During a visit to the Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul — a site that functioned as a museum until its reconversion in 2020 — Turkish President Erdoğan raised his right hand in a gesture instantly recognizable across the Middle East: four fingers extended, thumb tucked against the palm.
This is the **Rabaa sign** (رابعة), the symbol of the Muslim Brotherhood. It emerged in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in August 2013, after security forces killed demonstrators who were protesting in support of Mohamed Morsi, the Brotherhood-aligned Egyptian president who had been removed from power.
In a single gesture, Erdoğan made his position unmistakably clear: *the Muslim Brotherhood is my ideological home*.
But this also raises a broader question about the United States and the Muslim Brotherhood. It is troubling that President Donald Trump did not explicitly call out Turkey and Qatar — two of the movement’s most active and committed supporters.