Latest Updates: hizb-ut-tahrir RSS

  • johnpi 11:57 am on December 20, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , hizb-ut-tahrir, , ,

    Watching the anti-Muslim, Islamophobic, ‘counter-Jihadi’ blogosphere spread the news that Hizb ut-Tahrir’s American branch is holding a meeting today in Chicago is a case study in how the right-wing echo chamber works, albeit at a lower level where it probably won’t rise into the mainstream media.

    I followed links across four fearmongering blogs before I came to the original source for the info (I was unaware HuT had an active American website).

    Just because HuT has antagonists in common with all Muslims doesn’t mean HuT has much of anything in common with the Muslim mainstream. The seminar this evening will be about events in Pakistan, where it appears HuT will be trafficking in the same absurb, wild conspiracy theories and fantasies that tinfoil-hat-wearing Pakistani right-wingers do.

    It has become very clear that the one responsible for these explosions and the killings of innocent people is the Pakistani government, regardless of who actually committed these horrendous acts, whether or not they were private contractors (e.g.’ Blackwater) or someone else. For example the government knew about the explosion that was to take place at the military headquarter in Rawalpindi since July 2009, and instead of stopping it, the government let it happen to advance its own agenda, and used the attack on its military headquarters as a reason to justify the war as a necessity to establish security in the region.

    Yes, that’s right. The Pakistani military elite allowed a couple of their top generals along with a crowd of their own children and relatives to be massacred to better serve the agenda of their evil Western overlords. What a farce. Hizb ut-Tahrir is functioning at a level of credibility that’s about comparable to Lyndon LaRouche.

     
  • johnpi 9:08 am on December 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, , , , , , tribal elders

    Remote-controlled roadside bomb kills two tribal elders in Bajur, Pakistan

    Militants have tried to weaken the long-standing tribal leadership structure in the northwest, killing scores of elders so they could impose their own reign.

    The roadside bomb that killed two elders Sunday in the Bajur tribal region also left two other tribesmen wounded, local government official Jamil Khan said. The two dead elders were on foot, leaving a mosque in the Malangi area after prayers.

    Meanwhile, over at the Hizb ut-Tahrir website, the Blackwater conspiracy theory is being perpetuated:

    …in order to incite Pakistan’s armed forces to fight in Waziristan, America employed lowly tactics to discredit the Muslim resistance. US private military organizations, that supervised explosions and assassinations in Iraq and Afghanistan, now undertake their activities in Pakistan. And US intelligence has infiltrated some elements of the loosely gathered Taleban fighters, enticing some of them to turn their weapons away from the crusader occupying forces and onto their Muslim brothers in the armed forces.

    Yet, America’s campaign of explosions and assassinations would never have been possible, if it were not for Zardari’s regime.

    Riiiight. So wiping out the local tribal elders that are an alternative source of guidance and leadership to the Taliban is also a clever American plot?

     
  • johnpi 10:16 am on November 20, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , hizb-ut-tahrir, , , , ,

    Inayat Bunglawala says the Nidal Hasan attack and Hasan’s relationship with Anwar al-Awlaki are being used to press a new ‘witch-hunt’ against UK Islamic organizations and Muslim leaders.

    …it should be made clear that those same Muslim organizations that had in the past invited Al-Awlaki to the UK are horrified by his more recent extremism and are well aware of the damaging impact his views could now have on British Muslims. Following Al-Awlaki’s praise for the Fort Hood suspect, some of these UK Muslim organizations (including the Islamic Society of Britain and the Jam`iat Ihyaa’ Minhaaj Al-Sunnah) issued public statements disavowing his latest comments.

    However, this was not enough for the new McCarthyists. A group of them — including the Centre for Social Cohesion (whose director, Douglas Murray, advocated in 2006 that “conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board”), Shiraz Maher from Policy Exchange, and the pro-Israel blog Harry’s Place — have not been slow in seeking to smear those Islamic organizations that had invited Al-Awlaki to the UK in the past.

    These new McCarthyists must be firmly resisted.

    Former Hizb ut-Tahrir member-turned-anti-’Islamism’ activist Shiraz Maher responds here.

     
  • johnpi 8:11 am on November 10, 2009 | 5 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hizb-ut-tahrir, , , ,

    In case you haven’t read it before, Maajid Nawaz, the director and co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation is telling his story in a Malaysian newspaper about being radicalized into Hizb ut-Tahrir, and then leaving the group. I guess it’s part of his job description to tell this story because I keep seeing it again and again. He also has some commentary on Islamism and Islamists.

    Islamism is a modern ideology masquerading as an ancient religion. As such, it shares a common trait with many other constructed ideologies. This trait is its fundamental, theoretical justification for change regardless of circumstances. Ideologies do not merely provide “solutions” to perceived problems; they provide a framework within which to define problems in the first place.

    By doing this, they effectively “discover” problems where there may be none, and can act as an obstacle to solving other problems when the solution doesn’t fit certain dogma. Islamism is formed by superimposing certain western political paradigms onto the religion of Islam. The absence of such modern Islamist notions in Muslim political systems and society is subsequently equated to the absence of Islam itself. Whatever institutions are found in place are subsequently described as Kufr (disbelief), which must be overthrown as a religious obligation.

    A bit of back history: At Talk Islam, the Quilliam Foundation has been blasted with disdain and criticism by my fellow frontpagers Thabet and Plimfix. Maajid Nawaz’s cofounder, Ed Hussain, has been especially criticized. Quilliam has been accused of being “neoconservative,” ‘money grubbing,’ “idiot” and “stupid” (about Ed Hussain), and lambasted for being written about favorably by otherwise Islamophobic pundits like ‘Mad Mel’ (who turned around and villified the Quilliam Foundation when it criticized the Gaza massacre).

     
  • johnpi 9:50 pm on November 8, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hizb-ut-tahrir, , , , , , , , , ,

    Seymour Hersh, who won the Pulitzer prize for exposing the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, writes in The New Yorker that the greatest fear about Pakistani nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists comes not from the Taliban but from the likelihood of a mutiny in the Pakistani military by Islamic extremist officers.

    The success of the latest attacks raised an obvious question: Are the bombs safe? Asked this question the day after the Rawalpindi raid, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “We have confidence in the Pakistani government and the military’s control over nuclear weapons.” Clinton—whose own visit to Pakistan, two weeks later, would be disrupted by more terrorist bombs—added that, despite the attacks by the Taliban, “we see no evidence that they are going to take over the state.”

    Clinton’s words sounded reassuring, and several current and former officials also said in interviews that the Pakistan Army was in full control of the nuclear arsenal. But the Taliban overrunning Islamabad is not the only, or even the greatest, concern. The principal fear is mutiny—that extremists inside the Pakistani military might stage a coup, take control of some nuclear assets, or even divert a warhead.

    No conversation about such a mutiny is complete without a discussion of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and despite the dismissive approach of some of my fellow TI front-pagers, the US government is worried enough about the group that it has been discussed at top levels of the Obama administration.

    A senior Obama Administration official brought up Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a Sunni organization whose goal is to establish the Caliphate. “They’ve penetrated the Pakistani military and now have cells in the Army,” he said. (The Pakistan Army denies this.) In one case, according to the official, Hizb ut-Tahrir had recruited members of a junior officer group, from the most élite Pakistani military academy, who had been sent to England for additional training.

    “Where do these guys get socialized and exposed to Islamic evangelism and the fundamentalism narrative?” the Obama Administration official asked. “In services every Friday for Army officers, and at corps and unit meetings where they are addressed by senior commanders and clerics.”

    For more about Hizb-ut-Tahrir, check the history of posts on the group here at Talk Islam.

     
  • johnpi 9:25 am on November 1, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, , , Ukraine

    Earlier, I linked a press release from the Russian Interfax News that asserted that 90 percent of the Crimean Tatars are members of an extremist Islamic organization” (Hizb ut Tahrir). This recent article from the NY Times about the struggle to build a large mosque in the Crimean capital puts that piece of propaganda in perspective.

    The Crimean Tatars were deported en masse by Stalin to work camps and gulags in other areas of the Soviet Union, where many died. Since the USSR collapse the Tatars have been immigrating back to Crimea in large numbers.

    The mosque was supposed to signify the revival of those expelled, the Crimean Tatars, a Turkic ethnic group that suffered as wretched a fate as any under Communism. But with work held up by local authorities, the plan has instead stirred up a dispute involving politics, communal grievances, international tensions and historic traumas.
    ….

    The Tatars’ return has repeatedly touched off legal clashes over restitution of land and property, much of which is now owned by ethnic Russians. Some have turned violent.

    The situation is complicated by the political status of Crimea, which would generally prefer to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. Crimea was transferred by Nikita S. Khrushchev, then the Soviet leader, to Ukraine in 1954, a move then thought to be a formality, since it remained in the Soviet Union and was populated mostly by ethnic Russians.

    Tatars have better ties with the Ukrainian government, and are often seen by ethnic Russian nationalists in Crimea as Kiev’s proxies. The three sides jockey for power on the peninsula, and the mosque has been one focal point.

    Tatar leaders maintain that the mosque is being blocked in part to stoke anti-Muslim and anti-Ukrainian sentiment, especially in advance of presidential elections in Ukraine, scheduled for January.

     
  • johnpi 8:43 am on October 30, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, , , , Tatarstan

    Same planet, different world.

    Russian press release: ‘11 members of Hizb ut-Tahrir extremist organization convicted in Tatarstan.’

    The Supreme Court of Tatarstan found 12 activists of the Kazan division of the international terrorist organization Islamic Liberation Party (Hizb ut-Tahrir) guilty of extremism.

    “Seven men, including Tajik citizen Dzhurayev and six Russians, have received four to eight years in a penal colony,” court press secretary Natalya Loseva told Interfax.

    Four other Kazan residents have received suspended sentences of three years and six months to five years in prison.

    “The accomplice Gimaliyev was found insane and is exempt from criminal liability. He will be forcibly treated,” Loseva said.

    “Forcibly treated.” Horrible.

    In another press release about extremist influence, the Russians claim that the number of followers of the Hizb ut-Tahrir movement among Crimean Muslims has jumped from 800-900 to 30,000, “including 90 percent of Tatars from Alushta.”

     
  • johnpi 8:56 am on October 28, 2009 | 12 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, , ,

    AltMuslim has more commentary and perspective on Hizb ut-Tahrir in the wake of the group’s interview with Obama’s Muslim policy advisor, Dalia Mogahed, on a UK talk show called Muslimah Dilemma.

    Mogahed expresses her anger about her treatment here.

    Rather than read more commentary about the incident, why not watch the Youtube clip of the show here and form your own impressions.

    I watched the show and did not find the Hizb ut Tahrir hosts to be nearly the cartoon bad guys Mogahed’s recollection of the experience led me to believe – though I did find Nazreen Nawaz’s (HT rep) narrative about current problems in Muslim majority countries to be evasive, and the vision of the problem-free life of the Caliphate unbelievable. Basically, every controversial incident in Muslim majority countries is a result of not following Shariah. All the self-identified Islamists whose understanding of Sharia has devolved into aggression, harsh punishment and repression of women are just wayward in their understanding of shariah. But the Caliphate is going to get everything right…

    She says Shariah comes directly from Allah (swt) as a way of explaining that you can’t go wrong with Shariah – problem is, the Shariah is being delivered and implemented by imperfect humans who are as at risk of being influenced by racism, classism, tribalism, greed, corruption, sexism, etc as any other human – but that part of the Shariah equation is elided, as so much else is in her comments.

    Removed to the plain of equivalency with other human-administered systems of justice, in example after example it seems too swift, too certain, too unrecoverable and brutal in its punishments (your amputated hands and feet will mark you with your crime for life), and too little interested in the redemption of those it punishes. In a religion that is thick with reminders (ritual) to return to God, it seems discordant to say that the ideal Islamic society removes that option from people by way of capital punishment.

     
  • johnpi 10:08 pm on October 26, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, , , , , , ,

    Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz rather dramatically recounts his journey to Pakistan as a young Hizb-ut-Tahrir activist to set up an indigenous branch there in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn.

    …it is important to remember that the seeds of this current malaise were sown much earlier than today — I know this because I am living testimony to it.
    ….

    The news of this ‘Islamic [nuclear] bomb’ was what drew me from Britain to Lahore in the summer of 1999, not yet 22 years old. Spurred on by revolutionary zeal and dreams of erecting an Islamist caliphate, I arrived as part of a vanguard to set up a Pakistani branch of the global Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir (HT). The plan was to radicalise the country and foment a military coup against the democratically elected ‘client’ ruler Nawaz Sharif, so that our future caliphate could go nuclear. I was determined not to let anything get in my way, and nothing really did.

    In the current climate of “hyper-paranoia” about extremist violence in Pakistan, this article is inflammatory in the extreme against HT.

     
  • johnpi 6:00 pm on October 24, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, , , ,

    Dalia Mogahed, Obama’s Muslim policy advisor, is angry about her treatment at the hands of Hizb ut Tahrir propagandists on a UK television show – as angry as she is at US conservatives who twist what she says to form an equally dishonest, distorted, ideological view of Islam.

    The HT representative on the program dismissed or “reinterpreted” findings I presented so as to not challenge the group’s simplistic utopian ideology which holds liberty in contempt as morally decadent. For example, as I regularly report, our research shows that far from denouncing democracy, Muslims around the world say it is among the things they most admire about the West, specifically mentioning “liberty” as a desirable attribute. Around the world, from Morocco to Malaysia, Muslim respondents described their respect for much of what the West holds dear: freedom of the press, the rule of law, and transparency and accountability of government.

    As much as HT selectively ignored and exploited these findings to push their propaganda, many conservative pundits who diametrically oppose HT’s vision of the world, did much the same. To them, my crime was that I reported that many Muslim women wanted sharia as a source of legislation. I also explained that Muslim women surveyed by Gallup said they believed they should have access to equal legal rights, free employment, voting without family influence, and even leadership positions in government. This suggests that many Muslim women see Sharia differently from those who use it to deny women rights. For simply stating results of survey research, I stood accused of “endorsing” Taliban-like rule, and downplaying the abuses done in the name of sharia.

     
  • johnpi 6:29 am on October 24, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , hizb-ut-tahrir, , ,

    Dalia Mogahed: Hizb ut Tahrir talk show producers ‘misled us to score propaganda points.’

    (More …)

     
  • johnpi 3:35 pm on October 22, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir

    Bangladesh bans Islamic group Hizb ut Tahrir.

    Bangladesh banned a controversial Muslim group Thursday for “destabilising” the country, the government said, a day after a bomb attack targeted a ruling party lawmaker related to the prime minister.

    Home Minister Sahara Khatun told AFP that Hizb ut Tahrir Bangladesh has been banned for “unleashing destructive activities” and work that goes against the “laws of the land”.

    “We took the decision after reports from our intelligence agencies. They are found (to be) destabilising the country,” she said.

    Hizb ut Tahrir is a pan-Islamist group whose goal is to establish a global Islamic caliphate. They have been banned in a number of countries, mainly in Central Asia and the Middle East.

    Hizb ut Tahrir’s Bangladesh coordinator and spokesman Mohiuddin Ahmed said the allegation against his organisation was “completely baseless”.

     
  • johnpi 5:18 pm on October 20, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , hizb-ut-tahrir, , , ,

    One of Pakistan’s responses to the urban terrorist attacks in its borders has been to raid a Hizb ut-Tahrir ’seminar’ that was being held in Islamabad to, as a HuT spokesman described, “mobilize people against the American raj and Waziristan operations.”

    …police arrested dozens of suspected members of the outlawed Sunni Islamist Hizb-ut-Tahrir organisation following raids in an upscale neighbourhood of Islamabad.

    “Hizb-ut-Tahrir is a peaceful political party which was holding a seminar at a residence to condemn the South Waziristan operation. We will continue to make our protest,” the group’s chief spokesman, Tehrir Naveed Butt, said in a statement.

    Over at HuT’s website, the full Youtube statement by the group’s spokesman has been posted in English.

    Interestingly, Hut’s website also has an announcement that a nuclear scientist was among those arrested. His name is Rizwan Aleem, and he is a PhD candidate at the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (GIKI). I’ve blogged a few times about this illustrious learning institution when the Taliban were about to take over the district where it is located in the Northwest Frontier Province, and made some predictions about how campus life would change, the institution’s reputation would be affected, and how donations might drop off.

    Given HuT’s approving comments about al Shabaab-style shariah, Aleem must have disapproved of the campus life (gender mixing) that others seemed so proud to have posted pictures of on GIKI’s Facebook page. Anyway, Aleem’s future is in doubt now: “Sources say the Hizbut Tahrir activists were likely to be handed over to intelligence agencies for further interrogation.”

     
  • johnpi 10:01 pm on October 9, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, , ,

    An interview with Osman Bakhach, a deputy chairman of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Lebanon. The reporter is Mahan Abedin.

    MA: But surely you can’t deny the fact that the Americans wish nothing but ill-will towards Hezbollah. They would like nothing better than to see the group disarmed and, better still, disbanded altogether.

    OB: The Americans will have no problem in disarming Hezbollah when the group’s mission expires. For now and until further notice, Hezbollah is a useful instrument in the hands of the Iranian and Syrian regimes and ultimately the Americans’ requirement to balance Israeli hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East.

    If a lethal high-tech, spare-no-expense modern military could disarm Hezbollah, the Israelis would have already done so. I was also surprised to see the assertion – one that had not occurred to me – that America is seeking ‘balance’ and perhaps containment of Israel, rather than being assumed complicit in expansionist Israeli projects.

    (More …)

     
  • johnpi 10:08 pm on October 8, 2009 | 10 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, ,

    President Barack Obama’s adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir to discuss Shariah.

    Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was “oversimplified” and the majority of women around the world associate it with “gender justice”.

    The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.
    ….

    Mogahed: “I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media. The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance. The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases.”

    Sharia in its broadest sense is a religious code for living, which decrees such matters as fasting and dressing modestly. However, it has also been interpreted as requiring the separation of men and women.

    It also includes the controversial “Hadd offences”, crimes with specific penalties set by the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Mohammed. These include death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality and the removal of a hand for theft.

    Miss Mogahed admitted that even many Muslims associated Sharia with “maximum criminal punishments” and “laws that… to many people seem unequal to women,” but added: “Part of the reason that there is this perception of Sharia is because Sharia is not well understood and Islam as a faith is not well understood.”

    The video of the broadcast has now been prominently posted on the front page of Hizb ut Tahrir’s website.

     
  • johnpi 8:42 pm on October 8, 2009 | 11 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, ,

    A group called United States National Militia Soldiers For Freedom posted a Youtube video Oct. 5th announcing that Obama and his associates should “leave” by October 15th, or else “we, the People’ will systematically dismantle you, destroy you and reclaim what is rightfully ours.…” The group asks its “Patriots” to be ready for “the declaration of war.”

    The video has since been removed from Youtube – but there is another reading of a manifesto by the same person who ‘delivered’ the Oct. 5th threat. I was struck by how the group’s ideas resemble Hizb ut-Tahrir’s, as described by AN here:

    I think HT’s question for you (and for me!) is what are the methods available to change governments in non-democratic societies first and foremost and even in democratic societies how does one bring about revolutionary change since they are advocating an entirely different system which is not something you can accomplish through electoral processes even in a ‘democracy.’

    Compared to:

    As time has gone on the thoughts and practical life of our people have been led astray into ways that are unnatural to them and injurious. One of the causes which brought about this condition of affairs must be attributed to the fact that the structure of our elected leadership and their methods of government are damning to our own national character, our historical development and our national needs. It is out of the question to think that such a revolutionary reconstruction could be carried out by those who are the custodians and the more or less responsible representatives our current elected leadership, or by the political organizations founded under the old form of government.

    Throughout, the perspective and the complaints of the militia group mimic Hizb ut-Tahrir’s (substitute “Islamic character” for “national character”). Sherrie Lea Laird is one religious epiphany away from Hizb ut-Tahrir activism.

     
  • johnpi 2:59 pm on October 6, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , hizb-ut-tahrir, ,

    The west African nation of Guinea, 85 percent Muslim, saw a savage attack on an opposition demonstration at a stadium where nearly 50,000 had gathered to protest the military government. Rape by groups of soldiers figured prominently in the violence.

    157 were reported slain by the military,

    But even more than the shootings, the attacks on women — horrific anywhere, but viewed with particular revulsion in Muslim countries like this one — appear to have traumatized the citizenry and hardened the opposition’s determination to force out the leader of the military junta, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara.
    ….

    Rape is a fairly common tool of military repression in Africa, but large-scale violence against women has not been a previous government tactic here. “This time, a new stage has been reached,” said Sidya Touré, a former prime minister who was also beaten at the stadium and said he had witnessed brutalities there. “Women as battlefield targets. We could never have imagined that.”

    “Where could people get the idea to start raping women in broad daylight?” Mr. Touré asked, in an interview at his home here. “It’s so contrary to our culture.”

    Opposition leaders are asking for a “force of intervention to protect us from the ferocity of the Guinean Army.”

    I personally remain distracted by the idea of a Muslim group like Hizb ut-Tahrir seeking to bring military governments into power in Muslims nations when these kinds of governments have a long track record of coercive debauch.

     
  • johnpi 3:27 pm on September 17, 2009 | 30 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hizb-ut-tahrir

    In an earlier thread on the Hizb ut-Tahrir, I linked to a book by African journalist and author Baba Jallow called “Angry Laughter.” Hizb ut-Tahrir, you may recall, seeks to regenerate a caliphate by causing Muslim soldiers to overthrow the civilian leaders of Muslim majority nations, whose sovereignty would later be offered up for assimulation to a caliph.

    Jallow writes vividly and with what seems like personal and particular experience of the inevitable decline that follows the military takeover of a civilian government. Jallow grew up in Gambia and obtained his college degree in Sierra Leone – both countries that have experienced repeated millitary coups. His book is an allegory that unfolds in the milleux of a forest full of animals and from the perspective of various animals.

    Soon enough, the animals of Smiling Forest were forced to accept the cruel reality that what they had seen as a hopeful revolution, the dawn of a new era of liberty, truth and plenty, was just another seizure of power by an irresponsible bunch of armed foxes [soldiers], led by another mad fox. It was just another abduction and monopolization of the animals’ birthrights. The myth of foxes with a difference ["This military government will be different!"] was a cruel hoax and a fraud, no longer uttered even by Loony himself.

    The animals realized that what had befallen other forests of the bleeding continent of the black animals had befallen their dear Smiling Forest. They realized that the next logical step in the sequence, as is always the case in all faked revolutions, would be the arrogant assumption of infallibility by the self-imposed savior, the total criminalization of speech and dissent, brutal repression, political assassinations, disappearances, a litany of treason allegations ["Apostasy!"] and unfair trials of perceived opponents of the glorious revolution; the raping and bastardization of justice, the institutionalization of unbridled corruption, blatant nepotism and self-righteous mediocrity of the highest order strutting proudly around as ideals of knowledge and wisdom, paragons of truth and virtue!

    I also thought of this excerpt when I read this over at The Granada Blog:

    (More …)

     
  • buzz 2:06 pm on August 11, 2009 | 42 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , hizb-ut-tahrir, , , Utopian Ideologies

    I viewed some of the Hizb ut Tahrir America teleconference and videos yesterday.  And I had a few reactions I wanted to share.

    (More …)

     
  • abunoor 10:13 am on August 10, 2009 | 6 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hizb-ut-tahrir, khilafah

    In a follow up to their July 19, 2009 Khilafah Conference which was discussed here on TalkIslam,
    Hizb ut Tahrir America is holding an online webinar and followup Q & A Session tonight August 10, 2009 at 8:30 P.M. Central Time. Visit the website for information on how to participate.
    By the way, for John who seems to have an interest in understanding the group and who has raised several concerns about it here on TI, or for anyone else, I can connect you with a spokesperson for the group if you are interested in doing a blog interview in which you could raise your questions and/or concerns. Members of the group have indicated that they are interested in engaging with the Muslim community about these issues. As I stated previously here on TI, in my opinion open and honest dialogue is in the best interest of everybody.

     
  • buzz 1:03 pm on August 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, , ,

    hizbHizb ut Tahrir and 24 other extremist muslim organizations are now banned in Pakistan. Surprise! Al-Qaeda also made the list.

     
  • johnpi 7:21 pm on August 5, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir

    Add another one to the list of countries where Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned. Thirty people were arrested last month in Afghanistan for being suspected members of the group, according to one of its English-language websites.

    The Afghan government cracked down after the group announced that it was haram to participate in that country’s upcoming elections, according to HT’s website. It also says that most of the people arrested weren’t members, just Muslims “with Islamic emotions.”

    I couldn’t find any reports about this from the Afghan government’s point of view – though I did find a one-sentence report on the Israeli intelligence front group MEMRI’s website posted a few hours ago:

    The Afghan branch of the British Islamist organization Hizb-ut-Tahrir has threatened to disrupt the forthcoming presidential and provincial council elections in Afghanistan, according to an Afghan daily…

    In order to see the full MEMRI report, you have to be a subscriber to MEMRI, which I am not.

     
  • johnpi 1:49 pm on July 31, 2009 | 5 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, , , , ,

    America’s ‘cultural apocalypse’ is nigh.

    Chris Hedges writes about the devolution of American culture into a state of childishness and fantasy. There are contemporary movements arising from other cultures that are similarly afflicted, which indicates devolution is underway elsewhere as well…

    The lonely Cassandras who speak the truth about our misguided imperial wars, the global economic meltdown and the imminent danger of multiple pollutions that are destroying the eco-system that sustains the human species, are drowned out by arenas full of fans chanting “Slut! Slut! Slut!” or television audiences chanting “Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!” The worse reality becomes, the less a beleaguered population wants to hear about it and the more it distracts itself with squalid pseudo-events of celebrity breakdowns, gossip and trivia.

    A culture that cannot distinguish between reality and illusion dies. And we are dying now. We will wake from our state of induced childishness, one where trivia and gossip pass for news and information, one where our goal is not justice by an elusive and unattainable happiness, to confront the stark limitations before us or we will continue our headlong retreat into fantasy. Those who do not grow up in times of despair and turmoil inevitably turn to demagogues and charlatans to entertain and reassure them. And these demagogues, as they have throughout history, lead the crowd, blinded and amused, towards despotism.

    Hizb ut-Tahrir has now appeared in America (“ignorant fantasists” as Thabet called them), espousing the view that military governments will make everything better (and military governments are great saviors, never corrupt and despotic…). And I’m still waiting for brother Mu’adh to return and explain to me the difference between offensive jihad and imperialism…

     
  • johnpi 9:52 pm on July 27, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hizb-ut-tahrir

    More on the Hizb ut-Tahrir.

    HT’s political philosophy is as counterproductive as its public actions. It claims that voting and civic participation is “haram,” or forbidden. How are Muslims supposed to fulfill their God-given obligation to improve the earth and society around them? HT’s answer is to separate from the kufr, or “infidel,” society. Separation and segregation will help no one, neither Muslims nor their non-Muslim neighbors, friends, and co-workers, who need more, not less, interaction with their Muslim compatriots. Moreover, I find it horribly ungrateful that HT would issue unending criticisms of Western society as “evil and decadent,” yet continue to enjoy the freedom said “evil and decadent” society accords them. If the West is so bad, why not leave?

    Reminds me of this excerpt from a humorous list of approved topics for Muslim bloggers from Sunni Sister:

    - Our corrupt, terrible society. Note: This can be about either the Western country you live in or any Muslim country. Double points if it is about both.

    - The oppression we live with living in the richest, most affluent, free societies in the world.

    - How it is totally wrong, or at least marginally dubious, for us to live in these terrible societies, but there is no way in hell we’re actually going to move to a Muslim country for more than a year or two because we’re not suckers! Cuz dude, those Muslim countries are hellholes, and we happen to like having indoor plumbing.

     
  • johnpi 5:40 am on July 22, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hizb-ut-tahrir, ,

    From Hizb ut-Tahrir’s online English newspaper, The Khilafah:

    Since then, fighting has continued between the current “transitional federal government” led by Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and “Al-Shabab” who are fighting to restore Islamic rule in Somalia. In response, to the continued pressure from the Muslims, the US has sent weapons to the weakening Sharif’s regime to thwart a takeover by those Muslims that seek to rule by what Allah سبحانه وتعالى has revealed.

    So the version of Shariah that Hizb ut-Tahrir wants to establish is the same one that Al-Shabab is applying in Somalia, where this happened, along with assorted other deviancies. No thanks…

     
  • johnpi 7:38 pm on July 20, 2009 | 18 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir

    Hizb ut-Tahrir holds first-ever conference in the US yesterday at the Hilton in Oak Lawn, Ill.

    Who is Hizb ut-Tahrir?

    The CBS News article about the conference and Wikipedia agreed on one major point and differed on another. Both agree that Hizb ut-Tahrir seeks the establishment of a global caliphate to unite the Ummah under one Amir to “establish the laws of the Islamic Shariah and to carry the Da’wah of Islam to the world.”

    Both articles also agree that the organization rejects terrorism. Wikipedia says that Hizb ut-Tahrir does not engage in charitable or social service projects or campaigns, but instead:

    its focus is on “ideological struggle” to establish its vision of the caliphate in the minds of Muslims.

    Where they differ is in a description of the means Hizb ut-Tahrir seeks to reach the end of a global caliphate.

    (More …)

     
  • thabet 3:25 am on July 20, 2009 | 9 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , hizb-ut-tahrir

    Outside a mosque in the West End last Friday, there were two sets of people jostling for a place in front of the exit, both eager to attract the attention of the muttaqin returning to the affairs of the world.

    One set of people from the local Subway franchise, promoting their diet of white bread and (halal) meat to the exiting worshippers*.

    The other set of people were from the local Hizb ut-Tahrir franchise, advertising some sort of conference which would explain to any attendees how a dictator from their party would solve all of the world’s problems.

    I’ll leave it to the reader to work out which set of people were more successful in generating interest in their product.

    *Another example of the creeping Islamificationalisationislism of food in the UK.

     
  • thabet 7:33 am on July 7, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, ,

    Hizb ut-Tahriris are enthralled by the idea of playing dictator of a militarised nuclear state. No change there then:

    The Sunday Times has obtained the names of a dozen British Hizb ut-Tahrir activists based in Lahore and Karachi, or commuting between Britain and Pakistan. There are believed to be many more.

    Tayyib Muqeem, an English teacher from Stoke-on-Trent, said he had moved to Lahore to convert Pakistanis to the movement.

    At Lahore’s Superior College, where Muqeem has set up a Hizb ut-Tahrir student group, he said the organisation’s aim was to subject Muslim and western countries to Islamic rule under sharia law, “by force” if necessary.

    This one is for Buzz Kill to sort out (scroll down in the comments to the above):

    Kafirs have such a poor understanding of the allure of the Caliphate.

    Please go on being Pakistan loving liberals … it suits us very well. LOL.

    Abdul Al-Okullah, Lodi, CA,

     
  • thabet 1:05 am on July 7, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hizb-ut-tahrir, , ,

    I see Hizb ut Tahrir in the UK are continuing their old tactic of organising events under different names:

    In a clear sign of what [Hizb ut-Tahrir, HT] have been reduced to, they’re now skulking around organising purportedly independent events at major mosques and misleading other Muslims about who they are – just to get them to turn up to events run by HT members. Oh dear.

    I remember they used to organise events at my university under the Bangladeshi society or something similar, because not only had they had been banned by the university, they were not on best terms (for theological reasons) with the people who ran the Islamic society.

     
  • thabet 1:46 pm on May 17, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hizb-ut-tahrir, ,

    The man accused of beating up Maajid Nawaz has responded and says he may launch a legal case against the Quilliam founder.

     
c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
esc
cancel