedler 2013, pp. 14–15), were crystallized into the emergence of two rival camps: the Saudi–Emirati axis and that of Qatar, Turkey and the transnational Muslim Brotherhood (Bianco and Stansfield 2018, pp. 625–27). In this regard, post-Mohammad Morsi Egypt received 52 percent of the Emirates' total foreign aid budget for 2014 (MEE and Agencies 2015), against the backdrop of Abu Dhabi's public diplomacy initiatives, such as the so-called 'moderate Islam' campaign (Cafiero 2019).

Therefore, this essay intends to examine the utilization of Islam in the midst of Emirati regional adventurism and generous aid policies towards countries facing the threat of Political Islam or recovering from it. The study aims to show that promoting 'moderate Islam' far exceeds the scope of cultural/religious diplomacy; it is rather a by-product, of this small power's geopolitical transformation into an international actor that aspires to lead the Arab world (Carvalho-Pinto 2014, pp. 238–41). Setting money and coercive policies aside, the ultimate goal of this strategy is to create 'soft power', ye<sup>t</sup> without sacrificing 'sharp power' tactics that stem from the fear of the Muslim Brotherhood.

As suggested, Abu Dhabi's campaign has three audiences; firstly, at a global level, by improving the image of Islam through public diplomacy, the country's rulers actually attempt to optimize their own image vis-à-vis several Western nations, notably amid their war in Yemen (2015–2019) (Al-Azami 2018). Secondly, at a regional level, the UAE fervently seek to discredit the Islamists, by accusing them of distorting 'true Islam'. Thirdly, domestically, the monarchy increases its immunity against demands for political reform.
