This paper studies the global Mittag–Leffler stability and stabilization analysis of fractional-order quaternion-valued memristive neural networks (FOQVMNNs). The state feedback stabilizing control law is designed in order to stabilize the considered problem. Based on the non-commutativity of quaternion multiplication, the original fractional-order quaternion-valued systems is divided into four fractional-order real-valued systems. By using the method of Lyapunov fractional-order derivative, fractional-order differential inclusions, set-valued maps, several global Mittag–Leffler stability and stabilization conditions of considered FOQVMNNs are established. Two numerical examples are provided to illustrate the usefulness of our analytical results.