Governor Greg Abbott of Texas on Tuesday signed a declaration designating Muslim Brotherhood and Council on American-Islamic Relations as terrorist organisations.

“Today, I designated the Muslim Brotherhood and Council on American-Islamic Relations as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations,” Mr Abbott said on X.

“This bans them from buying or acquiring land in Texas and authorizes the Attorney General to sue to shut them down,” he added.

Mr Abbott shared the declaration document designating the Muslim Brotherhood and Council on American-Islamic Relations as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations.

The declaration document cited Muslim Brotherhood founder’s ideology that jihad aimed at conquering and oppressing people of other faiths amongst others factors responsible for its declaration as a terrorist organisation.

“Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood almost 100 years ago, professed that “Jihad is an obligation from Allah on every Muslim and cannot be ignored nor evaded and that Jihad means “the fighting of the unbelievers, and involves all possible efforts that are necessary to dismantle the power of the enemies of Islam including beating them, plundering their wealth, destroying their places of worship and smashing their idols,” the document read.

It added, “activities of Muslim Brotherhood branches have similarly been limited or prohibited by the governments of Austria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates in light of the Muslim Brotherhood engaging in terrorism or attempting to destabilize those countries.”

According to the document, Hamas, which was formed in 1987 as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and designated by the United States government as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, kidnapped and murdered American citizens in its surprise assault against Israel on October 7, 2023.

In September, Mr Abbott announced that Sharia law has been banned in Texas.