Hizb ut-Tahrir, which operates legally in Australia and elsewhere in the West, sees proselytism as the path to a world of Islam, reports John Stapleton
THERE'S a simple reason governments of all stripes are alarmed by Hizb ut-Tahrir. The radical Islamic transnational political party stridently advocates their overthrow.
In the place of corrupt Muslim regimes and decadent capitalist governments will rise the caliphate, named for the alliance of states forged after the death of the prophet Mohammed and revered as the purest manifestation of an Islamic state.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, otherwise known as the Party of Islamic Liberation, is making headlines around the world.
In the past 10 days, German police have conducted raids against the group in Frankfurt, Berlin and Hamburg under new anti-terrorist laws, and in Denmark authorities are considering banning the party after the high-profile conviction of its Danish leader for inciting violence against Jews.
Uzbekistan, one of the Central Asian republics faced with an upsurge of support for extremism among their impoverished populations, called on Britain to label it a terrorist organisation.
In England, where Hizb ut-Tahrir has its headquarters (sic), its rallies and pronouncements have overshadowed activities traditionally associated with the holy month of Ramadan. In Australia, there has been a call for the group be placed at the top of the federal Government's list of organisations under surveillance.
Some international analysts regard Hizb ut-Tahrir as a post-Taliban fifth column and say its sophisticated and well-funded propagandising and appeal across national and ethnic barriers make it a far more potent international force than most other radical Islamic groups, which have a purely regional focus.
Since the mid 1990s, tens of thousands of recruits have flocked to the once obscure splinter movement of the Muslim Brotherhood (sic), whose appeal was originally restricted mainly to diaspora Palestinians in Jordan and Lebanon.
Popular among Muslim youth from the universities of Britain to the slums of Tashkent and the suburbs of western Sydney, Hizb ut-Tahiir's embrace of the internet, promotion of higher learning for both sexes, extensive body of literature, support from women politicised by the imprisonment of their husbands or drawn by its social justice rhetoric, all go to make it a particularly powerful movement.
The group, which advocates the nonviolent overthrow of governments and the introduction of the caliphate, shares many goals with the Taliban, al-Qa'ida, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Jemaah Islamiah and many other utopian Islamic groups.
A militant breakaway group from Hizb ut-Tahrir, AI-Muhajiroun, prominently displays Osama bin Laden's latest pronouncements on its website and has been closely linked by intelligence organisations with al-Qa'ida.
But Hizb ut-Tahrir disagrees with the guerilla tactics of other militants, arguing that the ground for an Islamic state must be prepared by mass conversions of the populace.
Mohammed had predicted the Muslim nation would be divided into 73 sects before the coming of the caliphate, but only one would be the right one. Hizb ut-Tahrirbelieves it is that one (sic).
The group, which was founded in 1953 and defines itself as a political party based on Islamic ideology, is banned throughout the Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia, where supporters attempted a coup d'etat in 1988. In Central Asia, where repression has intensified since the bombing of Afghanistan, large numbers of its members are in jail.
Its founder, Sheikh Taqiuddin anNabhani, a Palestinian, believed in establishing a single state across the Muslim world, a political structure in which a caliph - a civil and religious ruler - would be elected by an Islamic council. He believed the defense minister in such a structure would then prepare the people for jihad against the non Muslim world.
In Sydney there are reports of members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, causing disquiet by pamphleteering outside mosques on Fridays. At a meeting earlier this month in the western suburb of Auburn, an audience of about 400 heard the Government attacked for supporting the US on Iraq and for wasting its resources after the Ball bombing.
In a mixture of English and Arabic, the attentive audience was warned of the dangers of integration and multiculturalism, and Western plots to erode the purity of their belief. They were told to see themselves above all as Muslims and to "dispute the borders we find ourselves living in, and dispute the borders we find ourselves born in". They were told that capitalist countries gain through the oppression of Muslims.
"Capitalism is a system with no humility, no humanity, no compassion," said one speaker. "Comprehensive peace is mere illusion. Brothers and sisters in Islam, there are two different civilisations, two different ideologies ... which will inevitably clash.
"This is the final type of conflict we have seen over and over again in history, a military struggle with Islam. Crusades continue until today. The truth will prevail over all other ideologies."
Another speaker said: "We are Muslims first and we live in Australia "We must teach our children to live so that when the state is re-established, their loyalty is to the Islamic state."
The meeting in Auburn was in many ways an echo of a much larger conference held in London last September which was titled After September ll:' Muslims in the West. With about 9000 people in attendance to hear leaders of the group from around the world, it was one of the largest gatherings of Muslims in the West since the terrorist attacks in the US.
An oddity at the conference illustrating the group's broad appeal was the appearance of a convert to Islam from Sydney. Claiming to be a Vietnam veteran and a former boxing champion in the Australian army, Abdullah Michael Vivash gave a speech on the topic of "Misery or Tranquility". Vietnam, he said, had taught him that "life is very short".
He told the London conference that tranquility had evaded him until he embraced Islam. "Trying to live this capitalist dream was not bringing me any peace of mind," he said. "The actions of the disbelievers bear no fruit in this life or [in] the next."
Ahmed Rashid, a leading expert on militant Islamic groups and the author of Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, describes the aims of Hizb ut-Tahrir as "probably the most esoteric and anachronistic of all the radical Islamic movements in the world today".
Rashid writes that the most striking fact about the secretive group is the phenomenal growth in its popularity since the mid 1990s. He says its effective use of technology, from the internet to modern printing presses, may partly explain the successes of what was previously a secretive underground movement (sic).
Hizb ut-Tahrir, says Rashid, has used its legal status in Britain to make London a leading organisational centre for the movement, raising money and training recruits.
Rashid says the movement's leaders, who have declared peaceful jihad in Central Asia and regard it as ripe for takeover, envisage bringing one or more Muslim countries under their control, after which it will be able to win over the rest of the Islamic world - and from there the West.
Although its members believe they have been brought to Australia by Allah to help establish a worldwide Islamic state, a spokesman for Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock says that as the group is not illegal, membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir does not preclude an individual from migrating to Australia.
The Government last week listed four more organisations under its new counterterrorism laws, but Hizb ut-Tahrir was not among them. Despite an intense debate that goes back to the Clinton presidency, it has not been designated a terrorist organisation by the UN Security Council or the US State Department.
Opinion in Australia is divide Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council's executive director Colin Rubenstein calls Hizb ut-Tahrir inflammatory and extreme and says it should be placed on the top of the Government's list of organisations under surveillance.
But Supreme Islamic Council of NSW spokesman Jaber El-gafi says the group preaches non-violence and could not be called extremist. He says skinheads and many other groups in Australia all in their own way advocate the overthrow of the government.
Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesmen have rejected previous claims that it is partly funded by bin Laden. In recent days their websites have been oddly silent on the subject of bin Laden's warnings to Australia and the world. The only commentary suggests: "One day soon, this undemocratic war will start. Don't be surprised."
The Australian's previous coverage of Hizb ut-Tahrir provoked an attack last week by the Washington-based Muslim Public Affairs Council, which issued an action alert".
The council says it is known for combating Hizb ut-Tahrir and no other group has taken on the organisation more directly. "Its call that Muslims must not participate in Western politics is a real danger if it gains currency and MPAC has challenged this without compromise," the alert says. "However MPAC is founded on the Islamic principle [that] your brother, for all his failings, is still your brother." It then condemns The Australian as Zionist, racist and Islamophobic.
Source: The Australian
Comment from the Umah website:
http://www.ummah.com/forum/
We would like to point out that Hizb ut-Tahrir does not have its 'organisational base' in London as the author suggests, nor is the party run or administered from London. The Party's base is in the Islamic World, where it works to re-establish the Khilafah State. It does not regard the Western World as a suitable place to re-establish the Khilafah, rather in the West its members work to carry the Da'wah of the Islamic Ideology - part of which is to present Islam as an alternative to Western Capitalism. This work is solely limited to the intellectual sphere.
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