Analysis on Hizb ut Tahrir

Hizb ut Tahrir and the Arab Spring –The Shattering of an Illusion in the Heartland

2011-12-13T09:27:00.000-08:00

It was the time that all members of HT had been talking of for 60 years. How a popular revolt against the Western supported dictatorships in the Arab world would demonstrate their affiliation to Islam, the party and the Caliphate. Instead, the advent of the Arab spring brought home some uncomfortable truths for members of HT throughout the world. Having been led to believe since the 1960’s that HT had built a popular base for its ideas and only the support of the armed forces remained absent in its quest to establish the Islamic Caliphate in the Arab heartland, success was seen to be within their grasp. However, the Arab spring shattered this illusion and laid bare the stark reality that no such support existed either in the Arab society or amongst the armed forces. From Tunisia, to Syria to Egypt and beyond, HT was nowhere to be seen and the masses emerged as sheep without a shepherd with only their hatred for the authoritarian regimes uniting them. Further exposure of HT’s dire situation emerged when its members embarrassingly failed to mobilise support in its stated stronghold of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Members of HT remain in denial unable to comprehend the gravity and truth of myth which prevailed only because it was impossible to negate its illusion under the veil of authoritarian leadership. Why was their no leadership over the masses in Syria and Jordan? Why could HT not mobilise support in the Sunni elements of the armed forces in Syria? And why was there no existence of HT in Egypt despite it being a strong Arab country with a history of Islamic activism both amongst the population and its armed forces?

At the heart of these questions is not the ideology of the party but the competence of its leadership. In 1997, the fitness of the leadership was challenged as was the reality of the HT’s leadership in the Arab world. The clash led to the first official split in the party with the breakaway faction recalibrating their position and maintained that HT had a lot to do before it could claim to have developed a popular base amongst the masses and no leadership for the party or ideas existed. As part of its proof it leaked an internal letter by the leader at the time, Abdul Qadeem Zaloom ,wherein he admitted that the masses had failed to respond to HT. However, instead of rectifying this position Zaloom ignored the dogmatic requirement of the party to establish a popular base and instead concentrated all efforts to seek support from the armed forces and influential elements in society in the hope of mounting a coup and directly moving to power. Consequently, no real strategy existed to transform society under the leadership of its ideas and its presence quickly diminished from society. Moreover, the quest for an army backed coup was expanded beyond the Arab world with Pakistan being the first country beyond the Arab realm to be declared a target for power in 2001. It remains to be seen whether its current leader Ata Abu Rishta will reflect on the reasons for HT’s failure in the Arab heartland, change course and capitalise on the wave of Islamist support sweeping the region.

Hizb ut Tahrir’s Call for Power in Pakistan

2010-05-10T04:12:00.000-07:00

A Betrayal of Ideals?

On the 9th of May, 2010, Hizb ut Tahrir Pakistan (HTP) the trans-national Islamic party issued in its words ‘a bold statement’ to the people of power , namely the armed forces to support HT in its quest to establish an Islamic Caliphate in the country. The declaration was delivered by HTP official spokesman Naveed Butt via the
web and by another member, Akmal Khan at the press club in Islamabad. The
declaration highlighted the societal and geopolitical problems facing Pakistan focussing the blame on external interference, internal corruption and systemic failure and advancing in return an Islamic solution applied through the state mechanics of the Caliphate. Since it’s public emergence in Pakistan in the year 2000,HTP has focused somewhat exclusively on provoking the armed forces in order to overthrow the secular regime and system in the country. Without doubt the armed forces in Pakistan hold the effective reins of power and according to former senior members from the HT leadership in the UK such as Majid Nawaz ( who now advises the UK government and intelligence services on HT), HTP members have been active amongst members of country's armed forces. However, the obsessive focus by HTP on the armed forces raises crucial questions as to whether it is looking for power in Pakistan purely through the mechanism of military power without effective legitimacy in society.In this article I will argue that despite such ‘bold’ statements, not only does HTP severely lack the authority and popular legitimacy, but its efforts to seek
power in Pakistan also violates its intellectual premises on societal
transformation as well as the location most suitable for the establishment of the Caliphate.

Background

HT was founded by a Palestinian scholar and judge, Taqiudine an Nabhani in 1952, with an explicit and detailed programme to revive Islam in the Muslim world via popular legitimacy and through the institution of the classical trans-national Caliphate with the support of power structures such as the armed forces. With the intent of establishing the Caliphate first in the Arab and then expanding its influence throughout the Muslim world and beyond, HT became truly trans-national with operations now in over 40 countries. However, it is outside of the Arab world such as Central Asia, Indonesia, Europe and South Asia that it has gained most influence and attention. In Pakistan, HT publicly declared itself in the year 2000 and mysteriously broke with its stated policy on the Arab world by declaring Pakistan a Wilayah or place suitable for the assumption of power. However, despite its non-violent methodology, former president Parvez Musharraf banned the movement in 2006 under anti-terror legislation. The ban has not however dissuaded its members
from activism and continued arrests and charges against them have been thrown out by successive courts due to lack of credible evidence and threat to national security.

Rhetoric vs Reality

Despite the media based rhetoric generated by HT in Pakistan and supported by its global media arm in the UK, there is an obvious deficit in popular legitimacy for the party in Pakistan and consequently the credibility of its claims concerning the country’s desire for Islamic law and the Caliphate. This harsh political reality
which seems to have been ignored consistently by HT is that beyond the religious and tribal hotbed of the deobandi orientated North WestFrontier Province (NWFP), the majority of Pakistan remains heavily influenced by apolitical Sufism, whose deep penetration by Indian philosophy renders its adherents doctrinally sterile to the call of Islamic political revival.Consequently, Pakistan’s religious based
political parties despite their adherence to constitutional norms and electoral participation have remained on the fringe of popular support. There can be no better example of the people’s rejection of Islam’s political role than the victory of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in an open election despite the wave of anti-Americanism, upheaval in Afghanistan and the tribal areas and tested failures of the pro-western secular political leadership. The depth of humiliation tendered upon
the Islamic parties was such that they were shunned in favour of discredited and reviled political figures such as Asif Zardari and Nawaz Shareef. There is little doubt that if HT is to be taken seriously it has to demonstrate more than media profile and agitational politics. The public’s anti-Americanism does not translate into a mandate for Islam and without a manifest ideational supremacy in the popular base; HT will remain in fool’s paradise.

Ideology vs Material Power

HT’s very superficial approach in Pakistan is all the more surprising considering the fact that it has laid out an understanding of considerable intellectual substance on how to bring Islamic revolution within society. On paper, HT outranks by far all the Islamic movements in terms of its revolutionary theory, Islamic scholarship, details of an economic, political and social programme being the only movement to have put forward a comprehensive Islamic constitution and blueprint for
a Caliphate. However, its prowess in the intellectual field has not translated into an effective popular base and seizure of power which until the death of its founder an-Nabhani was focused exclusively on the Arab world.

The reason for Pakistan’s inclusion into HT’s majaal or place suitable for the power has never been properly explained by its leadership, especially since a delegation sent to the country in the 1960’s rejected the suitability of its society based on the weakness of the people’s Islamic doctrine stemming from the deep penetration of
primarily Indian philosophy and culture. The only explanation so far has been forwarded by Maajid Nawaaz (who spent some time with HT in Pakistan), claiming that it was Pakistan’s nuclear declaration which tipped the argument for its inclusion. If so this reasoning does not correspond to an-Nabhani’s argument in that consideration should only be given to the strength of the Islamic ideology existent in the society and not to any material factors. In a leaflet dated 7 March 1962, Nabhani makes this point explicitly,

"The establishment of the Caliphate is not like building a house, measuring and judging according to the material possibilities. In contrast, the Caliphate is a political entity resting on an intellectual basis. Wherever this entity matures it will arise naturally and inevitably, regardless of the site or the material
conditions of the location" (leaflet Min al kahata al fadih al zann bi-anna-l-amal fi qutr min aqtar al hizb)

Therefore, as an analogy, the strength of the Soviet Union originated in its Communist ideology and despite its military power and nuclear capability the seizure of the ideology to command popular conviction lead to its inevitable collapse. Therefore, according to HTP’s own basis, Pakistan’s nuclear and conventional capability has no merit without the Islamic ideological engine driving the society, something which cannot be manufactured even if the armed forces of Pakistan were
to respond to HTP’s call.

Location, Location, Location - Intellectual Abdication

More fundamentally, according to HT’s own consideration, Pakistan is absent the very tool required for a strong ideology and sustained Islamic revival ie the Arabic language. According to HT the Arabic language is inextricably tied to the strength of Islamic understanding.This is based on the premise that without the Arabic language, the sources of Islam, primarily the Qur’an, the hadith and Islamic
jurisprudence cannot be properly understood or appreciated. In addition to the political factor HT regards the neglect of the Arabic language as critical to its evaluation of Islam’s decline and ultimately the root cause of the Caliphate’s demise under the Ottoman’s in 1924. Consequently, HT’s literature is absolute on the Arabic language as central to the society where the Caliphate should be established. In its adopted book Takkat-al-Hizb (Party Structuring) HT states;

"The entire world is suitable for the Islamic da’wah (Islamic work);however, since the people in the Islamic lands are Muslims, the da’wah must start there. Also, since the people in Arab territories (being part of the Islamic world) speak Arabic, and since Arabic is an essential part of Islam and its culture, the priority must be given to the Arab territories"

So much so, that its first official communiqué in 1953 was dedicated to the importance of the Arabic language and subsequently the Arab world in HT’s conception of the ideal geography for the resumption of the Caliphate. According to the communiqué;

"Hizb ut-Tahrir makes the starting point the Arab land as part of the Muslim land and views the Islamic State in the Arab land as a nucleus"

HT confirms its priority of the Arab societies over the non-Arab again in the book Concepts of HT (Mefahim HT, 1953)

"Carrying the Islamic da’wah (work) and the political struggle for its cause can be undertaken only in the society which the party has defined as its area for activity (majal).. it takes the Arab lands that are a part of the Islamic lands as a starting point. It considers the establishment of an Islamic state in the Arab countries as a nucleus for the Islamic state as a natural step"

No changes have as yet been made to HT’s adopted literature and no explanation has been provided officially by the leadership of HT as to why Pakistan has been afforded wilaya status. The adoption of Pakistan as a suitable society seems to be in apparent violation of its own rationale.

Legitimacy through Coup'detat - Methodological Abdication

Moreover, even if we ignore the discrepancy over the Arabic language, the political struggle outlined above and the call by HTP to the armed forces in the absence of a popular base violates the very premise of how HT understands the components of society and its transformation based on the life of the Prophet Mohammed and its rationalisation detailed in the book Takkatul Hizb which HT claims to follow. In
Takkatul Hizb there is no mention of ‘military coups’ because the concept dictates a popular revolt under the leadership of HT and its ideas. The military is seen as part of the interaction process which can either protect the party and/or cement the popular base. To seek the takeover of society with the help of the military without the popular base stands against the very premise of intellectual leadership HT claims it stands for. The objective is not intended to be the pursuit of power but revival of Islam through the society and state which requires popular legitimacy. Yet HTP seems to deliberately or otherwise ignore this obvious reality in its surreal claims concerning the heartbeat of the Pakistani society. HTP’s obsession with the Pakistani armed forces is a far cry from HT’s decision in 1958 to refuse an offer of leadership by the Iraqi army which according to its publication AL Fajr (1990) was based on the grounds that HT’s ideas had not taken root and therefore the Iraqi society was not ready to shoulder the burden of governance.

Media vs Human Interaction - Societal Abdication

The reality of HT in Pakistan is quite apparent. Its obsession with the military and its media spin masks the legitimacy deficit it faces in the country. Despite its hyperbole and agitational politics the lack of interest in HTP from the society has been continually exposed from the miniscule responses it has received for its many reactionary demonstrations and conferences. The hype surrounding Pakistan has in no
small measure been promoted by the UK branch of HT where along with Bangladesh; the focus of HT represents more a nationalist representation of its membership and one where its Arab membership and issues pertaining to the Arab world (which conceptually should form the centre of its focus) have been deliberately marginalised. HTP seems to be under the false impression that a recipe of media hype and agitational politics connected with Pakistani society’s emotional
connection with Islam and strong anti-Americanism will secure the support of the armed forces and overcome the patience required to deeply penetrate society and build popular legitimacy for its ideas.Moreover, other radical movements which have roots in religious seminaries such as the Taliban have rejected the Caliphate model and like themselves in Afghanistan, there is little indication that Pakistani society, its armed forces and religious figures are open to accept a leadership from an essentially Arab lead party. More critically for HTP, even with artificial attempts at mass contact, it is unlikely to affect the apolitical india-centric Sufism practised by the majority of people in power centres such as Punjab and Sind. Also having prematurely provoked the state security apparatus in Pakistan without protection or popular support, its political struggle will continue to be conducted within the confines of the media and through a cat and mouse game with the security services.

Noman Hanif is lecturer in Political Islam at Birkbeck, University of London

Hizb-ut-Tahrir Strategy and the Caliphate Conference in Indonesia

2009-10-04T06:06:00.000-07:00

By: NOMAN HANIF
Published: August 15, 2007

On the 12th of August, 2007, the transnational Islamic movement, Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT), staged in Jakarta, Indonesia, what is undeniably the largest conference ever held on the subject of 'reviving the Caliphate'. The conference was the biggest in a series of events organised on the same subject in many different international locations. An estimated 80,000 people attended the event at the HGelora Bung Karno Stadium, with invited speakers from HT around the world, as well as Indonesian personalities such as television icon Abdullah Gymnastier, former Muhammadiya head, Prof. Amin Rais, Ma'ruf Hussein from Nahdlatul Ulama, including its board chairman, Din Syamsuddin, current leader of Muhammadiyah, Habib Riziq Shihab, General Chairman of the Islam Defending Front, FPI and Zainuddin MZ (Reform Star Party, PBR). On the day however two of the HT speakers, Imran Wahid from the UK and Sheikh Ismail Al Wahwah from Australia were banned entry into Indonesia. Whilst other speakers such as Abu Bakr Bashir, leader of Gemaa Islamiya, who was cleared of the Bali bombings by the Indonesian courts was according to some media reports requested to stay away by the police, citing security concerns. Hence, most of the speakers for varying reasons were unable to attend.

However, despite the inevitable euphoria created by HT, searching questions have arisen as regards the political circumstances surrounding the Indonesian Caliphate conference and the strategy of HT. This is because despite the big bang approach, HT is still a newcomer onto the Indonesian public scene yet on paper represents a clear and present danger to the stability of the Indonesian regime and Western security in the region. Despite this it seems that HT has been given the green light by the Indonesian government, the armed forces, the government sponsored Council of Ulema, co-opted by the Indonesian Islamic movements and allowed free reign without Western pressure. This article endeavours to understand some of the reasons for this perplexing political landscape by situating the conference within the context of contemporary HT strategy.

No Longer Arabian Knights

The conference in Indonesia forms part of a continuum of change in strategy by HT away from the Arab world. This is despite the fact that according to its literature, the Arab world forms the priority location for the establishment of the Caliphate. This position was firmly adhered to under its founder Sheikh Taqiudine-an-Nabhani until his death in 1977. According to Nabhani, the Arab countries were natural and necessary support points because of the historical strength of Islam in the region, the linguistic qualities of the Arabic language (it being the language of Islam and the Koran) and what he defined as the leadership characteristics inherent in the nature of the Arab people. Nabhani recognised the need for some activity outside of the Arab zone, but only from the point of expansion, not establishment. With Jordan as the hub, extensive work was targeted in Syria, Iraq and Egypt amongst others. Military coups were attempted in these countries during the 60's and 70's. Nabhani demonstrated no interest in establishing a presence in the Western world despite the presence of HT members in the West as students and asylum seekers. This position seems to have undergone a radical change under the leadership of his successor Abdul Qadeem Zaloom, who rode the wave of Islamic political revival instigated by the events of Iran in 1979. Under Zaloom, HT unsuccessfully approached Khomeini for support to transform the Iranian sentiment into a Caliphate. Bearing in mind the Iranian Shia doctrine, its Safavid history of hostility towards the Sunni world and its underlying Persian pride, the rejection by Khomeini would have been inevitable. The trend under Zaloom to focus away from the Arab world continued with success and expansion in Central Asia as a result of a vacuum following the collapse of the Soviet Union and with further moves into Pakistan and Bangladesh. The HT presence in the West evolved rapidly with branches in the UK, Australia, Germany, Holland, Russia and Denmark. The UK's co-option of HT for its own policy aims allowed it to develop a base for its global media. Indonesia, being the largest Muslim populated country was naturally warm to HT as an Islamist movement because of its unique history of having responded to the expansion of the historical Islamic Caliphate in allowing conquest through invitation. Yet despite this geographical expansion by HT, the Arab world remains elusive to it with its presence and influence in the core countries of the Middle East next to negligible. With no effort being afforded to focus on the Arab world and instead a monumental push the spotlight onto outside regions, the question arises as to whether there has been an unwritten strategy which has moved away from what was adopted by Nabhani. Indonesia represents the ideal model to evaluate this point. HT in Indonesia does not suffer the hallmarks of repression as in the case of Central Asia and thus inevitably provides a more fertile environment for its activity. Also as the case of Iran and the consistent calls for support amongst the armed forces in Pakistan and elsewhere demonstrate, the seeking of power in the absence of a party presence or leadership of society does not seem to be an obstacle for HT in the post-Nabhani era.

Bandwagoning to Power

In fact the post-Nabhani leadership has moved away from the dogmatic exclusivity of approach and instead embraced a co-operative process in the form of bandwagoning on the influence of other movements. The pre-occupation with the media and with continuous conferences and demonstrations outside of the Arab zone despite its lack of presence in society is indicative of a failure to build a popular base in the Arab countries and a leadership for its movement. Despite HT's failure in what it terms as the stage of interaction within which the leadership for its thoughts and movements is required as a pre-requisite to seizing power, no attempt has been made to scale back its position. Instead, its members insist that it remains in the process of seeking 'nusrah'(support for power) and that the general sentiments of the 'ummah' (Islamic nation) for Islam are sufficient to seize power. By adopting these vague criteria for mass leadership, HT has effectively abandoned the interactive stage of its methodology through which it envisioned exclusive leadership for the thoughts and the movement. In order to bypass building the popular base, HT has been forced to co-opt popular movements for legitimacy and through media spin promote the term of the Caliphate as a populist concern. The Indonesian Conference forms a perfect example to illustrate this point. Unlike in Central Asia, HT does not command a dominant following in Indonesia. The likely pull for the 80,000 or so attendance in Jakarta would have been from the ingrained organisations such as the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiya which alone claim to command more than 30-40 million members. HT has attempted to bandwagon on the backs of these movements based on the least common denominator, the agreement on the term 'Caliphate'. However, beyond concurrence on the term, HT has very little in common with these movements and individuals. This again is a radical shift away from Nabhani who in his book 'The Islamic State' had warned against abandoning the hard graft work of building a real popular base built on deeply held convictions instead of attempting to build an artificial movement towards the Caliphate through conferences etc. For Nabhani the popularisation of terminology and even of HT as an organisation meant nothing without a deeply held conviction in Islam as a political ideology dominant within society. Contemporary members of HT argue as they usually do, that the conference is a means and a style to advance the interaction of its ideas with the population. On this point Nabhani was categoric in his warning towards the dangers of using certain means and styles. Nabhani considered that unless HT was in the last push to seize power, large rallies and conferences would be counter-productive as they would simply release the frustration and anger of the masses, the cumulative effect being the loss in motivation, morale, confidence and even belief in the return of the Caliphate.

"...It therefore follows that holding conferences on the issue of the Khilafah would not of itself lead to the establishment of the Islamic State, nor would a federation of countries ruling Muslim peoples be a legitimate method to establish the Islamic State, nor would congresses of Muslim peoples help in the resumption of the Islamic way of life. None of these, nor anything similar to them, should be considered correct, instead they would merely represent rhetoric aimed at soothing the anger of the Muslims..." (Nabhani, Islamic State, p97)

One of the few times Nabhani did authorise a mass rally was in the 60's in order to ascertain the strength and support of the Party in Jordan for the purposes of evaluating a move into the stage of interaction with society. Hence in the context of the conference in Indonesia, having bandwagoned on the big movements to pull in the crowds, a distorted picture would have emerged as regards understanding the strength of HT in Indonesia, but more importantly in raising the spectre of a Caliphate in such a manner, it has attempted to promote a strength of societal leadership which in turn has raised the expectations not only amongst the masses, but also its membership. Unless, HT is planning something spectacular, how it perceives delivering on its promises through a contemporary strategy of media spin, conferences and band-wagoning on movements with whom it shares no ideological or political affiliation is open to question.

Sleeping with the Enemy

In this regard, it was clear that HT in the context of Indonesia was not concerned whether or not ideological and/or political convergence existed. A good example of this was the inclusion on its website of a statement by an Indonesian government minister promoting the conference upon a non-contextualised position of unity. Thus, in order to gain the support of the crowd and the invited movements and individuals, the emphasis of the speeches in the conferences was an attempt to provide confidence in the Caliphate as an institution. Interestingly, the basis of this confidence was promoted from the perspective of the Caliphate being a representative government, as well as an economic, social and political stabiliser. Why this is interesting is because it represents an attempt to market the Caliphate on a systemic level and not a doctrinal one which Nabhani regarded as the basis upon which the masses should connect and move for the Caliphate. In other words the Caliphate was being packaged on the acceptance that the Western model was lucrative to the masses and they may not necessarily respond to some of the comparative solutions to governance thrown up by HT's conception of the Islamic doctrine with that of the democratic model which HT rejects. This is reflective in its association with the Indonesian movements such as the Muhammadiya and the Nahdlatul Ulama which have a starkly different conception of Islamic governance to that of HT.

Both these movements have acted largely in concert with the Indonesian government for decades even acting as king makers in times of political crisis. This point is aptly demonstrated by the comments of the chairman of Muhammadiyah, who said that any implementation of a caliphate would have to conform to the state ideology of Pancasila, (the philosophy of the Indonesian state modelled on Buddhist conception of ethics), the principles of which are set forth in the preamble of the 1945 Indonesian constitution. The five principles enunciated by former President Sukarno and in the order given in the constitution are: belief in one supreme God; humanitarianism; nationalism expressed in the unity of Indonesia; consultative democracy; and social justice.

This concept of governance was put forward with the sizeable Hindu and animist sectors of the population in mind. Hence, the NU and Muhammadiya conceptualised Islamic governance within this framework. Thus according to Din Syamsuddin, invited Chairman of Muhamadiyya, "Khilafah shouldn't undermine the inclusivism and pluralism of the nation," (Christian Science Monitor 13th August 2007). He added that non-Muslims did not have to be afraid of the discourse on Khilafah as it was part of the democratic process. Furthermore, it was the Nahdlatul Ulama which was the first major organisation to formally make the Pancasila instead of Islam its sole foundation. The clause in the statutes stating that the NU was based on Islam was replaced by 'based on Pancasila'.

The point being that these two co-opted Indonesian movements did not perceive as antagonistic to Pancasila, the manner in which the Caliphate argument had been presented by HT. This is despite the fact that apart from the belief in one supreme God, HT ideology seems to be in direct conflict with all the other principles of Pancasila. Again, this strategy of HT is a rapid departure from that of Nabhani who maintained that in order to preserve the purity of the ideology, the clarity of its message and the political distinctiveness of HT, sharing of platforms with organisations which were deemed to espouse non-islamic concepts such as democracy, social justice and nationalism and/or were linked to governments were to be completely shunned.

In the post-Nabhani era, pragmatism has now become a hallmark of HT throughout its global branches, even extending to the extremes of sleeping with the enemy. This point is more ironic considering that Abdurrahman Wahid former head of NU who became Indonesian president was labelled by HT as a 'freemason' and an 'American agent'. The history of the Indonesian Islamic movements is testament to the fact that it is not their aim to undermine the status of the Indonesian state or its stability. This being the case, it begs the question as to what is the rationale for the NU and Muhammadiya in co-opting HT and allowing it mass exposure on its back.

Unification or Entrapment?

HT's pragmatism towards the movements in Indonesia who are relatively liberal Sin comparison, is similar to its stance in the UK. Just like in the UK, HT in Indonesia is exhibiting a conformist approach towards other movements in order to gain support and legitimacy. Here lies the problem for HT. HT's co-option by the Indonesian movements coincides with the policy brief put forward by the US Rand Corporation entitled 'Building Moderate Networks', which argues that the US has failed to move the Arab world away from radicalism and thus a strategy of mobilising moderate Islamic opinion from weaker countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and even the Western world is the way to effect change in the Arab world. The paper argues that in order to achieve this, the US must co-opt the 'liberal', 'moderate' and 'modernist' movements such as the NU and Muhammadiya in order to prevent and fight Islamic radicalisation based on the model of the Cold War. There already exists a fluid relationship between the US and the Indonesian movements including the NU and Muhammadiya through US-Indonesia forums and democratisation projects sponsored by the US administration through the Asia foundation and Ford Foundation. In fact former Muhammadiya Chairman Ahmad Syafii Maarif and Muhammadiyah Youth Central Board Chairman Abdul Mu'ti were key contributors to the RAND policy report. The report outlines the hostility within the liberal sections of these movements to the concept of an Islamic state and promotes them as ideal candidates to further the democratic liberal agenda.

"Network-building efforts in Southeast Asia should incorporate NGO work with the moderate traditionalist Indonesian organization Nahdlatul Ulama, with its 15,000 affiliated pesantren, and with the modernist organization Muhammadiyah and its network of higher education and social welfare institutions. Both Islamist and liberal sectors coexist in Muhammadiyah: Islamist elements can be found in the organization's Religious Council, which is charged with da'wa, while liberals have a home in the Center for the Study of Religion and Democracy, established to promote a liberal agenda within and outside the organization." (Building Moderate Networks, RAND, p139)

This would put HT in direct confrontation not only with US policy but also with the strategy of the NU and Muhammadiya. HT may have bandwagoned on the support base of these movements but beyond the rhetoric of the term 'Khilafah' there exists very little in common. In fact HT fits quite neatly into the pluralist framework developed by the NU and Muhammadiya. If any lessons can be learned from the relationship of the UK government with HT's new strategy of co-option, it is that HT can be manoeuvred to moderate its position and even serve policy goals. (The Future of HT in Britain, icssa.org). It could be argued that HT's inclusion into the pluralistic framework would serve as an entrapment mechanism which would seek to moderate and degrade HT's radicalism. This point is strengthened by the fact that neither the Indonesian nor US governments have intervened or put obstacles in the way of this approach between HT and the movements. This paints a complex picture and a perplexity as to the nature of the relationship between HT, these movements and US policy in the region. Bearing in mind the established position of these movements with US strategy and the Indonesian government, the question is whether HT as a result of its new pragmatism has walked into a US political trap with the acquiescence of the Indonesian government, NU and Muhammadiya.

The Theory of the Phantom Caliphate

There is no doubt that the idea of the Caliphate is becoming a worldwide phenomenon. On paper, HT's call for a Caliphate is the most dangerous one for the current regimes and Western security in the Islamic world. The manner in which HT have constructed the ideology of the Caliphate clearly demonstrates a brutal position towards Western civilisation and its adherents. For this reason US think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation have labelled HT in Central Asia as the "greatest threat to US interests". Bearing this characterisation in mind why would the US and the Indonesian government have allowed the Caliphate conference to have gone ahead in Indonesia. Due to its location, the US has maintained a strong strategic relationship with Indonesia.

The stability of the Indonesian government is of paramount concern for the US and for Australia. For this reason, the US is a major supplier of military hardware to Indonesia as well as the Indonesian army's biggest training provider through the IMET exchange scheme. The US has been engaged with successive Indonesian regimes, maintaining stability and influence through the loyalty of the armed forces. Hence it is ironic that despite the objective of HT to replace regimes in the Islamic world with a Caliphate, no pressure was exerted by the US or the Indonesian military/government to ban the conference. There was no bigger advertisement for the Caliphate and HT than the conference in Indonesia.

Bearing in mind the RAND reports suggestion of US failure to derail political Islam in the Arab world and with the ever critical threat of regime collapse, the theory of the Western powers being forced to install a pliant Phantom Caliphate in order to suck the life out of the Caliphate movement has some resonance and may even explain the events in Indonesia. It is in this regard that the allowance of a major Caliphate Conference by the UK in 1994 and now by the Indonesian government with the acquiescence of the US is suggestive of a possible plan to utilise HT's successful marketing of the 'Caliphate'. This suggestion may seem extremely fanciful and conspiratorial at first, but it does have precedent.

The exact idea was in fact toyed with by Britain in the last stages of the Ottoman Caliphate and detailed in what is known as the MacMohan-Hussein correspondence of that period. The strategy was based on the notion that the Islamic world considered the Caliphate as the only legal form of Islamic government and hence in order to absorb the aftershocks of the breaking up the Ottoman state, an Arab Caliphate pliant to British interests would be established under Sherif Hussein of Mecca. The idea was abandoned because maintaining the idea of a Caliphate was considered too dangerous. The theory of a phantom Caliphate is actually quite well recognised amongst the members of HT. In fact according to internal sources the US may have contemplated using the position of HT in Central Asia to bring about a Caliphate in order to cause enormous problems for Russia and China. However, the members insist that the US shelved this plan because of fears that the Caliphate may ignite an uncontrollable fire in the Islamic tinderbox surrounding Central Asia. What is interesting in this theory is that the members consider HT as being the only group which the US can use to bring about this scenario.

If one was to follow this logic then the hands off approach by the US and the Indonesian authorities towards HT's expansion in Indonesia is indeed a cause for contemplation as is the allowance of HT by the NU and Muhammadiya to bandwagon despite major contradictions between them. Indonesia would no doubt be an attractive location geographically to establish a Phantom Caliphate as it is far away from the crucible of the Islamic world in the Middle East and Central Asia. The idea of leadership over the rest of the Islamic world, especially the Arab world would be another issue of contention. The idea of staging a temporary Phantom caliphate and its fomenting a quick collapse would no doubt cause a major haemorrhage in the Islamic world and set back the movement for the Caliphate for decades.

Whatever the theory of a phantom Caliphate, what is certain is that HT has laid down the gauntlet and raised exponentially the hopes of the faithful regarding the immediacy of the Caliphate's return. The common rhetoric espoused by the speakers of the various HT conferences was the notion that the Islamic world was on the brink of the Caliphate. No doubt injecting motivation and confidence into its own membership to keep on board would have been a key determinant. Indeed, if the Caliphate Conference in Indonesia and the multiple other rallies in different parts of the world were intended as a final push before seizing power then this view may hold. In its absence, HT is walking a fine line with its rhetoric, on the basis of a failure to deliver and more fundamentally by seeking power in the absence of a popular base.

In conclusion, having withdrawn effectively from the key countries of the Arab world, HT has not availed its dominant situation in Central Asia. If power is being sought outside of the Arab world then Central Asia is strategically better located to the rest of the Islamic world than Indonesia. Instead Central Asia remains irrationally suspended in a mindless political struggle producing intolerable suffering for its members as a result of the brutality of the regimes. What exactly are HT objectives for Indonesia is unclear. The conference was no doubt a very loud political statement, but to whom?

There is no unified opinion amongst the membership as to the reasons for the multiple conferences. One predominant view is that it provides confidence to the 'ummah' and acts as a catalyst for the Arab world. This argument is somewhat infertile considering the fact that no popular base exists for HT in the Arab world and that the heat of large conferences are only temporary and are connected more to the location within which they are staged. Another point against this argument is that HT's media activity is obsessed not with the Arab world but a new strategy encompassing non-Arab territories. Whether this is in actuality a clever political ploy to divert Western attention away from the Arab world or it is evidence of desperation remains to be seen.

Noman Hanif is lecturer in radical Islam and International terrorism at Birkbeck, University of London. He is currently researching the Global Politics of Hizb-ut-Tahrir

Pakistan’s Tableeghi Jamaat and Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Central Asia

2009-10-03T06:44:00.001-07:00

By: NOMAN HANIF
Published: July 24, 2007

According to a report in Eurasianet on 23rd July 2007, the Pakistan based Islamic movement, Tableeghi Jamaat has been the one of the most active entities proselytizing in Central Asia, especially in Kyrgyzstan. Shamsibek Zakirov, an advisor of the head of the State Agency for Religious Affairs under the Kyrgyz Government stated that "it is not a secret that Islamic radicals from Pakistan are actively working among the Muslims in Central Asia, especially in Kyrgyzstan. The Tablighi Jamaat is the most active organization of all foreign Islamic missionaries."(Eurasianet.org)

The unhindered growth of the movement in Central Asia bearing in mind the nature and position of the Tableegh vis-vis Pakistan raises some interesting questions as to the underlying reason of its presence in Central Asia. Traditionally, the landscape of Central Asia’s post Soviet space has been dominated by two movements, primarily that of the global Islamic movement, Hizb ut Tahrir or Liberation Party and to a lesser degree that of the IMU or Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Out of the two HT commands a greater ideological presence and influence throughout the region. Due to its political nature and the call to replace the ex-Communist regimes with an Islamic system and a Caliphate, HT has been banned by all the countries of Central Asia. It has been described as the greatest threat to US interests in the region by center right and right wing think tanks in America.

The threat of HT continues to shadow US policy towards the Caspian oil region and the energy corridor between Central Asia and Pakistan. The number of HT membership in the region has been estimated to run into many thousands with many filling the prisons of Central Asian states for being mere members. There are three contributing factors to HT’s success in the region, firstly the nature of its ideology which constructs classical Islam as a modern intellectual paradigm and hence was naturally capable of filling the ideological vacuum left by Communism and responding to an ideologically based society.

Secondly, leaders like Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov manufactured a threat to the stability of Central Asia through HT in order to gain support and maintain favour with Russia, China and the West. Thirdly, the economic conditions, corruption and ineptitude of the regimes coupled with the brutality with which HT and political Islam in general was targeted generated the conditions for HT’s expansion. The situation at present is the failure of Russian, Western and Central Asian policy to halt the juggernaut of HT. It is within this context that the study of Tableeghi Jamaat must be situated.

The Tableeghi Jamaat or Islamic Missionary Movement was started in the 1920’s by Maulana Iliyas with the aim of changing society through applying a model of individual spiritual and moral change based on the Prophet Mohammed and his disciples. Due to its position of eschewing politics and refraining from criticising governments the movement has been tolerated and even welcomed in many Islamic countries as a counter-balance to radical Islam. The missionary nature of its work has even afforded it a reception in Israel. The tableegh now centres’ itself largely in Pakistan where its headquarters are to be found in former Pakistani Prime Nawaz Sharif’s home town of Raiwind near Lahore in the Punjab.

However, despite its apolitical nature, the reality of the Islamic movement in Pakistan is that it is heavily infiltrated and influenced by the state and especially the Pakistani intelligence agency the ISI. One of the biggest gatherings in the world from amongst the Islamic movements is held annually by the TJ in Raiwind. Amongst its followers are many from the armed forces, political elites and the intelligence services. Because it espouses no desire to engage politically, regimes feel safe from the movement. Yet despite this the Pakistani intelligence and by default the US, fed heavily off the movement as regards recruitment for the Afghan and Kashmiri jihad during the 1980’s whilst it internally engaged to depoliticise the masses.

It was also through the Pakistani intelligence that the US policy towards Central Asia was active including the Caucuses in Chechnya. The covert support for the ISI backing of the Taliban along with its destabilising influence on Russia and China also fitted in with the US involvement in the Great Game in Central Asia. However, due to an understanding between the US and Russia in 1994 whereby Russia agreed support US action in the UN over Iraq if the US agreed not to interfere in Chechnya by supporting the Chechen fighters started a change in the architecture of US involvement in the region. Despite this, the conflictual dynamics of energy security, strategic presence and political Islam kept the US firmly engaged.

In the post Soviet space however, it was political Islam which provided the greatest threat to energy security and strategic presence in the region. Hence, with the excuse of 9/11, the US launched a diplomatic offensive in European capitals, Moscow and Beijing aimed at overtly justifying an alliance against a vague conception of a war on terror built on a commonly perceived threat of political Islam.

Covertly, the war on terror was a political trap to justify US military expansion in order to secure energy corridors and strategic positions. Hence Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan questioned the need for US bases in Central Asia as well as the strategic positioning of its military bases in Afghanistan which he claimed logistically had nothing to do with the Pak-Afghan border and the War on Terror and judging by the positioning of the bases more to do with the encirclement of Central Asia. (craigmurray.com)

The Pakistani involvement in Chechnya was confirmed by General Parvez Musharraf whose first priority upon receiving the green light from Washington to seize power was to dismantle the Pakistani link with the Chechen cause. The aim was to remove the threat of radical Islam from the theatre of Central Asian politics. Initially, Russia had turned a blind eye to Saudi Arabia’s insertion of Wahabist’s into the Chechen cauldron as the Sufi doctrine of the Chechen’s would inevitably collide with the anti-sufist Wahabist’s with the hope of igniting a civil war amongst the Chechen’s. However, the Wahabist inclination toward’s jihad undermined this strategy. The war on terror also enabled Musharraf to allow the US to remove the Taliban which was being used indirectly by the US to foment Islamic radicalism in Central Asia. The nexus which had once been fostered by the US and Pakistan between Central Asia and Pakistan threatened to unify a movement from Central Asia to Northern Pakistan. This nexus had to be broken, hence the crackdown by Musharraf on Central Asians studying in the madrassas of Pakistan and the agreement with the Northern tribals to co-operate on the basis that foreigners including Central Asian’s were removed. Furthermore, intelligence reports suggested that the pro-government elements of the Taliban had started to breakaway from the Central Asian elements causing fissures within the Taliban itself.(Jamestown.org)

Thus the insertion of the Tableeghi Jamaat into Central Asia has to be seen in the context of a US policy aided by the Pakistani regime in combating radical/political Islam in Central Asia and more specifically the threat of HT. Although the arrival of the TJ in Central Asia was in 1991, its concentration on the Ferghana Valley considered the hub of radical activity amongst HT and the IMU gives a clear indication of its professed target. The hand of Pakistan and by default the US seems apparent. According to Igor Rotar;

“Virtually all of the Tablighi members active in Central Asia are locals who have undergone training in either India or Pakistan” (Eurasia.net 23rd July, 2007)

It is this very Pakistani factor which has aroused suspicion amongst the Central Asian regimes as to the political reality of TJ in the region and the role of the US. Having failed to detach states such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan away from the Russian orbit and the involvement with Pakistan over the Taliban, suspicions of the US hand in TJ would be inevitable, especially since the training of its members is occurring in Pakistan. In contrast to HT in Kyrgystan whose membership derives more from the Uzbeks, TJ’s is more indigenously Kyrgyz. Yet despite its official sanction in contrast to HT, the Kyrgyz authorities remain suspicious of it. According to Igor Rotar

“While Zakirov admitted that all available evidence indicates that the Tablighi Jamaat continues to adhere to an apolitical stance, he nevertheless adopted a skeptical stance toward the group” (Eurasia.net, 23rd July, 2007)

For this reason Uzbekistan has formally banned the TJ and Kazakhstan frequently picks up their members for questioning. It is the likely the position of the US that Central Asian regimes especially those of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan can be persuaded to overcome the alternate Islamic deficit by heavily promoting TJ as an alternative to the threat posed by HT and changing their current policy towards it by arguing the interests of stability and security. However, a number of obstacles remain in it way. Firstly, the Central Asian regimes possess an ideological, economic, political and security credibility deficit amongst their populations which neutralises the apolitical idea of TJ. Secondly, HT provides a more superior and comprehensive understanding and vision of Islam and politics that TJ does not possess. This is something well understood by the US as its own think tanks such as the Nixon Center, Brookings Institute, Hudson Institute and the Heritage foundation have detailed the ideology of HT.

Hence the idea of the US promoting the TJ as an altruistic policy for Central Asian stability is not one shared especially by the Kyrgyz religious Affairs minister. Rather it seems the sentiment remains that through Pakistan and the TJ, the US is looking for another channel to open up influence in the Central Asian Islamic theatre. Thus says Zakirov;

“"Many Tablighi members are uneducated and very fanatical. I don’t think that importing the Pakistani version of Islam will promote the stabilization of Central Asia.”

Zakirov’s comments reflect the difference in understanding over HT and TJ. Firstly that HT commands a membership from all strata of society including from the academia and intelligentsia and secondly HT and its ideology is not considered indigenous and not linked to any foreign state. More succinctly it identifies a characteristic amongst the TJ which was utilised by the Pakistani ISI and the US in Afghanistan, Kashmir and even in the Balkan’s. The susceptibility to jihadism because of the “fanaticism” and “Pakistani version of Islam” is an emotional characteristic within the Pakistani psyche which the US through the Pakistani ISI have become adept at manipulating for policy goals. It is thus the wider political dynamic within which TJ has operated which is likely to be causing concerns for the Central Asian regimes.

In contrast HT does not follow a militaristic methodology to bring about change and hence has no history with jihadism or violence against the regimes but more pertinently the involvement of its members with state crafted policy. In essence this is the paradox of HT, radical but non-violent. Attempts by US think tanks to insinuate a link between HT and terrorism in order to frame it under the war on terror have conclusively failed.

The history and contemporary activity of TJ in Pakistan and its use by the intelligence services alludes to a potential whereby TJ members can and have been involved in recruiting for jihadism. Hence, the US through the double edged sword of the Pakistani TJ has the capacity to destabilise the Central Asian regimes. The potential nature of this threat to its own situation seems to be lurking in the back of the regimes minds in Central Asia.

According to Igor: “Although Tablighi members claim that they converse only about God, we are not certain that they are not agitating our youth to go to Iraq and Pakistan for battle,"(Eurasia.net)

Noman Hanif is lecturer in Radical Islam, International Terrorism and Energy Security at Birkbeck, University of London

Copyright © nomanhanif 2007

Hizb ut Tahrir Pakistan – The British Dimension

2009-08-20T16:37:00.000-07:00

Noman Hanif

On the 5th of July, 2009, the British media indicated for the first time the extent to which British intelligence may have penetrated the local and Pakistani branch of the Islamic party Hizb ut Tahrir or Liberation Party including an insight as to why the UK political establishment may have resisted enormous pressure for its proscription. Nicola Smith’s article in the Sunday Times entitled ‘British Islamists Plot against Pakistan’ suggested that British members of HT had been operating throughout Pakistan’s institutional set up and especially the army in order to foment a bloodless coup geared towards bring about an Islamic Caliphate. Although Smith’s article provides little in terms of new understandings concerning HT’s ideology or its methodological recourse to the levers of power, it is the nature of the information provided in the article and its timing which raises the most important questions. Smith’s article for the first time identifies Imtiaz Malik as the key personality in Pakistan and departs from the conventional analysis of media representative Naveed Butt as being the central leadership. If so, then knowledge of Imtiaz Malik would have been known to British intelligence and to the media for some time considering their relationship with HT defector Maajid Nawaz whose counter extremist think tank, the Quilliam Foundation, has full financial and political backing from the UK foreign office. With Nawaz’s open endorsement of his relationship with the British government, it would be safe to assume that his cooperation fully extends to the intelligence services. Maajid Nawaaz was privy to the HT set up in Pakistan and HTB’s relationship with it having been a member its leadership committee in the UK and part of the team which travelled and emigrated to Pakistan in order to assist HT operations in the country. Smith’s assertion that; ‘HT is believed to have been set up in Pakistan in the early 1990s by Imtiaz Malik’ and that in ‘1999 a call was sent to British Hizb ut-Tahrir members to move to Pakistan’ which ‘prompted the movement of some of the UK’s “top quality” activists to south Asia’ clearly seems to have been sourced from Maajid Nawaz who is also quoted in the article claiming that the global leadership of HT had ignored Pakistan until it announced itself as a nuclear power. The crunch point however in Smith’s article was the revelation by an ‘insider’ that in 2003, four army officers were arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of being linked to extremist groups, although the groups and men have not been named. The ‘insider’ claims they were recruited by the organization’s “Pakistan team” whilst training at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst (RMAS), UK. If this information is reliable then it seems to have been gleaned separately from Maajid Nawaz who had left Pakistan by this time and who allegedly was imprisoned by the Egyptian authorities during this period. Bearing in mind the hierarchical and cellular nature of HT’s organizational structure, knowledge of such a secretive team would only be known to its leadership in either Pakistan or the UK. The fact that the alleged arrests of the Pakistani army officers trained at RMAS have never been acknowledged nor publicized by the Pakistani authorities is also suggestive that the UK intelligence may have had a role in deliberately leaking this information through Smith’s article. This is reinforced by the timely nature of the article as it coincidentally follows a trip to Pakistan by Maajid Nawaz paid for by the UK foreign office and provided publicity through the government’s media bastion the BBC through its news programme, Newsnight in July, 2009. The question of HT Britain (HTB) being infiltrated by British intelligence has been suspected because of its open door policy towards recruitment in the UK and more poignantly attempts by the HTB leadership to break rank and to reach out to the British government exemplified by its acceptance of an invitation by UK member of Parliament, Claire Short to speak to other Parliamentarians at Westminster in 2007. The open door policy was also extended to journalists who were provided open access to members and to the internal operations of HTB. This suspicion has been further compounded by the continuous refusal by the British Labour party to ban the movement despite the application of aggressive pressure by the opposition Conservative party. What the cases of ex- HTB whistleblowers Shiraz Maher, Ed Hussein and Maajid Nawaz have clearly demonstrated is that British intelligence is likely to have been embedded within the movement for some time. The level of infiltration seems to have been within the senior echelons of HTBs’ leadership exemplified by the fact that it has been confident enough to risk these assets becoming public without fear of losing its influence internally. Therefore, inevitably it would have full knowledge of the British origin members who are alleged to have helped set up and run the HTB originated structure in Pakistan. Maajid Nawaaz’s open declaration of his close association and collaboration with the UK Foreign Office would mean that most if not all of the British Pakistani HTB members sent to Pakistan would have been known to the British intelligence services including Imtiaz Malik at least since 2005. The burning question is why the HT global leadership has not moved to quarantine its leadership in the UK and its members who travelled to Pakistan considering the obvious security risks posed to it.

Copyright Noman Hanif

Hizb-ut-Tahrir UK Uses European Court Appeal to Cover Rapproachment with Britain

2008-07-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

On the 25th of June 2008, Hizb-ut-Tahrir UK or HTUK gave a press conference outlining their plan to submit an application to the European court with the express aim of overturning the German government's banning of the Party in 2003 on the basis of anti-semitic activity.Representing HTUK was Jamal Harwood (legal representative UK), Taji Mustafa (media representative UK) and Shakir Ahmed(media representative Germany). According to the press release, HTUK had recruited the services of Barristers Chambers and the team includes Keir Starmer QC (Doughty Street Chambers) Matthew Ryder, Keiron Beal (both of Matrix Chambers) and Tayab Ali (McCormacks Solicitors). The use of such legal methods, institutions and persons close to the British government is unprecedented in HT history.

It is my argument that the appeal by HTUK is a figleaf for a covert channel of engagement between HTUK spearheaded by Jamal Harwood and the British government through MATRIX chambers. Previous overt engagements have occurred between HTUK and the British political establishment through Claire Short with an invitation at Westminister.British intelligence has been successful in fully infiltrating HTUK with CIVITAS claiming that intelligence is "all over them". A glimpse of this infiltration was demonstrated through the efforts of Ed Hussein and his recruitment of Maajid Nawaz and Rashad Ali, both of whom were high level within the HTUK structure. They now run a British government inspired covertly funded foundation known as the Quilliam Foundation. Despite its claim to fight extremism in general there is no doubt that its specific agenda is Hizb ut Tahrir. Therefore British intelligence seems to have to been successful in playing both groups with the help of some interesting manouvres by the UK government through the threats of a ban. The ban has not materialised under Labour because the government was still in the process of monitoring and influencing not only the internal structure but all operations emanating from HTUK which were instrumental in establishing cells in Europe, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and others. Majid Nawaz who was privy to much of this information and has publicly stated his direct role in Pakistan and Denmark would have been further debriefed by the intelligence services.
The response of HTUK has been to threaten legal action. Such action has no legitimacy according to its understanding of Islamic jurisprudence. It seems the move by the government was to provide the leadership of HTUK with the cover to engage the government. However, the ban never materialised under Labour but is likely under a predicted Conservative government. For this reason HTUK have undertaken the German concern in order to lay the foundations for the covert channels with the Conservative government before the ban comes into place.

According to the press release: "The HT legal team led by Keir Starmer QC has highlighted the following points in the submission:

1. The silencing of HT re expression of its views publicly in Germany despite it being well known that HT is a non violent political party based on Islam.

2. The refusal of the German Constitutional court to hear the German appeal of HT citing that HT is a foreign association despite the fact that many of its members are German nationals, its clear existence in Germany for several decades, and despite the fact that the lower German courts banned the activities of HT in Germany (banning the Party in one court and not recognising it in another).

3. The rejection of the appeal of 21 members of HT resident in Germany, some of which have been expelled from the country and had their assets confiscated or frozen and despite several being German or EU nationals.

4. Banning of activities due to the supposed non-agreement with the “idea of International understanding” a principle which is insufficiently articulated to be readily ascertained. Furthermore, to ban an organisation’s activities on this basis is wholly disproportionate.

I would like to highlight a few points on this appeal:

1.There was no effort by HTUK, its representatives at the press conference or by Jamal Harwood in his interview with Islam Channel to outline the Islamic legitimacy upon which this appeal is based. This is a crucual point because HT follow a fundamental understanding of Islamic jurisprudence which states "every action requires evidence(from Islamic sources)".

2. According to HT understanding as outlined in its books, it recognises no legal mechanism, principle or law which is derived from outside what it considers the legal sources of Islam which are the Koran, Traditions of Mohammed, Consensus of the companions of Mohammed and Qiyas or legal analogy. It henceforth follows the jurisprudential principle which states "that which agrees with Islam is Kufr(non-Islamic) and that which disagrees with Islam is kufr" ie whatever is derived jurisprudentially from outside of the sources of Islam are invalid and prohibited.

3. Henceforth, HT does not recognise the legitimacy of laws, systems, governments, constitutions which are not derived from Islam. This is further based on its understanding of the verses of the Koran which states "Whoever does not judge by whatever Allah (God) has revealed are fasiq(wrongdoers), zalimoon(evil doers), kafiroon(non-believers)

4. The approach to seek judgment from courts, authorities, governments where no Islamic legitimacy exists is prohibited. This is how it understands the verses of Koran which prohibit the approach to bodies and institutions whose basis of legislation is not from the sources of Islam. One of the verses of the Koran states, "Have you seen those who say they believe in the revelation, yet they turn for their disputes to the Taghout (interpreted by HT as a body/instituion legislated from outside of the Islamic sources).

5.On the above basis HT's founder Taqiudine -an-Nabhani applied for the registration of the Party in Jordan in 1952 under the existing Ottoman law of association. However, it was not an application for legitimacy but a declaration of the party and hence it did not seek any legal address because it considered the Jordanian government, consitution and system as illegal.

6. The points raised by the HTUK have been purely on the considered illegality under European Human Rights Convention relation to the freedom of expression and association both principles which HT attacks in its literature as well as the principle of Human Rights.

7. Jamal Harwood argued that the German ban was based upon its own governments admission on the fear of the spread of HT and its success amongst the youth in Germany. He argued that nowhere else in Europe was this ban on HT. Hence the aim according to Shakir Ahmed was to expose the contradictions of Western capitalism and its notions of freedoms and democracy. This is while both Jamal Harwood and Shakir Ahmed state that HT does not work to establish Islam i=outside of the Muslim world but looks to protect and lead muslim communities in the West only and does not politically engage with the government.

Here there is a contradiction. The challenge to ideology of the German government is by nature political action and an engagement because it relates to the manner in which the German government looks after the affaisr of its citizens which includes Muslims. The engagement of societies outside of the muslim world is outside of the remit of HT. In actuality even the idea of working to build Muslim communities outside of the Muslim world for a post Caliphate period is a violation of its jurisprudential understanding that the work to establish Islam "in the muslim" world and "the instituion of the Caliphate" is a vital life and death concern according to the understanding of HT that the companions of the Prophet Mohammed delayed the burial of the Prophet Mohammed until after the election of a Caliph despite the conflict with the Islamic rule that a Muslim must be buried immediately.

It is important to note that Taqiudine an Nabahani did not put any consideration or value to the presence of Muslims or members of HT living/ working or studying in the West throughout his leadership of the Party for 30 years.The concentration of collective action was solely related achieving power in the Arab world as a primary objective with the expansion of the party members and influence of societieslimited to the rest of the Muslim world.

8. HT declares Britain as the nation which harbours the greatest hatred towards Islam based on its history with Islamic power and its success in infiltrating, destabilising and ultimately bringing down the Ottoman Caliphate. Accordingly it also regards Britain as the most politically cunning of all the nations and the one best in intelligence. Hence according to its draft constitution it is considered an "enemy" state for Muslims. In practical terms there is to be no relationship, link, approach or any form of contact with the British political/intelligence establishment or its surrogates. Any such contact is considered "poison" for any Islamic movement.

Yet HTUK has coveted the British political establishment through Claire Short at Westminster and now through MATRIX chambers which is strongly embedded with the British political establishment having been used by intelligebce to provide a statement of illegality for the Iraqi invasion and the US/UK position in order to indirectly embarrass the US. It was no coincidence Cherie Booth, wife of Tony Blair is also part of this chamber and UK intelligence is fully co-opted on all high profile cases. This connection has been highlighted by the HTUK itself in its lierature on Iraq.

Manufacturing a Terrorism Case Against Hizb-ut-Tahrir

2007-07-18T05:29:00.000-07:00

Taken for Noman Hanif's article "Ex-Islamist Inc: Fabricating a Link Between Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Terrorism"

Finding no hard conceptual or empirical evidence linking HT with violent activity, terrorism or even the methodology of jihadism, Husein then takes his argument to the illogical,

“As long as it remains legal for extremists in Britain to plan and finance Islamist attempts to mobilise the Muslim masses in the Middle East, and prepare an army for "jihad as foreign policy", there will always be a segment of this movement that will take jihad to its logical conclusion and act immediately, without leadership” (The Telegraph, 2nd May 2007)

As highlighted above even from the Sufi discourse, Jihad as an individual duty against occupation and aggression as well as the foreign policy of the state is well established in the books of classical Islam and leads directly to the Koran itself. Whether Husein agrees or is unwilling to accept the obvious is another issue. The reality is that the discourse with the relevant Koranic authority exists. The prohibition by HT of conducting violent action in order to achieve its political aims would put any of its members involved in such activity outside the fold of its organisation and method and hence they would cease to be a part of it as was the case of those members such as Omar Bakri which went onto form Muhajiroun. For this reason they can no longer be said to be acting in the name of HT. Thus HT was not responsible for Muhajiroun anymore than the Muslim Brotherhood was responsible for Sayid Qutub or the Syrian based Sufi movement (to which Ed Husein himself belongs) was responsible for the British bomber in Israel, Asif Haneef.

The suggestion that because HT expounds the duty of individual jihad in theatres of military conflict, segments will act without leadership is a dangerous logic to expound for any Muslim. If one was indeed to follow this line of argument to its consistent finale then the Koran itself is responsible for international terrorism because of the many verses related to fighting and killing in the realms of defence, a conclusion I am sure Ed Husein will not be rushing to advocate.

With no concrete evidence to frame HT, Hussein has turned to manipulating facts in order to comply with his Home Office set agenda. Two examples of such manipulation stand out in his book “The Islamist”. The first centres around the unsubstantiated allegations that HT was responsible for inciting the murder of a Nigerian student, Ayotunde Obunabi, in Newham College in the 90’s. ( The Islamist pp149-153).

Contrary to eye witness accounts he maintains that it was not about drugs and gangs rather it was about “Muslim supremacist tendencies”. Although he admits he did not get directly involved, he along with a colleague from HT raised the ante. This is a very serious allegation and one in which he has been overwhelmingly contradicted on many forums. On his website Husein asserts that the details of the events were agreed with colleague Maajid Nawaz prior to the release of his book;

“We agreed that the Hizb had created an atmosphere that led to the murder. More than anybody else, Maajid and I were closely involved with developments on campus during those months” (www.theislamist.tumblr.com)

However, the real reason for Hussain’s spin on the murder and his refusal to correct his innacuracy is firmly revealed when he connects it with the terrorism narrative;
“TThe Hizb must accept their part in radicalising young Muslims in Britain, starting with the murder in Newham to the carnage of 7/7 and the 2,000 cases that the secret services are monitoring now.”( www.theislamist.tumblr.com))

Again no direct connection was established. Moreover, Maajid Nawaz’s brother Kaashif Nawaz felt it necessary to intervene in order to correct Hussein’s assumption.

“The murder at East-Ham college was not of a man who was a Christian, but of a man who was high on drugs, and carrying 2 knives with intent on attacking one of the students on campus, he was intercepted by a gang of Muslims, who intercepted him - nothing to do with Islamism or HT, but more to do with gang wars which Muslims got involved in and some HT members tried to resolve.” (Comment on The Islamist: A Review by Kaashif Nawaz)

The second refers to the radicalisation of Tel Aviv bomber Asif Hanif, whom Husein following the assumptions of Shiv Malik in Prospect Magazine, claims had been recruited by HT in Britain but according to intelligence reports had been recruited in Syria but not by HT. On the contrary, it has been alleged by people who knew Hanif from Hounslow that he was not very fond of HT. Rather, whilst in Syria, Haneef who became acquainted with Husein had belonged to the same Sufi movement as him. There is again more than enough doubt to even suggest a link between Asif Hanif and HT. In contrast the evidence linking Hanif with Husein’s own Sufi movement is more pronounced. The case in point merely demonstrates the dubious evidence employed and the lengths to which Husein is willing to go in order to provide the elusive link.
Shiraz Maher similarly follows the flawed logic of Ed Hussein. In a programme for More4, Maher tries to make the incredible claim that the Tel Aviv bomber Omar Sharif had been influenced to commit the action, nine years after he suggested that Sharif had any association with HT. According to Maher;

“The whole mind frame of Omar Sharif [took] an ideological backbone from Hizb ut- Tahrir. His vision of an Islamic state, his anti-west sentiments, all that came from their conditioning…So if he how goes on nine years later to act out an act of violence, who is to blame?” (More4, 15th May 2006)

As with Hussein, having failed to convincingly manipulate the facts in this case that of Omar Sharif, Shiraz Maher maintained the Darwinian hope of one day finding the ‘missing’ link between link between HT and terrorism. According to More4 Shiraz’s sentiment at the time was;

“They are non-violent at present, but they are a threat waiting to materialise.” (15th May 2006)

If over fifty years of HT activity has not provided the proof then exactly what is Maher searching or more succinctly hoping for? It must be noted here that HTB on its website categorically denied as baseless allegations that Asif Hanif or Omar Sharif had any association with HT. Uptil now no proof has been provided for this relationship, a fact that both Husein and Maher seem deliberately to ignore.
Maher and Husein did not have to wait too long for their next opportunity. The failed bombings at London and Glasgow airport in July, 2007 provided the perfect occasion for their endeavour. Maher was co-opted heavily by the print and television media. The reason for this was his claim that whilst a student at Cambridge he had befriended one of the doctors, Dr.Bilal Abdullah, responsible for attempting to ram a jeep into Glasgow airport and now being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. The script could not have been more perfect for Maher and Husein. The media and Home Office machinery went into action. Supposedly, they had found the missing link between HT and terrorism. Maher was interviewed on BBC Newsnight for three nights in row and then published his account in the New Statesman. The framing of HT by insinuation was not difficult to decipher. For Maher it was the best self marketing opportunity for his credentials as an ex-Islamist that had occurred since he offered his services as an ex-Islamist Inc. Tom Nuttall, deputy editor of Prospect Magazine which had interviewed Maher and Husein stated that they were finding it hard to cope with the interest generated in these guys. Ignoring the fact that Dr. Abdullah had been of a jihadi persuasion before Maher met him and by Maher’s own admission on BBC Newsnight that Dr.Abdullah had rejected HT’s approach to join the organisation because he disagreed with the non-violent or political methodology of HT. Despite this, the main focus of Maher in his interviews and articles remains the pursuit of fabricating HT’s ‘inevitable association’ with terrorism. Maher writes;

“And so it was through my involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir and its ideology of extremist political Islam that I came to befriend Bilal, the would-be bomber. That's why I believe it's wrong to distinguish between "extremism" and "violent extremism" as the government has been doing in recent months. The two are inextricably intertwined. Without movements such as Hizb creating t he moral imperatives to justify terror, people like Bilal wouldn't have the support of an ideological infrastructure cheering them on. And, I believe, it's a fallacy to suggest that the culpability of agitators and cheerleaders is any l ess than for
those who actually carry out acts of terror.” (New Statesman, 5th July, 2007)

The British government and the security services having sat back and let the media frenzy run riot in creating a hostile Islamophobic environment of distrust towards Muslim doctors and professionals, Ed Husein re-entered the fray. Ed ‘Einstein’ had just come up with a ground breaking theory. The case of the Glasgow doctors had empirically demonstrated that Islamic movements whose membership and leadership consists of medical and technical personnel has the propensity towards terrorism. Amazingly but not surprisingly Husain was allowed an audience for this schizophrenia through the US publication Newsweek. According to Husein’s theory;

“They (engineers) approach the Qu'ran as though it were an engineering manual, with instructions for right and wrong conduct. Literalism and ignorance dominates their readings. This flaw is deepened by the haughty mindset of the engineer or medical doctor that academic achievement, a place at a university, now qualifies him to approach ancient scripture without the guidance of the ulama. To the Islamist engineer, centuries of context, nuance, history, grammar, lexicon, scholarship, and tradition are all l ost and redundant. The do-it-yourself (DIY) attitude to religious texts, fostered by doctors and engineers of secular colleges, produces desperate, angry suicide bombers devoid of spiritual guidance” (Bin Laden’s Army, Newsweek, 10th of July, 2007)

Of course Bin Laden the “engineer” and Zwahiri the “doctor” were predictable case studies in this theory of guilt by professionalism. However, this was merely the starters. The main menu was of course HT. Lo and behold, HT had failed to install a fool proof screening system which detected doctors and engineers. Hence logically they were bound to produce angry terrorists and suicide bombers! Ridiculously humorous as it may sound, this is exactly what Husein argued;

“The rank-and-file of Islamist organizations, the precursors to terrorism, are filled with activists with a technical education. The instructor of my first secret cell in Hizb ut- Tahrir in London was a town planner; my second cell-leader was a medical doctor. Even today, medical doctors manage the British arm of Hizb ut-Tahrir-a global Islamist political party working for the re-establishment of an Islamic caliphate: doctors Nasim Ghani, Abdul Wahid, and Nazreen Nawaz. Globally, the central leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir is a Jordan-based engineer, Abu Rishta. The story of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is similar. When Islamists graduate to jihadist terrorism the profile is equally chilling.” ((Bin Laden’s Army, Newsweek, 10th of July, 2007)

By logical deduction one would presume that in Husein’s own professed Sufi circles there exists either no doctors or engineers or access is denied to them because they have the propensity of DIY literalism and terrorism. Whatever one may think, Ed husein seems to have convinced himself that he had finally found the “missing link”. The detective had at long last found the proof linking Dr. David Bannister with the incredible Hulk. Before one could pronounce Dr. Abdullah, Ed Husein had gone global with his theory.

On a serious note, as the media set about globalising Maher’s association with Dr. Abdullah whilst being a HT member, Husein followed Maher up by using his “professional association” theory to push for a ban on HT in Australia which led the Attorney General to reconsider the Australian position. According to ABC Australia;

“Hizb ut-Tahrir members are alleged to have associated with one of the men arrested over the failed London bombing….Last night on Lateline, a British defector from the group warned Australian members of Hizb ut Tahrir are Muslim extremists and take direction from London.” (ABC 6th July, 2007)

Again, the fingerprints of the UK Home Office were apparent. The co-operation and strategy between Britain and Australia towards HT’s proscription is a long standing one and has generally followed the same trajectory. Again both Maher and Husein were mere pawns in the ongoing strategy which does not look to proscribe HT but merely apply the threat of proscription in order to moderate and ultimately control it. Hence despite his best efforts to link Dr. Abdullah with HT and ultimately with terrorism, like in Britain, Husein met with the same response during his interview and debates. According to Jacob Townsend, research analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and co-author of a paper on the Hizb ut-Tahrir presence in Australia.

“The biggest risk from Hizb ut-Tahrir is if, and I say 'if', it acts as a conveyor belt for extremism, moving people from radicalisation and towards violence ideologies. There is only suggestive evidence, not conclusive evidence that around the world Hizb ut-Tahrir itself has ever been implicated in violence. So, we have to be careful in the sense that on the basis of evidence, 'no', Hizb ut-Tahrir does not authorise or organise violence”. ( ABC Australia, 6th July, 2007)
Having failed in his linkage with Dr.Abdullah, Husein thought he’d try his luck with the “Dr Bannister” theory;

“On a final thought, even here, the leadership of Hizb ut Tahrir as well as the leadership of Mohabist organisations are filled with engineers and doctors.” ( ABC Australia, 6th July, 2007)

In conclusion it seems evident that both Ed Husein and Shiraz Maher have found an extremely receptive audience in the Home Office and the media. The Home Office needed pawns for a specific strategy on HT and the war on terror, whilst Ed Husein and Shiraz Maher needed an opportunity to market their credentials as ex- Islamist insiders with the goal of establishing themselves as authorities on radical Islam and terrorism in general and more specifically HT. However, their reductiveness and obsession in a theoretically and empirically bankrupt mission to link HT with international terrorism seriously puts into question the very nature of their personalities and agendas. The manner in which they have attempted to prove their logic has oscillated from the ridiculous to the comical.

In doing so, they have disconnected themselves with the actuality of a narrative, which puts Western foreign policy and neo-colonialism towards the Islamic world as the prime cause of radicalisation, not only in the West but in the Islamic world. It is quite astonishing that while the majority of the Muslim’s and even non-Muslims vent their frustration and anger over the Anglo-American neo-colonial occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq both Husein and Maher remain silent on the issue. Moreover, the atomised fixation with proscribing HT with the overtly tacit support from the UK government and media machinery frames them within narrative of Western complicity in radicalism and terrorism. In this regards Maher is far off the mark when he suggests that;

“There is no quick fix to the problem of home-grown terrorism, but banning Hizb ut- Tahrir would be an excellent first step, sending a strong signal to aspiring terrorists that Britain has not changed the rules of the game. We no longer play that game.” (The Telegraph May 2nd, 2007)

No doubt Husein and Maher are in need of a reality check. The rules remain as does the game. In essence they remain averse to the actual logic of their argument of guilt by association which taken to its rightful conclusion would connect 9/11, 7/7 etc not with the Islamic movement but with the creation and fostering of jihadism by the Western security services to meet US and British policy objectives in Afghanistan during the 80’s and Bosnia during the 90’s. Bin Laden and Zwahiri were not the creation of HT but of the CIA., Taliban was hot the creation of HT but of the ISI and the CIA, Al-Muhajiroun was not the creation of HT but of Omar Bakri supported by MI5. The use and protection of Omar Bakri, Abu Hamza, Mohammed Aswat, Abu Qatada and Hassan Butt is not by HT but by the British security services. The narrative which puts terrorism specifically in the context of a blowback resulting from the Western use of jihadism has nothing to do with HT.(Please refer to the works of Nafeez Ahmed on the War on Truth )

The unfortunate reality is that the politics between the UK Home Office and HTB is locked in until at least one of the parties decides to change the rules. Until then Maher and Husein will most probably continue to justify their co-option by the UK government and media by maintaining a politics of fear through perpetual efforts at fabricating a link with terrorism along with the doomsday scenario of a Caliphate. As the quotes below clearly demonstrate, behind the actors garb operate British neo-cons disguised as ex-Islamist Inc.

“We can wait for their state to come about and then confront them as we did the Nazis, at a very late stage and at a high human cost, or we can stop appeasing Hizb ut- Tahrir and its offshoots and demand: either change, or perish. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye.” (Ed Hussein, Chilling Similarities, Commentisfree, Guardian, 10th July, 2007)

Copyright © Noman Hanif 2007

The Methodology of Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Violent Action

2007-07-18T05:15:00.000-07:00

Taken from Noman Hanif's article "Ex Islamist Inc: Fabricating a Link between Hizb ut Tahrir and Terrorism"

The Islamic world is a melting pot of various movements committed to Islamic revival. However, the Islamic movement is not a unitary block. The commonality of its final goal masks the trenches which exist between the movements related to the understanding of the political reality and the methodology required to bring about the final solution. The politics of Islamism is fundamentally contested. These contestations are evident not only in the literature base of these movements but also in the practical application of their strategies. In order to correctly evaluate any movement there has to be an objective reading of its ideational base and an empirical appreciation of its methodology and strategy in practice. At the same time a cautionary principle must be adopted in that the study of movements is not a scientific one. One cannot confine the movements to the realm of a laboratory and hypothesize. In the real world the Islamic movement is a live cosmopolitan shopping mall. People tend to move in, out and around different movements, picking up a host of ideas on the shopping trip. For instance in the public circles and Friday sermons organised by the various movements, the audience will consist of a plethora of interested parties affiliated to different persuasions and organisations. The attendance of a person from one school of thought in the activity of another does not in any way imply a wholesale conversion. Such an argument would indeed be nonsensical and a twisted distortion of everyday human behaviour in the life of all societies. Yet it is with this twisted logic that the war on terrorism is evolving and more succinctly the logic of Zeyno Baran, Ed Hussein and Shiraz Maher against Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

The basis of this deviant logic has nothing to do with international terrorism. Baran’s agenda is a fresh application for the ‘politics of fear’. This is a Raeganite ‘war of ideas’ paradigm which was applied successfully against Communism and now blasts against political Islam. The Hudson Institute, The Nixon Center and other US prominent think tanks were indeed established on the very premise of fighting a war of ideas against Communism and the Soviet Union. In this paradigm, radical Islam is substituted for Communism as the primary “evil”. Baran’s agenda for this war against HT under this ill defined model becomes suspiciously apparent not only in the Nixon Center’s and the Heritage Foundation’s superficial and deliberate mis-reading of the HT ideology and politics but in the collusion with anti-HT, non-democratic but energy resourceful states and governments in Central Asia.

Ed Hussein and Shiraz Maher however are not in the same league as Baran. Whereas Baran is an engine for US policy, Husein and Maher are simple pawns that seem to have prostituted themselves in the Western led battle against political Islam. In my article “The Future of HT in Britain”, I situated Ed Huseins book ‘The Islamist’ and his heavy promotion as an insider as part of a British strategy towards bringing HT into mainstream politics domestically and utlitising it for foreign policy goals externally. In my follow up article “David Cameron and Labour’s Strategy towards HT”, I have identified four areas of this strategy which is not to proscribe but to maintain the threat of proscription in order to moderate and engineer HT’s British branch such that it can be utilised for policy purposes. One of the elements of this strategy is to maintain the possibility of a fabricated link between terrorism and HT through employing ex HT members such as Ed Hussein, Shiraz Maher and in smaller measure ex-Muhajiroun member Hassan Butt. The heavy engagement by the UK Home Office, security services and the media of these ex-members has not gone unnoticed. The comments on the various websites where their articles have been published indicate a trust deficit by Muslims and non-Muslims alike regarding the agenda’s of these characters largely brought about by the contradictions, inconsistencies and inaccuracies in their accounts and testimonies. Moreover as I will demonstrate the conceptual positions of both Husein and Maher in framing a false case of terrorism against HT are untenable and as argued above seem to be motivated by factors other than a desire to address the real causes of terrorism.

Before I embark upon a refutation of Hussain and Maher’s edifice which attempts to link HT with terrorism, it is essential to understand exactly what HT ideology is towards violent action. HT’s theoretical premise for its methodology is openly detailed in its books. It claims to strictly follow the stages of the Prophet Mohammed in his political journey from the Arabian city of Mecca to the establishment of the Islamic state in the Arabian city of Medina. This journey according to all the books of HT was a non-violent one involving the building of a popular base through dawa(interaction) and then the installment of an Islamic government built on the support of the popular base and the intervention of the people of influence and power. Because this methodology has been considered a derivative from the Islamic sources through a process of ijtihad (jurisitic exertion), it is considered a divine obligation and deviation from it haram(prohibited). HT’s strict adherence to this methodology is a widely understood reality. Moreover, HT has been the thorn of jihadists in condemning their use of violence as a methodological tool. In their exchange with the jihadists’ which can be gauged from various websites, HT members argument rests on the argument that the disciples of Mohammed who were subjected to varying degrees of torture in Mecca wanted to respond with violence but were strictly prohibited in doing so by the Prophet Mohammed.

The concept of violence does not occur in the realm of methodology but in the realms of jihad, a word and a concept which has been a long standing thorn in the history of Western experience with Islam. Jihad which has many definitions indeed has a violent application. However, according to HT ideology this is confined to the realms of self-defence and the last resort in the ideological expansion of the state. In this sense apart from the styles used and the basis of motivation, one would find it difficult to distinguish this conception from the practice of ideological states in the international arena. Western neo-colonialism and the application of democracy by force in Iraq being a prime example. HT rejects jihad (physical struggle) as a means and method to bring societal and state transformation. However, it judges the response of violence in the form of Jihad as legitimate in the case of aggression against and occupation of Islamic territory such as Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq. In these cases the response of resistance to Western occupation and policy is not novel to the Islamic movements, it has a broad measure of support amongst the Muslim masses.

The crunch issue here is that even despite the acceptance of the duty of individual jihad (fard ayn), HT maintains that the fundamental solution remains the resumption of Islam and the establishment of the Caliphate. For this reason it does not initiate jihadist activity as a movement. According to Suha Taji Farouki,

“Hizb ut-Tahrir has been calling with mounting intensity for the eradication of Israel by jihad since the early 1980s’, but this means calling for action by the Muslim states, the Muslim masses and the armies of Muslim countries, and not the party itself organizing the jihad – in fact, it calls on them to re- establish the caliphate so that jihad can be launched.” (‘Islamists and the threat of Jihad: Hizb al-Tahrir and al-Muhajiroun on Israel and the Jews’.In Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 36, No. 4, October 2000, pp. 21– 46)

It is the concept of Jihad upon which Ed Husain builds his accusation of terrorism against Hizb ut Tahrir. In an article entitled, “I know how these terrorists are inspired”, Husein claims that HT’s proclamations of jihad is what laid the groundwork for terrorism in the UK;

“The rhetoric of jihad introduced by Hizb ut-Tahrir in my days was the preamble to 7/7 and several other attempted attacks.” (The Telegraph, 2nd May 2007)
The problem is that the rhetoric he was referring to was indeed true, but it was under the aberrant leadership of Muhajiroun head Omar Bakri Mohammed. After removing Omar Bakri, HTB reverted initially to its original understanding of Jihad outlined above and subsequently distanced itself from any such rhetoric by removing all references to Jihad even on its website. This fact has been acknowledged by Husain. Moreover, HTB has gone out of its way to list and detail on its hizb.org.uk website, the opinions of prominent Western ambassadors and analysts familiar with HT in different parts of the world such as Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who have confirmed the adherence of HT to its non-violent methodology despite the extreme levels of torture and repression against its members. Expressions of violence against the Israeli state and the Western forces in Iraq, Afghanistan etc are not restricted to HT but resound widely in the Islamic world as a mobilising concept against occupation only. Again as Nuh Keller’s points above clearly illustrate, jihad is an established concept in Sufi discourse even relating to the offence by an Islamic state and ideological supremacy. By attacking the concept Husein puts himself against the vast majority of recognised Islamic scholarship, yet again proving that Sufism is merely a mask.

Shiraz Maher: Ed Husein's Supporting Actor

2007-07-18T05:12:00.000-07:00

Taken from Noman Hanif's article "Ex-Islamist Inc: Fabricating a Link between Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Terrorism'

The case of Shiraz Maher is an interesting one. Unlike Husein, Maher was a prolific writer for Hizb ut Tahrir in Britain (HTB) demonstrating a sound understanding of HT ideology. Hence his dramatic u-turn in 2005 from doctrinal Islamist to secularist must have taken HTB completely by surprise. Maher first came to prominence as “reformed” ex-HT Islamist through his publication of an article in Prospect Magazine wherein he argued that UK Universities had failed to acknowledge the extent of Islamic extremism on the campuses despite the report by Anthony Glees and Chris Pope, "When Students Turn to Terror" (Social Affairs Unit). Since then he has been working in the background as a consultant for the BBC on political Islam and although preceded Ed Hussein as the original ex-HT defector was overshadowed by the publication of The Islamist, until now. However, Maher’s own opportunism starts with the issue of his Maher’s official account of when exactly he joined HT which has been disputed by people who claim to have known him. Within a comment on Maher’s article in the New Statesman entitled, “Glasgow bombs: the Doctor I knew”, the person under the name of Sajid writes;

“Brother Shiraz why are you dishonest over the one matter you should know best. I note that in this article you have tried to avoid the lies in your previous accounts of your "recruitment". You have now admitted that when you moved to Leeds you "already knew about Hizb ut-Tahrir". However that is not what you wrote in the Times Higher Education Supplement [3 February 2006] when you said that you first met HT at Leeds University where you were "recruited". Did we not attend HT study circles in Birmingham Central Mosque together for several years when you were at Solihull School and I was at King Edward's? You had first approached members of HT many years previously when you lived with your grandfather in Harborne in 1994. I remember that you asked to join HT at that time, but rather than ‘recruit’ you , HT merely explained its thoughts to you, and did not make any efforts to meet you again. Many years later you again actively approached members of the party at a mosque in Leeds. In the article last year in THES you alleged that you had been approached at university - I am glad that you have now admitted in this article that your previous account was inaccurate. With so much dishonesty why should anyone now believe your account?” (New Statesman, 12th July, 2007)

Why was there a need for Maher to provide such contradictory accounts. Is it an attempt to cover tracks in order to reinvent oneself? Or is it more sinister? Whatever the answer, the issue of credibility has already been raised.
The attempted bombing of Glasgow airport catapulted Maher directly into the global media limelight. The British media had brought him in from the cold. Why? Not because he knew the Glasgow bomber Dr. Abdullah, but because he knew him in the capacity of a Hizb-ut-Tahrir member. Ed Hussein’s Home Office script had just found a supporting actor. Maher took the opportunity and locked himself into the narrative. Until now Maher had made no connection between HT ideology and terrorism. Rather the focus was on protecting liberal values through attacking HT’s goal of an Islamic Caliphate and the supremacy of Sharia;

"Hizb ut-Tahrir is, after all, ostensibly non-violent and committed to open discussion, so can it really be that dangerous? I suggest that it is…Hizb ut- Tahrir is no paper tiger. It is a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow governments in the Muslim world, establish a caliphate and then wage jihad on other nations." [Times Higher Education Supplement]
Crucially however, the opportunism is confirmed by the fact that he had kept quiet about his association with jihadists in the past and had argued vigorously as a HT member that its methodology was non-violent and no link had ever been established between HT and terrorism. Whilst a member of HT Maher states;

“Disillusioned at the failure of her agents to suppress the Islamic da'wah we now see the colonialist states taking direct action against the Hizb. Despite vain attempts to slander the Hizb and associate her name with terrorism the German government much like the Uzbek, Jordanian, Syrian, Egyptian administrations has failed to show demonstrate any such link. Islam is the only ideological solution to capitalist exploitation and hegemony. Unfortunately even the supposedly democratic west - the bastion of liberal democracy and free speech - now fears this growing and unstoppable call."[http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:ezY- FZ8NFHkJ:www.paklinks.com/gs/archive/index.php/t- 86574.html+%22shiraz+maher%22+ban&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=cln k&cd=22]

It is not surprising that Maher has vigorously tried to remove these statements from the internet. The question which naturally arises from the quote is that despite HT’s ideology remaining consistent for over fifty years, no terrorism connection was ever found. HT’s ideology has not changed so what has? Maher as with Ed Hussein provides no answers to this question. Moreover, since according to his own admission Dr. Abdullah had been radicalised by jihadism before his introduction and also according to his own admission Abdullah had rejected the non-violent methodology of HT and refused to join HT, Maher is totally disingenuous in declaring that the ideology of Islamic dissent and HT ideology in particular is a precursor to terrorism.

“And so it was through my involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir and its ideology of extremist political Islam that I came to befriend Bilal, the would-be bomber. That's why I believe it's wrong to distinguish between "extremism" and "violent extremism" as the government has been doing in recent months. The two are inextricably intertwined. Without movements such as Hizb creating t he moral imperatives to justify terror, people like Bilal wouldn't have the support of an ideological infrastructure cheering them on. And, I believe, it's a fallacy to suggest that the culpability of agitators and cheerleaders is any less than for those who actually carry out acts of t error.” (New Statesman, 5th July, 2007)
Yet the closeness to the narrative of The Islamist is unmistakable,

“Islamist terrorism does not exist in a vacuum. Like other social phenomena, it operates within a wider infrastructure, designed to achieve specific ends. In this case, that is the political ideology of Islamism, an idea distinct and different from Islam the religion. ” (New Statesman, 12th July, 2007)

“The political ideology of Islamism”, “Islam the religion”. Sound familiar? Once the fog is removed it is clearly recognisable that Maher has been scripted by the Home Office to play supporting actor to Husein. The issue is not terrorism but a concerted attack on the ideas of political Islam and specifically those concerning the Caliphate, Islamic Universalism and jihad. Thus it is no coincidence that Maher ‘s timing of his article in The New Statesman on the 12th of July coincided with Husein’s articles in Newsweek and the Guardian in the same week, concurring that;

“Islamist groups thrive on preaching a separatist message of Islamic supremacy, which concerns itself with reversing the temporal decline of Islam and challenging the ascendancy of the west by reviving a puritanical caliphate.” ((New Statesman, 12th July, 2007)

Ed Husein : A British Neo-Conservative in Sufi Clothing

2007-07-18T05:07:00.001-07:00

Taken from Noman Hanif's article, 'Ex-Islamist Inc: Fabricating a Link Between Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Terrorism

Ed Husein dramatically rose to prominence as a result of his book ‘The Islamist’ (Penguin;London, 2007), which charts his journey from radical Islam to Sufi Islam and forms with the backdrop of being an ex-HT member, a blueprint for action against radical Islam. However, the book not only propounds gross factual inaccuracies but as I will demonstrate later, many allegations which lack evidentiary proof. The behaviour and writings of Ed Husein post ‘The Islamist’ are also strongly suggestive that the book was formulated as a blueprint for a more specific onslaught against the core tenets of political Islam including some which command universal support amongst the majority of the Islamic schools of thought. His close relationship with UK Home Office officials and the security agencies raises credible doubt as to the origin of ‘The Islamist’. In his quest against Islamism, Husein claims support by shadowy Sufi figures who lurk in the background and who are unwilling to come forward in person or provide an intellectual reposte to radical Islam and more specifically HT. Who are these figures and why do they need Husein to do their bidding? Are the shadowy figure’s Sufi’s or the Home Office? It is not coincidental that the timing of ‘The Islamist’ coincided with the Home Office’s major push against radicalisation one of which is the backing of Sufism and the set up of the Sufi Muslim Council. This connection is lucidly brought out by Madeleine Bunting in her interview with Ed Hussein when she revealed that his conversion to “secularism” coupled with his Sufi inclination seems to fit quite neatly with this equation.

“There has never been much love lost between Sufism and Islamism - the former criticised as politically quiescent - and one way to read Husain is that Sufi Islam now has a sympathetic hearing in Whitehall and the media, and has the confidence to challenge Islamist domination of the UK Muslim community”(Guardian, 12th May, 2007).
In fact I argue that even Sufism masks Husein’s real political agenda. Ziauddin Sardar in his review of The Islamist is struck by Husein’s atomisation of the Islamist phenomena to HT. The fixation with HT is somewhat understandable considering the history of Husein. However, the obsession to blame it for the environment of terrorism is taking reductionism to its extreme. As Sardar is correct pint out;

“The suggestion that the radicalisation of Muslim youth can be laid firmly on the door of Hizb is also hard to swallow. The anger of young Muslims against the West has a much broader context. There was a great deal going on during the 1990s that agitated young Muslims and brought anti-Western sentiment to the fore - from the first Gulf War to the genocide of Muslims in Chechnya. But Husain sees the world in reductive, one- dimensional terms” (The Independent, 1 June 2007)

On closer inspection however, Husein’s agenda seems more to be borne out of an obsessional hatred for HT, its members and its message, including the core tenets of classical Islam such as the supremacy of sharia, the role of the Caliphate in Islamic governance and jihad as a legal form of resistance and ideological expansion. In pursuing his agenda Husein seems to have adopted the maxim ‘the ends justify the means’ in that even the proclaimed Sufi conversion seems to conceal an underlying real-politik applied though a Darwinian logic in attempting to manufacture a missing link between HT and terrorism. However, even more fundamental than this is the use of HT, radicalism and terrorism to disguise an attack on the very essence of political and classical Islam itself. Husein’s esoteric agenda magnifies the confusion as to his real aim. Hence Sardar points out;

“Hizb ut-Tahir should be banned so that they can take their nefarious activities underground and become even more difficult to tackle. Muslim organisations are secret terrorist sympathisers. Husain doesn't tell us what we should do with them. But I suspect he wants everyone locked up, leaving the terrain open for his brand of neocons to run amok.” (The Independent, 1 June 2007)

Husein’s lack of concern to correct himself even at the advice of his fellow Sufi comrades is the strongest indication of Sufism being a mere cloak. The myriad of distortions and misquotations of the Sufi and other classical texts by Husein has been comprehensively exposed by another Sufi Ust. Andrew Booso in his review of Husein’s book ‘The Islamist’. Booso says,

“Husain’s name-dropping of Hanson and Keller, in particular, seems to be opportunism based on assumptions that are false. Firstly, his definition and rejection of ‘political Islam’ does not hold up to analysis from Nuh Keller’s compendium Reliance of the Traveller, which received a confirmatory certificate from al-Azhar University, whom Husain calls ‘arguably the highest authority on Muslim scripture’. Nuh Keller adds a section entitled ‘The Caliphate [al-khilafah]’ to the original legal manual that he t ranslated (which is called ‘Umdat as-salik).”
http://thetranslators1.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/review- of-%e2%80%9cth islamist%e2%80%9d-ust-andrew-booso-complete/

Husein provides no articulated response to Booso’s elucidation choosing to ignore the corrections and continue with his set agenda. Husein in The Islamist champions Sufi personalities such as Nuh Keller and Hamza Yusuf as charting the correct path for the Muslim’s. Hence it is important to note Booso’s quotes from Nuh Keller in his appendix to Husein’s quoted book Reliance of the Traveller;

It being ‘obligatory for Muslims to rise against’ a leader of the government if he ‘becomes a non-Muslim, alters the Sacred Law – (…imposing rules that contravene the provisions of the religion while believing in the validity of the rules he has imposed, this being unbelief (kufr)) – or imposes reprehensible innovations while in office’, ‘if possible’, and ‘install an upright leader in his place’(see o25.3(a) for a full explanation).

It being ‘obligatory to obey the commands and interdictions of the caliph…in everything that is lawful…even if he is unjust’ (o25.5).
Offensive jihad (see o9.1), with the objective being to fight ‘Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians…until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax’ (o9.8); and ‘the Caliph fights all other peoples until they become Muslim’ (o9.9).

‘Non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic State…are distinguished from Muslims in dress, wearing a wide cloth belt (zunnar)…[and] must keep to the side of the street’ (o11.5).

The Islamic state not retaliating against a Muslim for killing a non-Muslim (o1.2).
Hence, if Husein was ignorant of his own ideational sources then clearly he was made aware of them by Booso. Yet Husein chose to disregard them and maintain the same line of attack in the media.

Moreover, HTB spokesman Taji Mustafa also had to correct Husein regarding his incorrect assertion over the position of the Caliphate in the texts of classical Islam in general.

“he (Husein) argues that key orthodox political ideas such as the caliphate are alien to "traditional" Islam.., one of the scholars who Husain cites as a new found reference point is the respected Sufi Shaykh Nuh Keller. In his translation of the classical jurisprudential work Reliance of the Traveller he states that the caliphate is "obligatory in itself" and an integral part of orthodox Islamic thinking. There are many examples of Muslim scholars and thinkers more famed for their spiritualism who endorse the ideas of Shariah and caliphate as inherently part of Islam. Husain has chosen to ignore the opinions of these Sufis who agree with those he labels Islamists” (The Islamist Bogeyman, Guardian 14th May 2007)

Bearing the above points by Nuh Keller in mind Husein’s article on the commentisfree blog of the UK Guardian outrightly confirms his position of belligerence towards classical Islam. What is more revealing is that Ziauddin Sardar was not wrong in his labelling of Husein as a ‘neocon’ for he categorically adopted the neoconservative line of attack on the Caliphate and Islamic universalism as comparable to Nazism. In the title he uses the German vocabulary describing the goal of One Nation as (Ein Volke), One State as (Ein Reich) and One Caliph as (Ein Fuhrer). Husein writes,

“Sound familiar? Hizb ut-Tahrir's slogans, reiterated by members during the 1990s - and continued today throughout the Middle East - bear a chilling resemblance to that of t he German Nazi party. The similarities don't end there: ideological totalitarianism, expansionist foreign policy, the designation of women to the private realm, the rejection of democracy, concepts of relationship between party and state, notions of the master race, education system as indoctrination and anti-semitism are all features they both share.”
(http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ed_husain/2007/07/chilling_similarities. html)

In fact what does sound familiar is Husein’s adoption of the neo-conservative language and strategy towards the concept of Islamic governance, universalism and the attempted link with terrorism. This is why the logic of neoconservative Zeyno Baran resonates in Husein’s caricature of HT, the insinuation of terrorism and that of the neoconservative elements of the Bush administration as regards the assault on political Islam through vocabulary such as “evil ideology” attached to the goal of a world wide Caliphate. Hussein’s association of Nazism with the notion of Islamic governance and the sharia is well established as part of the armoury of neoconservative thinking towards political Islam. Hussein’s adoption of this line of attack is categorical in his article in the UK Guardian. The following quotations below confirm the adoption:
Husein;

“We can wait for their state to come about and then confront them as we did the Nazis, at a very late stage and at a high human cost, or we can stop appeasing Hizb-ut-Tahrir and its offshoots and demand: either change, or perish. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye.” (Ed Hussein, Chilling Similarities, Commentisfree, Guardian, 10th July, 2007)

Gen Johm Abizaid;

They will try to re-establish a caliphate throughout the entire Muslim world... Just as we had the opportunity to learn what the Nazis were going to do, from Hitler's word in ' Mein Kampf... we need to learn what these people intend to do from their own words.“ (General John Abizaid (11/05)

Other areas where the attack on classical Islam by Husein are inimical to that found in the neo-conservative literature is related to the disputation of non-Muslims especially jews and christians (Kafir) and the distortion that historical figures such as Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina and Al-Farabi were incorrectly declared non-Muslim. The neo-conservative aim being to promote these outcast figures as credible sources for Muslims and in doing so demonstrate Islam’s compatability with Greek philosophy and Western civilisation. Husein accuses the founder of HT, Taqiudine an Nabahani of deliberately manipulating classical Islam. However as Andrew Booso in his reposte to Husein clinically points out with examples from the classical Muslim jurists that Nabahani was actually in line with the classical scholars including Sufi’s such as Ghazali in declaring non-Muslims including Christian’s and jews as (Kafir) and Al-Farabi etc as having violated the Islamic doctrine and hence become non-Muslim. Booso states:

“Therefore Mawdudi, Qutb and Nabahani cannot be accused in this specific regard of believing and propagating anything but a standard orthodox belief expounded “and endorsed by jurists throughout time” (http://thetranslators1.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/review- of-%e2%80%9cthe- islamist%e2%80%9d-ust-andrew-booso-complete/)

Booso was also referring to Husein’s attack on Nabahani regarding the Caliphate or Islamic state being an orthodox verified obligation. Booso quotes Nuh Keller in respect of his addition to Reliance of the Traveller regarding the Caliphate;

“This section has been added here by the translater because the Caliphate is both obligatory in itself and the necessary precondition for all the rulings established by Allah Most High to govern and guide Islamic community life.“ (Quotation of Nuh Keller by Andrew Booso http://thetranslators1.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/review- of-%e2%80%9cthe- islamist%e2%80%9d-ust-andrew-booso-complete/)
The logical conclusion of Husein’s distortion is that the classical jurists including their Sufi followers such as Nuh Keller would under Husein’s construction be labelled as the idea bearers for Islamist’s and extremists and ultimately terrorism.

“Would Husein now recommend that Tony Blair outlaw Nuh Keller or ban him from England and declare extreme those that follow Nuh Keller such as Hamza Yusuf and T.J Winter as well as labelling Keller as such himself? “
Thus it was no wonder that Booso had no alternative to dismiss Husein’s Sufi façade;

“It is fair to conclude that the last development of Husein’s character ie the ‘spiritual’ one, that we are treated to is an illusion, because he has recast the ’masters’ in his own image so to speak” http://thetranslators1.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/review- of-%e2%80%9cthe- islamist%e2%80%9d-ust-andrew-booso-complete/)

What becomes clearer upon closer inspection of Husein’ writings is that he is in fact a British neoconservative disguised as a Sufi. Moreover, he explicitly follows the Christian dictum of “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”. Hence his underlying position is what he himself declares it to be in ‘The Islamist’ which is secularism in the Western sense;

“Religions are not for governments or states, they are for individuals. The state can assist individuals religious responsibilities, but governments cannot, should not, profess faith” (Hussain, The Islamist)

What is conclusive in the comparative between Hussein and Nuh Keller above is that his position that Sufism undermines HT is a complete fabrication and one which Hussein must be aware of. Hussein has clearly unveiled his position towards the core tenets of Islamic governance along with his neo-conservative secular adoption by openly disregarding the opinions of his own Sufi masters whom he claims represent the true Islam. Instead Husein has clearly chosen to align himself with the historical position of his Home Office allies articulated initially by Lord Curzon in 1924 when he declared;

"the point at issue is that Turkey has been destroyed and shall never rise again, because we have destroyed her spiritual power: the Caliphate and Islam.”
And former British Home Minister Charles Clarke’s position in 2005,

“…there can be no negotiation about the re-creation of the Caliphate; there can be no negotiation about the imposition of Sharia (Islamic) law...”

For this reason the construction of Hussein’s journey from HT to spiritualism and Sufism seems to be a front and one scripted with a clear political agenda. The fingerprints of the UK Home Office are clearly resonant on Husein and his book. ‘The Islamist ’ is in essence a blueprint for action against political and classical Islam and one for which the British political and media establishment have given a blank cheque in terms of support and exposure. Husein’s appearances on the British media with Home Office officials on a first name basis, the books serialisation in the British press and the huge coverage afforded Husein and his book in the Western televised media confirm this analysis. It was no wonder Ziauddin Sardar considered The Islamist as “having been drafted by a Whitehall mandarin as a PR job for the Blair government” (The Independent, 1 June 2007)

Hussein’s mission statement from the Home Office is quite evident. Firstly, to use and promote Sufism in order to neutralise political Islam, to undermine the key tenets of classical Islam and finally, to form a link even fabricate one between non-violent political Islam and terrorism. In executing the mission Husein is afforded prime access to the government and media machinery. The texts of Sufism are to be used if effective, otherwise they are to be abandoned for any argumentation deemed necessary to achieve the mission.

The modus operandi through which Hussein is prepared to execute his mission will be demonstrated later but can be gauged by the example of when in Syria, he alerted the authorities to the activities of HT members from Britain who had enrolled on Arabic courses. In an interview on his website (www.theislamist.tumblr.com) he tried to argue that the HT members were there to foment sedition and therefore it was his duty to alert the authorities. Again in direct contravention of Nuh Kellers point 1 above, he argued that;

“vast majority of the ‘ulama do not regard the governments in Muslim lands to be kufr(non Islamic)…Syria is a land filled with Muslim scholars, many of whom are closely aligned with the government. I love the people of Syria and consider the country to be my second home — if I see trouble and dissension being sown, it is my religious duty to prevent it.” (www.theislamist.tumblr.com)

This is indeed a strange justification considering that the Syrian regime is from the Alawi sect which is considered outside the fold of Islam by the majority of Sunni Muslims. Moreover, the Syrian regime is a dictatorship with a history of brutality against its citizens, especially the Sunni majority. It was Bashar al Asad’s father Hafez al Asad who was responsible for the use of chemical agents against men, women and children in wiping out the village of Hama for Islamic dissent. Hence, the likelihood of the HT members being tortured was extremely high. Being an ex-HT man, surely he must have been familiar with the conduct of the Syrian regime in torturing the movements members.

Husein’s logic however is not erratic. It seems carefully constructed to legitimise the sensitive issue of Muslim’s affiliating themselves with Western and pro-Western regimes against Islamists (those that seek Islam in state and society). The proof of this deliberation rests firstly on his complete silence on what even a sizeable portion of non-Muslim’s have described as Western state terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine etc. Suspiciously, Husein raises no concerns over well documented terrorism charges against and Western complicity in fostering jihadism for policy goals, not only in Afghanistan and Bosnia but on British soil itself. Secondly, his argument on his website, based on an incorrect analogy between the situation of the Muslim’s under the governorship of Hajjaj bin Yusuf (661-714 AD) in Iraq. He advises the Muslim’s to be patient, endure the suffering and not work against the governments in the Islamic world as had been the case under Hajjaj bin Yusuf. Husein states;

“Just as the Ahl al-Sunnah persevered through the tyranny of Hajjaj bin Yusuf, we should counsel Muslim rulers, exercise sabr, be abundant in dua, and work for political change with and not against the hukkam. In this pursuit, we should seek guidance from that centuries-old repository of cumulative knowledge: the traditional Muslim ulama“ (www.theislamist.tumblr.com)

This analogy does not hold water from two perspectives. Firstly because Hajjaj bin Yusuf was not the Caliph or the head of an Islamic state and secondly the current rulers in the Islamic world do not fall under the rule for Caliph’s, for which the rules for co-operation and revolt are considered different and well defined in Islamic law and pointed out quite categorically by Nuh Keller above. Moreover, in the case of Syria, the regime is not even considered as Muslim by the majority of the Sunni world.

It is unlikely that this is an oversight. Rather it seems part of Husein’s deliberate agenda to confuse, undermine and derail the course of political Islam. As I will demonstrate later, Husein’s wider distortions feed into a specific application in relation to fabricating a link between non-violent political Islam and terrorism. The picture of Husein which emerges is of an opportunistic actor searching for a role. Coincidentally, the Home Office had a script on HT and terrorism that needed an actor. Sufism was the make-up, the title was ‘The Islamist’.

Ex-Islamist Inc: Fabricating a Link between Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Terrorism

2007-07-18T04:42:00.000-07:00

Noman Hanif

Recently two ex-members of the global Islamic party Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Ed Hussein and Shiraz Maher , have been heavily courted by the political and media heirachy in the Western countries and more specifically in Britain. The commonality between them beyond being ex-HT members has been their assertion that Western governments have been negligent in ascribing terrorism to merely violent extremism or jihadism. It is their argument that non-violent radicalism has the same propensity to move towards terrorist action.

This is not the first time this assertion has been made. Both Ed Hussein and Shiraz Maher follow the logic of Zeyno Baran from the conservative Nixon Center in the US, where she argued similarly that that the nature of HT ideology had the ‘potential’ to lead to violent action. By insinuating a link between HT and jihadism, Baran concluded that HT had become ‘a conveyor belt for terrorism’. Exactly the same philosophy of argument has been utilised by Ed Hussein and Shiraz Maher. Yet, just as there exists no hard empirical evidence to substantiate Zeyno Baran’s conclusions, both Ed Hussein’s and Shiraz’s reasoning also defies conception and lack’s the evidentiary processes. Suffice it to say that Baran’s and by default Ed Husain’s and Shiraz Maher’s enterprise is comprehensively dismantled by former Swiss civil servant and historian, Jean-Francois in his research paper entitled “Hizb -ut Tahrir--The Next al-Qaeda, Really?” and by the only established research on HT by Exeter university academic Suha Taji Farouki, which categorically discounts their logic.

However, although the base argument is the same, the ex-Islamist insider connection is a new dimension to the subject and gives the impression that there is something we may have missed about HT and international terrorism. We are led to believe that an insider account will overcome the overwhelming conclusion amongst the experts on HT that it is not linked to terrorism borne out clearly through the empirical reality. In fact as I will outline in my article, the attempt to link HT with terrorism lacks evidence and objectivity because in essence it forms part orms part of a broader political strategy engineered by the British Home and Foreign Office towards political Islam and HT in particular. In my articles ‘The Future of Hizb-ut-Tahrir’ and ‘David Cameron and Labour Strategy towards Hizb-utTahrir’, I have detailed the British strategy aimed at moderating HT Britain and bringing it into its domestic and foreign policy nexus. I will also demonstrate in what manner both ex-HT members Ed Husein and Shiraz Maher have been utilised by the UK political and media establishment, why there is a credibility deficit in both these actors and how there is a clear nexus between them in promoting a neo-conservative based UK Home Office strategy in attempting to fabricate a link between terrorism and HT.

Ed Husein : A British Neo-Conservative in Sufi Clothing

Ed Husein dramatically rose to prominence as a result of his book ‘The Islamist’ (Penguin;London, 2007), which charts his journey from radical Islam to Sufi Islam and forms with the backdrop of being an ex-HT member, a blueprint for action against radical Islam. However, the book not only propounds gross factual inaccuracies but as I will demonstrate later, many allegations which lack evidentiary proof. The behaviour and writings of Ed Husein post ‘The Islamist’ are also strongly suggestive that the book was formulated as a blueprint for a more specific onslaught against the core tenets of political Islam including some which command universal support amongst the majority of the Islamic schools of thought. His close relationship with UK Home Office officials and the security agencies raises credible doubt as to the origin of ‘The Islamist’. In his quest against Islamism, Husein claims support by shadowy Sufi figures who lurk in the background and who are unwilling to come forward in person or provide an intellectual reposte to radical Islam and more specifically HT. Who are these figures and why do they need Husein to do their bidding? Are the shadowy figure’s Sufi’s or the Home Office? It is not coincidental that the timing of ‘The Islamist’ coincided with the Home Office’s major push against radicalisation one of which is the backing of Sufism and the set up of the Sufi Muslim Council. This connection is lucidly brought out by Madeleine Bunting in her interview with Ed Hussein when she revealed that his conversion to “secularism” coupled with his Sufi inclination seems to fit quite neatly with this equation.

“There has never been much love lost between Sufism and Islamism - the former criticised as politically quiescent - and one way to read Husain is that Sufi Islam now has a sympathetic hearing in Whitehall and the media, and has the confidence to challenge Islamist domination of the UK Muslim community”(Guardian, 12th May, 2007).
In fact I argue that even Sufism masks Husein’s real political agenda. Ziauddin Sardar in his review of The Islamist is struck by Husein’s atomisation of the Islamist phenomena to HT. The fixation with HT is somewhat understandable considering the history of Husein. However, the obsession to blame it for the environment of terrorism is taking reductionism to its extreme. As Sardar is correct pint out;

“The suggestion that the radicalisation of Muslim youth can be laid firmly on the door of Hizb is also hard to swallow. The anger of young Muslims against the West has a much broader context. There was a great deal going on during the 1990s that agitated young Muslims and brought anti-Western sentiment to the fore - from the first Gulf War to the genocide of Muslims in Chechnya. But Husain sees the world in reductive, one- dimensional terms” (The Independent, 1 June 2007)

On closer inspection however, Husein’s agenda seems more to be borne out of an obsessional hatred for HT, its members and its message, including the core tenets of classical Islam such as the supremacy of sharia, the role of the Caliphate in Islamic governance and jihad as a legal form of resistance and ideological expansion. In pursuing his agenda Husein seems to have adopted the maxim ‘the ends justify the means’ in that even the proclaimed Sufi conversion seems to conceal an underlying real-politik applied though a Darwinian logic in attempting to manufacture a missing link between HT and terrorism. However, even more fundamental than this is the use of HT, radicalism and terrorism to disguise an attack on the very essence of political and classical Islam itself. Husein’s esoteric agenda magnifies the confusion as to his real aim. Hence Sardar points out;

“Hizb ut-Tahir should be banned so that they can take their nefarious activities underground and become even more difficult to tackle. Muslim organisations are secret terrorist sympathisers. Husain doesn't tell us what we should do with them. But I suspect he wants everyone locked up, leaving the terrain open for his brand of neocons to run amok.” (The Independent, 1 June 2007)

Husein’s lack of concern to correct himself even at the advice of his fellow Sufi comrades is the strongest indication of Sufism being a mere cloak. The myriad of distortions and misquotations of the Sufi and other classical texts by Husein has been comprehensively exposed by another Sufi Ust. Andrew Booso in his review of Husein’s book ‘The Islamist’. Booso says,

“Husain’s name-dropping of Hanson and Keller, in particular, seems to be opportunism based on assumptions that are false. Firstly, his definition and rejection of ‘political Islam’ does not hold up to analysis from Nuh Keller’s compendium Reliance of the Traveller, which received a confirmatory certificate from al-Azhar University, whom Husain calls ‘arguably the highest authority on Muslim scripture’. Nuh Keller adds a section entitled ‘The Caliphate [al-khilafah]’ to the original legal manual that he t ranslated (which is called ‘Umdat as-salik).”
http://thetranslators1.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/review- of-%e2%80%9cth islamist%e2%80%9d-ust-andrew-booso-complete/

Husein provides no articulated response to Booso’s elucidation choosing to ignore the corrections and continue with his set agenda. Husein in The Islamist champions Sufi personalities such as Nuh Keller and Hamza Yusuf as charting the correct path for the Muslim’s. Hence it is important to note Booso’s quotes from Nuh Keller in his appendix to Husein’s quoted book Reliance of the Traveller;

It being ‘obligatory for Muslims to rise against’ a leader of the government if he ‘becomes a non-Muslim, alters the Sacred Law – (…imposing rules that contravene the provisions of the religion while believing in the validity of the rules he has imposed, this being unbelief (kufr)) – or imposes reprehensible innovations while in office’, ‘if possible’, and ‘install an upright leader in his place’(see o25.3(a) for a full explanation).

It being ‘obligatory to obey the commands and interdictions of the caliph…in everything that is lawful…even if he is unjust’ (o25.5).
Offensive jihad (see o9.1), with the objective being to fight ‘Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians…until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax’ (o9.8); and ‘the Caliph fights all other peoples until they become Muslim’ (o9.9).

‘Non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic State…are distinguished from Muslims in dress, wearing a wide cloth belt (zunnar)…[and] must keep to the side of the street’ (o11.5).

The Islamic state not retaliating against a Muslim for killing a non-Muslim (o1.2).
Hence, if Husein was ignorant of his own ideational sources then clearly he was made aware of them by Booso. Yet Husein chose to disregard them and maintain the same line of attack in the media.

Moreover, HTB spokesman Taji Mustafa also had to correct Husein regarding his incorrect assertion over the position of the Caliphate in the texts of classical Islam in general.

“he (Husein) argues that key orthodox political ideas such as the caliphate are alien to "traditional" Islam.., one of the scholars who Husain cites as a new found reference point is the respected Sufi Shaykh Nuh Keller. In his translation of the classical jurisprudential work Reliance of the Traveller he states that the caliphate is "obligatory in itself" and an integral part of orthodox Islamic thinking. There are many examples of Muslim scholars and thinkers more famed for their spiritualism who endorse the ideas of Shariah and caliphate as inherently part of Islam. Husain has chosen to ignore the opinions of these Sufis who agree with those he labels Islamists” (The Islamist Bogeyman, Guardian 14th May 2007)

Bearing the above points by Nuh Keller in mind Husein’s article on the commentisfree blog of the UK Guardian outrightly confirms his position of belligerence towards classical Islam. What is more revealing is that Ziauddin Sardar was not wrong in his labelling of Husein as a ‘neocon’ for he categorically adopted the neoconservative line of attack on the Caliphate and Islamic universalism as comparable to Nazism. In the title he uses the German vocabulary describing the goal of One Nation as (Ein Volke), One State as (Ein Reich) and One Caliph as (Ein Fuhrer). Husein writes,

“Sound familiar? Hizb ut-Tahrir's slogans, reiterated by members during the 1990s - and continued today throughout the Middle East - bear a chilling resemblance to that of t he German Nazi party. The similarities don't end there: ideological totalitarianism, expansionist foreign policy, the designation of women to the private realm, the rejection of democracy, concepts of relationship between party and state, notions of the master race, education system as indoctrination and anti-semitism are all features they both share.”
(http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ed_husain/2007/07/chilling_similarities. html)

In fact what does sound familiar is Husein’s adoption of the neo-conservative language and strategy towards the concept of Islamic governance, universalism and the attempted link with terrorism. This is why the logic of neoconservative Zeyno Baran resonates in Husein’s caricature of HT, the insinuation of terrorism and that of the neoconservative elements of the Bush administration as regards the assault on political Islam through vocabulary such as “evil ideology” attached to the goal of a world wide Caliphate. Hussein’s association of Nazism with the notion of Islamic governance and the sharia is well established as part of the armoury of neoconservative thinking towards political Islam. Hussein’s adoption of this line of attack is categorical in his article in the UK Guardian. The following quotations below confirm the adoption:
Husein;

“We can wait for their state to come about and then confront them as we did the Nazis, at a very late stage and at a high human cost, or we can stop appeasing Hizb-ut-Tahrir and its offshoots and demand: either change, or perish. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye.” (Ed Hussein, Chilling Similarities, Commentisfree, Guardian, 10th July, 2007)

Gen Johm Abizaid;

They will try to re-establish a caliphate throughout the entire Muslim world... Just as we had the opportunity to learn what the Nazis were going to do, from Hitler's word in ' Mein Kampf... we need to learn what these people intend to do from their own words.“ (General John Abizaid (11/05)

Other areas where the attack on classical Islam by Husein are inimical to that found in the neo-conservative literature is related to the disputation of non-Muslims especially jews and christians (Kafir) and the distortion that historical figures such as Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina and Al-Farabi were incorrectly declared non-Muslim. The neo-conservative aim being to promote these outcast figures as credible sources for Muslims and in doing so demonstrate Islam’s compatability with Greek philosophy and Western civilisation. Husein accuses the founder of HT, Taqiudine an Nabahani of deliberately manipulating classical Islam. However as Andrew Booso in his reposte to Husein clinically points out with examples from the classical Muslim jurists that Nabahani was actually in line with the classical scholars including Sufi’s such as Ghazali in declaring non-Muslims including Christian’s and jews as (Kafir) and Al-Farabi etc as having violated the Islamic doctrine and hence become non-Muslim. Booso states:

“Therefore Mawdudi, Qutb and Nabahani cannot be accused in this specific regard of believing and propagating anything but a standard orthodox belief expounded “and endorsed by jurists throughout time” (http://thetranslators1.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/review- of-%e2%80%9cthe- islamist%e2%80%9d-ust-andrew-booso-complete/)

Booso was also referring to Husein’s attack on Nabahani regarding the Caliphate or Islamic state being an orthodox verified obligation. Booso quotes Nuh Keller in respect of his addition to Reliance of the Traveller regarding the Caliphate;

“This section has been added here by the translater because the Caliphate is both obligatory in itself and the necessary precondition for all the rulings established by Allah Most High to govern and guide Islamic community life.“ (Quotation of Nuh Keller by Andrew Booso http://thetranslators1.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/review- of-%e2%80%9cthe- islamist%e2%80%9d-ust-andrew-booso-complete/)
The logical conclusion of Husein’s distortion is that the classical jurists including their Sufi followers such as Nuh Keller would under Husein’s construction be labelled as the idea bearers for Islamist’s and extremists and ultimately terrorism.

“Would Husein now recommend that Tony Blair outlaw Nuh Keller or ban him from England and declare extreme those that follow Nuh Keller such as Hamza Yusuf and T.J Winter as well as labelling Keller as such himself? “
Thus it was no wonder that Booso had no alternative to dismiss Husein’s Sufi façade;

“It is fair to conclude that the last development of Husein’s character ie the ‘spiritual’ one, that we are treated to is an illusion, because he has recast the ’masters’ in his own image so to speak” http://thetranslators1.wordpress.com/2007/05/21/review- of-%e2%80%9cthe- islamist%e2%80%9d-ust-andrew-booso-complete/)

What becomes clearer upon closer inspection of Husein’ writings is that he is in fact a British neoconservative disguised as a Sufi. Moreover, he explicitly follows the Christian dictum of “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”. Hence his underlying position is what he himself declares it to be in ‘The Islamist’ which is secularism in the Western sense;

“Religions are not for governments or states, they are for individuals. The state can assist individuals religious responsibilities, but governments cannot, should not, profess faith” (Hussain, The Islamist)

What is conclusive in the comparative between Hussein and Nuh Keller above is that his position that Sufism undermines HT is a complete fabrication and one which Hussein must be aware of. Hussein has clearly unveiled his position towards the core tenets of Islamic governance along with his neo-conservative secular adoption by openly disregarding the opinions of his own Sufi masters whom he claims represent the true Islam. Instead Husein has clearly chosen to align himself with the historical position of his Home Office allies articulated initially by Lord Curzon in 1924 when he declared;

"the point at issue is that Turkey has been destroyed and shall never rise again, because we have destroyed her spiritual power: the Caliphate and Islam.”
And former British Home Minister Charles Clarke’s position in 2005,

“…there can be no negotiation about the re-creation of the Caliphate; there can be no negotiation about the imposition of Sharia (Islamic) law...”

For this reason the construction of Hussein’s journey from HT to spiritualism and Sufism seems to be a front and one scripted with a clear political agenda. The fingerprints of the UK Home Office are clearly resonant on Husein and his book. ‘The Islamist ’ is in essence a blueprint for action against political and classical Islam and one for which the British political and media establishment have given a blank cheque in terms of support and exposure. Husein’s appearances on the British media with Home Office officials on a first name basis, the books serialisation in the British press and the huge coverage afforded Husein and his book in the Western televised media confirm this analysis. It was no wonder Ziauddin Sardar considered The Islamist as “having been drafted by a Whitehall mandarin as a PR job for the Blair government” (The Independent, 1 June 2007)

Hussein’s mission statement from the Home Office is quite evident. Firstly, to use and promote Sufism in order to neutralise political Islam, to undermine the key tenets of classical Islam and finally, to form a link even fabricate one between non-violent political Islam and terrorism. In executing the mission Husein is afforded prime access to the government and media machinery. The texts of Sufism are to be used if effective, otherwise they are to be abandoned for any argumentation deemed necessary to achieve the mission.

The modus operandi through which Hussein is prepared to execute his mission will be demonstrated later but can be gauged by the example of when in Syria, he alerted the authorities to the activities of HT members from Britain who had enrolled on Arabic courses. In an interview on his website (www.theislamist.tumblr.com) he tried to argue that the HT members were there to foment sedition and therefore it was his duty to alert the authorities. Again in direct contravention of Nuh Kellers point 1 above, he argued that;

“vast majority of the ‘ulama do not regard the governments in Muslim lands to be kufr(non Islamic)…Syria is a land filled with Muslim scholars, many of whom are closely aligned with the government. I love the people of Syria and consider the country to be my second home — if I see trouble and dissension being sown, it is my religious duty to prevent it.” (www.theislamist.tumblr.com)

This is indeed a strange justification considering that the Syrian regime is from the Alawi sect which is considered outside the fold of Islam by the majority of Sunni Muslims. Moreover, the Syrian regime is a dictatorship with a history of brutality against its citizens, especially the Sunni majority. It was Bashar al Asad’s father Hafez al Asad who was responsible for the use of chemical agents against men, women and children in wiping out the village of Hama for Islamic dissent. Hence, the likelihood of the HT members being tortured was extremely high. Being an ex-HT man, surely he must have been familiar with the conduct of the Syrian regime in torturing the movements members.

Husein’s logic however is not erratic. It seems carefully constructed to legitimise the sensitive issue of Muslim’s affiliating themselves with Western and pro-Western regimes against Islamists (those that seek Islam in state and society). The proof of this deliberation rests firstly on his complete silence on what even a sizeable portion of non-Muslim’s have described as Western state terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine etc. Suspiciously, Husein raises no concerns over well documented terrorism charges against and Western complicity in fostering jihadism for policy goals, not only in Afghanistan and Bosnia but on British soil itself. Secondly, his argument on his website, based on an incorrect analogy between the situation of the Muslim’s under the governorship of Hajjaj bin Yusuf (661-714 AD) in Iraq. He advises the Muslim’s to be patient, endure the suffering and not work against the governments in the Islamic world as had been the case under Hajjaj bin Yusuf. Husein states;

“Just as the Ahl al-Sunnah persevered through the tyranny of Hajjaj bin Yusuf, we should counsel Muslim rulers, exercise sabr, be abundant in dua, and work for political change with and not against the hukkam. In this pursuit, we should seek guidance from that centuries-old repository of cumulative knowledge: the traditional Muslim ulama“ (www.theislamist.tumblr.com)

This analogy does not hold water from two perspectives. Firstly because Hajjaj bin Yusuf was not the Caliph or the head of an Islamic state and secondly the current rulers in the Islamic world do not fall under the rule for Caliph’s, for which the rules for co-operation and revolt are considered different and well defined in Islamic law and pointed out quite categorically by Nuh Keller above. Moreover, in the case of Syria, the regime is not even considered as Muslim by the majority of the Sunni world.

It is unlikely that this is an oversight. Rather it seems part of Husein’s deliberate agenda to confuse, undermine and derail the course of political Islam. As I will demonstrate later, Husein’s wider distortions feed into a specific application in relation to fabricating a link between non-violent political Islam and terrorism. The picture of Husein which emerges is of an opportunistic actor searching for a role. Coincidentally, the Home Office had a script on HT and terrorism that needed an actor. Sufism was the make-up, the title was ‘The Islamist’.

Shiraz Maher: Supporting Actor

The case of Shiraz Maher is an interesting one. Unlike Husein, Maher was a prolific writer for Hizb ut Tahrir in Britain (HTB) demonstrating a sound understanding of HT ideology. Hence his dramatic u-turn in 2005 from doctrinal Islamist to secularist must have taken HTB completely by surprise. Maher first came to prominence as “reformed” ex-HT Islamist through his publication of an article in Prospect Magazine wherein he argued that UK Universities had failed to acknowledge the extent of Islamic extremism on the campuses despite the report by Anthony Glees and Chris Pope, "When Students Turn to Terror" (Social Affairs Unit). Since then he has been working in the background as a consultant for the BBC on political Islam and although preceded Ed Hussein as the original ex-HT defector was overshadowed by the publication of The Islamist, until now. However, Maher’s own opportunism starts with the issue of his Maher’s official account of when exactly he joined HT which has been disputed by people who claim to have known him. Within a comment on Maher’s article in the New Statesman entitled, “Glasgow bombs: the Doctor I knew”, the person under the name of Sajid writes;

“Brother Shiraz why are you dishonest over the one matter you should know best. I note that in this article you have tried to avoid the lies in your previous accounts of your "recruitment". You have now admitted that when you moved to Leeds you "already knew about Hizb ut-Tahrir". However that is not what you wrote in the Times Higher Education Supplement [3 February 2006] when you said that you first met HT at Leeds University where you were "recruited". Did we not attend HT study circles in Birmingham Central Mosque together for several years when you were at Solihull School and I was at King Edward's? You had first approached members of HT many years previously when you lived with your grandfather in Harborne in 1994. I remember that you asked to join HT at that time, but rather than ‘recruit’ you , HT merely explained its thoughts to you, and did not make any efforts to meet you again. Many years later you again actively approached members of the party at a mosque in Leeds. In the article last year in THES you alleged that you had been approached at university - I am glad that you have now admitted in this article that your previous account was inaccurate. With so much dishonesty why should anyone now believe your account?” (New Statesman, 12th July, 2007)

Why was there a need for Maher to provide such contradictory accounts. Is it an attempt to cover tracks in order to reinvent oneself? Or is it more sinister? Whatever the answer, the issue of credibility has already been raised.
The attempted bombing of Glasgow airport catapulted Maher directly into the global media limelight. The British media had brought him in from the cold. Why? Not because he knew the Glasgow bomber Dr. Abdullah, but because he knew him in the capacity of a Hizb-ut-Tahrir member. Ed Hussein’s Home Office script had just found a supporting actor. Maher took the opportunity and locked himself into the narrative. Until now Maher had made no connection between HT ideology and terrorism. Rather the focus was on protecting liberal values through attacking HT’s goal of an Islamic Caliphate and the supremacy of Sharia;

"Hizb ut-Tahrir is, after all, ostensibly non-violent and committed to open discussion, so can it really be that dangerous? I suggest that it is…Hizb ut- Tahrir is no paper tiger. It is a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow governments in the Muslim world, establish a caliphate and then wage jihad on other nations." [Times Higher Education Supplement]
Crucially however, the opportunism is confirmed by the fact that he had kept quiet about his association with jihadists in the past and had argued vigorously as a HT member that its methodology was non-violent and no link had ever been established between HT and terrorism. Whilst a member of HT Maher states;

“Disillusioned at the failure of her agents to suppress the Islamic da'wah we now see the colonialist states taking direct action against the Hizb. Despite vain attempts to slander the Hizb and associate her name with terrorism the German government much like the Uzbek, Jordanian, Syrian, Egyptian administrations has failed to show demonstrate any such link. Islam is the only ideological solution to capitalist exploitation and hegemony. Unfortunately even the supposedly democratic west - the bastion of liberal democracy and free speech - now fears this growing and unstoppable call."[http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:ezY- FZ8NFHkJ:www.paklinks.com/gs/archive/index.php/t- 86574.html+%22shiraz+maher%22+ban&hl=en&amp;gl=uk&ct=cln k&cd=22]

It is not surprising that Maher has vigorously tried to remove these statements from the internet. The question which naturally arises from the quote is that despite HT’s ideology remaining consistent for over fifty years, no terrorism connection was ever found. HT’s ideology has not changed so what has? Maher as with Ed Hussein provides no answers to this question. Moreover, since according to his own admission Dr. Abdullah had been radicalised by jihadism before his introduction and also according to his own admission Abdullah had rejected the non-violent methodology of HT and refused to join HT, Maher is totally disingenuous in declaring that the ideology of Islamic dissent and HT ideology in particular is a precursor to terrorism.

“And so it was through my involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir and its ideology of extremist political Islam that I came to befriend Bilal, the would-be bomber. That's why I believe it's wrong to distinguish between "extremism" and "violent extremism" as the government has been doing in recent months. The two are inextricably intertwined. Without movements such as Hizb creating t he moral imperatives to justify terror, people like Bilal wouldn't have the support of an ideological infrastructure cheering them on. And, I believe, it's a fallacy to suggest that the culpability of agitators and cheerleaders is any less than for those who actually carry out acts of t error.” (New Statesman, 5th July, 2007)
Yet the closeness to the narrative of The Islamist is unmistakable,

“Islamist terrorism does not exist in a vacuum. Like other social phenomena, it operates within a wider infrastructure, designed to achieve specific ends. In this case, that is the political ideology of Islamism, an idea distinct and different from Islam the religion. ” (New Statesman, 12th July, 2007)

“The political ideology of Islamism”, “Islam the religion”. Sound familiar? Once the fog is removed it is clearly recognisable that Maher has been scripted by the Home Office to play supporting actor to Husein. The issue is not terrorism but a concerted attack on the ideas of political Islam and specifically those concerning the Caliphate, Islamic Universalism and jihad. Thus it is no coincidence that Maher ‘s timing of his article in The New Statesman on the 12th of July coincided with Husein’s articles in Newsweek and the Guardian in the same week, concurring that;

“Islamist groups thrive on preaching a separatist message of Islamic supremacy, which concerns itself with reversing the temporal decline of Islam and challenging the ascendancy of the west by reviving a puritanical caliphate.” ((New Statesman, 12th July, 2007)

The Methodology of Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Violent Action

The Islamic world is a melting pot of various movements committed to Islamic revival. However, the Islamic movement is not a unitary block. The commonality of its final goal masks the trenches which exist between the movements related to the understanding of the political reality and the methodology required to bring about the final solution. The politics of Islamism is fundamentally contested. These contestations are evident not only in the literature base of these movements but also in the practical application of their strategies. In order to correctly evaluate any movement there has to be an objective reading of its ideational base and an empirical appreciation of its methodology and strategy in practice. At the same time a cautionary principle must be adopted in that the study of movements is not a scientific one. One cannot confine the movements to the realm of a laboratory and hypothesize. In the real world the Islamic movement is a live cosmopolitan shopping mall. People tend to move in, out and around different movements, picking up a host of ideas on the shopping trip. For instance in the public circles and Friday sermons organised by the various movements, the audience will consist of a plethora of interested parties affiliated to different persuasions and organisations. The attendance of a person from one school of thought in the activity of another does not in any way imply a wholesale conversion. Such an argument would indeed be nonsensical and a twisted distortion of everyday human behaviour in the life of all societies. Yet it is with this twisted logic that the war on terrorism is evolving and more succinctly the logic of Zeyno Baran, Ed Hussein and Shiraz Maher against Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

The basis of this deviant logic has nothing to do with international terrorism. Baran’s agenda is a fresh application for the ‘politics of fear’. This is a Raeganite ‘war of ideas’ paradigm which was applied successfully against Communism and now blasts against political Islam. The Hudson Institute, The Nixon Center and other US prominent think tanks were indeed established on the very premise of fighting a war of ideas against Communism and the Soviet Union. In this paradigm, radical Islam is substituted for Communism as the primary “evil”. Baran’s agenda for this war against HT under this ill defined model becomes suspiciously apparent not only in the Nixon Center’s and the Heritage Foundation’s superficial and deliberate mis-reading of the HT ideology and politics but in the collusion with anti-HT, non-democratic but energy resourceful states and governments in Central Asia.

Ed Hussein and Shiraz Maher however are not in the same league as Baran. Whereas Baran is an engine for US policy, Husein and Maher are simple pawns that seem to have prostituted themselves in the Western led battle against political Islam. In my article “The Future of HT in Britain”, I situated Ed Huseins book ‘The Islamist’ and his heavy promotion as an insider as part of a British strategy towards bringing HT into mainstream politics domestically and utlitising it for foreign policy goals externally. In my follow up article “David Cameron and Labour’s Strategy towards HT”, I have identified four areas of this strategy which is not to proscribe but to maintain the threat of proscription in order to moderate and engineer HT’s British branch such that it can be utilised for policy purposes. One of the elements of this strategy is to maintain the possibility of a fabricated link between terrorism and HT through employing ex HT members such as Ed Hussein, Shiraz Maher and in smaller measure ex-Muhajiroun member Hassan Butt. The heavy engagement by the UK Home Office, security services and the media of these ex-members has not gone unnoticed. The comments on the various websites where their articles have been published indicate a trust deficit by Muslims and non-Muslims alike regarding the agenda’s of these characters largely brought about by the contradictions, inconsistencies and inaccuracies in their accounts and testimonies. Moreover as I will demonstrate the conceptual positions of both Husein and Maher in framing a false case of terrorism against HT are untenable and as argued above seem to be motivated by factors other than a desire to address the real causes of terrorism.

Before I embark upon a refutation of Hussain and Maher’s edifice which attempts to link HT with terrorism, it is essential to understand exactly what HT ideology is towards violent action. HT’s theoretical premise for its methodology is openly detailed in its books. It claims to strictly follow the stages of the Prophet Mohammed in his political journey from the Arabian city of Mecca to the establishment of the Islamic state in the Arabian city of Medina. This journey according to all the books of HT was a non-violent one involving the building of a popular base through dawa(interaction) and then the installment of an Islamic government built on the support of the popular base and the intervention of the people of influence and power. Because this methodology has been considered a derivative from the Islamic sources through a process of ijtihad (jurisitic exertion), it is considered a divine obligation and deviation from it haram(prohibited). HT’s strict adherence to this methodology is a widely understood reality. Moreover, HT has been the thorn of jihadists in condemning their use of violence as a methodological tool. In their exchange with the jihadists’ which can be gauged from various websites, HT members argument rests on the argument that the disciples of Mohammed who were subjected to varying degrees of torture in Mecca wanted to respond with violence but were strictly prohibited in doing so by the Prophet Mohammed.

The concept of violence does not occur in the realm of methodology but in the realms of jihad, a word and a concept which has been a long standing thorn in the history of Western experience with Islam. Jihad which has many definitions indeed has a violent application. However, according to HT ideology this is confined to the realms of self-defence and the last resort in the ideological expansion of the state. In this sense apart from the styles used and the basis of motivation, one would find it difficult to distinguish this conception from the practice of ideological states in the international arena. Western neo-colonialism and the application of democracy by force in Iraq being a prime example. HT rejects jihad (physical struggle) as a means and method to bring societal and state transformation. However, it judges the response of violence in the form of Jihad as legitimate in the case of aggression against and occupation of Islamic territory such as Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq. In these cases the response of resistance to Western occupation and policy is not novel to the Islamic movements, it has a broad measure of support amongst the Muslim masses.

The crunch issue here is that even despite the acceptance of the duty of individual jihad (fard ayn), HT maintains that the fundamental solution remains the resumption of Islam and the establishment of the Caliphate. For this reason it does not initiate jihadist activity as a movement. According to Suha Taji Farouki,

“Hizb ut-Tahrir has been calling with mounting intensity for the eradication of Israel by jihad since the early 1980s’, but this means calling for action by the Muslim states, the Muslim masses and the armies of Muslim countries, and not the party itself organizing the jihad – in fact, it calls on them to re- establish the caliphate so that jihad can be launched.” (‘Islamists and the threat of Jihad: Hizb al-Tahrir and al-Muhajiroun on Israel and the Jews’.In Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 36, No. 4, October 2000, pp. 21– 46)

It is the concept of Jihad upon which Ed Husain builds his accusation of terrorism against Hizb ut Tahrir. In an article entitled, “I know how these terrorists are inspired”, Husein claims that HT’s proclamations of jihad is what laid the groundwork for terrorism in the UK;

“The rhetoric of jihad introduced by Hizb ut-Tahrir in my days was the preamble to 7/7 and several other attempted attacks.” (The Telegraph, 2nd May 2007)
The problem is that the rhetoric he was referring to was indeed true, but it was under the aberrant leadership of Muhajiroun head Omar Bakri Mohammed. After removing Omar Bakri, HTB reverted initially to its original understanding of Jihad outlined above and subsequently distanced itself from any such rhetoric by removing all references to Jihad even on its website. This fact has been acknowledged by Husain. Moreover, HTB has gone out of its way to list and detail on its hizb.org.uk website, the opinions of prominent Western ambassadors and analysts familiar with HT in different parts of the world such as Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who have confirmed the adherence of HT to its non-violent methodology despite the extreme levels of torture and repression against its members. Expressions of violence against the Israeli state and the Western forces in Iraq, Afghanistan etc are not restricted to HT but resound widely in the Islamic world as a mobilising concept against occupation only. Again as Nuh Keller’s points above clearly illustrate, jihad is an established concept in Sufi discourse even relating to the offence by an Islamic state and ideological supremacy. By attacking the concept Husein puts himself against the vast majority of recognised Islamic scholarship, yet again proving that Sufism is merely a mask.

Fabricating the Link With Terrorism

Finding no hard conceptual or empirical evidence linking HT with violent activity, terrorism or even the methodology of jihadism, Husein then takes his argument to the illogical,

“As long as it remains legal for extremists in Britain to plan and finance Islamist attempts to mobilise the Muslim masses in the Middle East, and prepare an army for "jihad as foreign policy", there will always be a segment of this movement that will take jihad to its logical conclusion and act immediately, without leadership” (The Telegraph, 2nd May 2007)

As highlighted above even from the Sufi discourse, Jihad as an individual duty against occupation and aggression as well as the foreign policy of the state is well established in the books of classical Islam and leads directly to the Koran itself. Whether Husein agrees or is unwilling to accept the obvious is another issue. The reality is that the discourse with the relevant Koranic authority exists. The prohibition by HT of conducting violent action in order to achieve its political aims would put any of its members involved in such activity outside the fold of its organisation and method and hence they would cease to be a part of it as was the case of those members such as Omar Bakri which went onto form Muhajiroun. For this reason they can no longer be said to be acting in the name of HT. Thus HT was not responsible for Muhajiroun anymore than the Muslim Brotherhood was responsible for Sayid Qutub or the Syrian based Sufi movement (to which Ed Husein himself belongs) was responsible for the British bomber in Israel, Asif Haneef.

The suggestion that because HT expounds the duty of individual jihad in theatres of military conflict, segments will act without leadership is a dangerous logic to expound for any Muslim. If one was indeed to follow this line of argument to its consistent finale then the Koran itself is responsible for international terrorism because of the many verses related to fighting and killing in the realms of defence, a conclusion I am sure Ed Husein will not be rushing to advocate.

With no concrete evidence to frame HT, Hussein has turned to manipulating facts in order to comply with his Home Office set agenda. Two examples of such manipulation stand out in his book “The Islamist”. The first centres around the unsubstantiated allegations that HT was responsible for inciting the murder of a Nigerian student, Ayotunde Obunabi, in Newham College in the 90’s. ( The Islamist pp149-153).

Contrary to eye witness accounts he maintains that it was not about drugs and gangs rather it was about “Muslim supremacist tendencies”. Although he admits he did not get directly involved, he along with a colleague from HT raised the ante. This is a very serious allegation and one in which he has been overwhelmingly contradicted on many forums. On his website Husein asserts that the details of the events were agreed with colleague Maajid Nawaz prior to the release of his book;

“We agreed that the Hizb had created an atmosphere that led to the murder. More than anybody else, Maajid and I were closely involved with developments on campus during those months” (www.theislamist.tumblr.com)

However, the real reason for Hussain’s spin on the murder and his refusal to correct his innacuracy is firmly revealed when he connects it with the terrorism narrative;
“TThe Hizb must accept their part in radicalising young Muslims in Britain, starting with the murder in Newham to the carnage of 7/7 and the 2,000 cases that the secret services are monitoring now.”( www.theislamist.tumblr.com))

Again no direct connection was established. Moreover, Maajid Nawaz’s brother Kaashif Nawaz felt it necessary to intervene in order to correct Hussein’s assumption.

“The murder at East-Ham college was not of a man who was a Christian, but of a man who was high on drugs, and carrying 2 knives with intent on attacking one of the students on campus, he was intercepted by a gang of Muslims, who intercepted him - nothing to do with Islamism or HT, but more to do with gang wars which Muslims got involved in and some HT members tried to resolve.” (Comment on The Islamist: A Review by Kaashif Nawaz)

The second refers to the radicalisation of Tel Aviv bomber Asif Hanif, whom Husein following the assumptions of Shiv Malik in Prospect Magazine, claims had been recruited by HT in Britain but according to intelligence reports had been recruited in Syria but not by HT. On the contrary, it has been alleged by people who knew Hanif from Hounslow that he was not very fond of HT. Rather, whilst in Syria, Haneef who became acquainted with Husein had belonged to the same Sufi movement as him. There is again more than enough doubt to even suggest a link between Asif Hanif and HT. In contrast the evidence linking Hanif with Husein’s own Sufi movement is more pronounced. The case in point merely demonstrates the dubious evidence employed and the lengths to which Husein is willing to go in order to provide the elusive link.
Shiraz Maher similarly follows the flawed logic of Ed Hussein. In a programme for More4, Maher tries to make the incredible claim that the Tel Aviv bomber Omar Sharif had been influenced to commit the action, nine years after he suggested that Sharif had any association with HT. According to Maher;

“The whole mind frame of Omar Sharif [took] an ideological backbone from Hizb ut- Tahrir. His vision of an Islamic state, his anti-west sentiments, all that came from their conditioning…So if he how goes on nine years later to act out an act of violence, who is to blame?” (More4, 15th May 2006)

As with Hussein, having failed to convincingly manipulate the facts in this case that of Omar Sharif, Shiraz Maher maintained the Darwinian hope of one day finding the ‘missing’ link between link between HT and terrorism. According to More4 Shiraz’s sentiment at the time was;

“They are non-violent at present, but they are a threat waiting to materialise.” (15th May 2006)

If over fifty years of HT activity has not provided the proof then exactly what is Maher searching or more succinctly hoping for? It must be noted here that HTB on its website categorically denied as baseless allegations that Asif Hanif or Omar Sharif had any association with HT. Uptil now no proof has been provided for this relationship, a fact that both Husein and Maher seem deliberately to ignore.
Maher and Husein did not have to wait too long for their next opportunity. The failed bombings at London and Glasgow airport in July, 2007 provided the perfect occasion for their endeavour. Maher was co-opted heavily by the print and television media. The reason for this was his claim that whilst a student at Cambridge he had befriended one of the doctors, Dr.Bilal Abdullah, responsible for attempting to ram a jeep into Glasgow airport and now being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. The script could not have been more perfect for Maher and Husein. The media and Home Office machinery went into action. Supposedly, they had found the missing link between HT and terrorism. Maher was interviewed on BBC Newsnight for three nights in row and then published his account in the New Statesman. The framing of HT by insinuation was not difficult to decipher. For Maher it was the best self marketing opportunity for his credentials as an ex-Islamist that had occurred since he offered his services as an ex-Islamist Inc. Tom Nuttall, deputy editor of Prospect Magazine which had interviewed Maher and Husein stated that they were finding it hard to cope with the interest generated in these guys. Ignoring the fact that Dr. Abdullah had been of a jihadi persuasion before Maher met him and by Maher’s own admission on BBC Newsnight that Dr.Abdullah had rejected HT’s approach to join the organisation because he disagreed with the non-violent or political methodology of HT. Despite this, the main focus of Maher in his interviews and articles remains the pursuit of fabricating HT’s ‘inevitable association’ with terrorism. Maher writes;

“And so it was through my involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir and its ideology of extremist political Islam that I came to befriend Bilal, the would-be bomber. That's why I believe it's wrong to distinguish between "extremism" and "violent extremism" as the government has been doing in recent months. The two are inextricably intertwined. Without movements such as Hizb creating t he moral imperatives to justify terror, people like Bilal wouldn't have the support of an ideological infrastructure cheering them on. And, I believe, it's a fallacy to suggest that the culpability of agitators and cheerleaders is any l ess than for
those who actually carry out acts of terror.” (New Statesman, 5th July, 2007)

The British government and the security services having sat back and let the media frenzy run riot in creating a hostile Islamophobic environment of distrust towards Muslim doctors and professionals, Ed Husein re-entered the fray. Ed ‘Einstein’ had just come up with a ground breaking theory. The case of the Glasgow doctors had empirically demonstrated that Islamic movements whose membership and leadership consists of medical and technical personnel has the propensity towards terrorism. Amazingly but not surprisingly Husain was allowed an audience for this schizophrenia through the US publication Newsweek. According to Husein’s theory;

“They (engineers) approach the Qu'ran as though it were an engineering manual, with instructions for right and wrong conduct. Literalism and ignorance dominates their readings. This flaw is deepened by the haughty mindset of the engineer or medical doctor that academic achievement, a place at a university, now qualifies him to approach ancient scripture without the guidance of the ulama. To the Islamist engineer, centuries of context, nuance, history, grammar, lexicon, scholarship, and tradition are all l ost and redundant. The do-it-yourself (DIY) attitude to religious texts, fostered by doctors and engineers of secular colleges, produces desperate, angry suicide bombers devoid of spiritual guidance” (Bin Laden’s Army, Newsweek, 10th of July, 2007)

Of course Bin Laden the “engineer” and Zwahiri the “doctor” were predictable case studies in this theory of guilt by professionalism. However, this was merely the starters. The main menu was of course HT. Lo and behold, HT had failed to install a fool proof screening system which detected doctors and engineers. Hence logically they were bound to produce angry terrorists and suicide bombers! Ridiculously humorous as it may sound, this is exactly what Husein argued;

“The rank-and-file of Islamist organizations, the precursors to terrorism, are filled with activists with a technical education. The instructor of my first secret cell in Hizb ut- Tahrir in London was a town planner; my second cell-leader was a medical doctor. Even today, medical doctors manage the British arm of Hizb ut-Tahrir-a global Islamist political party working for the re-establishment of an Islamic caliphate: doctors Nasim Ghani, Abdul Wahid, and Nazreen Nawaz. Globally, the central leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir is a Jordan-based engineer, Abu Rishta. The story of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is similar. When Islamists graduate to jihadist terrorism the profile is equally chilling.” ((Bin Laden’s Army, Newsweek, 10th of July, 2007)

By logical deduction one would presume that in Husein’s own professed Sufi circles there exists either no doctors or engineers or access is denied to them because they have the propensity of DIY literalism and terrorism. Whatever one may think, Ed husein seems to have convinced himself that he had finally found the “missing link”. The detective had at long last found the proof linking Dr. David Bannister with the incredible Hulk. Before one could pronounce Dr. Abdullah, Ed Husein had gone global with his theory.

On a serious note, as the media set about globalising Maher’s association with Dr. Abdullah whilst being a HT member, Husein followed Maher up by using his “professional association” theory to push for a ban on HT in Australia which led the Attorney General to reconsider the Australian position. According to ABC Australia;

“Hizb ut-Tahrir members are alleged to have associated with one of the men arrested over the failed London bombing….Last night on Lateline, a British defector from the group warned Australian members of Hizb ut Tahrir are Muslim extremists and take direction from London.” (ABC 6th July, 2007)

Again, the fingerprints of the UK Home Office were apparent. The co-operation and strategy between Britain and Australia towards HT’s proscription is a long standing one and has generally followed the same trajectory. Again both Maher and Husein were mere pawns in the ongoing strategy which does not look to proscribe HT but merely apply the threat of proscription in order to moderate and ultimately control it. Hence despite his best efforts to link Dr. Abdullah with HT and ultimately with terrorism, like in Britain, Husein met with the same response during his interview and debates. According to Jacob Townsend, research analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and co-author of a paper on the Hizb ut-Tahrir presence in Australia.

“The biggest risk from Hizb ut-Tahrir is if, and I say 'if', it acts as a conveyor belt for extremism, moving people from radicalisation and towards violence ideologies. There is only suggestive evidence, not conclusive evidence that around the world Hizb ut-Tahrir itself has ever been implicated in violence. So, we have to be careful in the sense that on the basis of evidence, 'no', Hizb ut-Tahrir does not authorise or organise violence”. ( ABC Australia, 6th July, 2007)
Having failed in his linkage with Dr.Abdullah, Husein thought he’d try his luck with the “Dr Bannister” theory;

“On a final thought, even here, the leadership of Hizb ut Tahrir as well as the leadership of Mohabist organisations are filled with engineers and doctors.” ( ABC Australia, 6th July, 2007)

In conclusion it seems evident that both Ed Husein and Shiraz Maher have found an extremely receptive audience in the Home Office and the media. The Home Office needed pawns for a specific strategy on HT and the war on terror, whilst Ed Husein and Shiraz Maher needed an opportunity to market their credentials as ex- Islamist insiders with the goal of establishing themselves as authorities on radical Islam and terrorism in general and more specifically HT. However, their reductiveness and obsession in a theoretically and empirically bankrupt mission to link HT with international terrorism seriously puts into question the very nature of their personalities and agendas. The manner in which they have attempted to prove their logic has oscillated from the ridiculous to the comical.

In doing so, they have disconnected themselves with the actuality of a narrative, which puts Western foreign policy and neo-colonialism towards the Islamic world as the prime cause of radicalisation, not only in the West but in the Islamic world. It is quite astonishing that while the majority of the Muslim’s and even non-Muslims vent their frustration and anger over the Anglo-American neo-colonial occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq both Husein and Maher remain silent on the issue. Moreover, the atomised fixation with proscribing HT with the overtly tacit support from the UK government and media machinery frames them within narrative of Western complicity in radicalism and terrorism. In this regards Maher is far off the mark when he suggests that;

“There is no quick fix to the problem of home-grown terrorism, but banning Hizb ut- Tahrir would be an excellent first step, sending a strong signal to aspiring terrorists that Britain has not changed the rules of the game. We no longer play that game.” (The Telegraph May 2nd, 2007)

No doubt Husein and Maher are in need of a reality check. The rules remain as does the game. In essence they remain averse to the actual logic of their argument of guilt by association which taken to its rightful conclusion would connect 9/11, 7/7 etc not with the Islamic movement but with the creation and fostering of jihadism by the Western security services to meet US and British policy objectives in Afghanistan during the 80’s and Bosnia during the 90’s. Bin Laden and Zwahiri were not the creation of HT but of the CIA., Taliban was hot the creation of HT but of the ISI and the CIA, Al-Muhajiroun was not the creation of HT but of Omar Bakri supported by MI5. The use and protection of Omar Bakri, Abu Hamza, Mohammed Aswat, Abu Qatada and Hassan Butt is not by HT but by the British security services. The narrative which puts terrorism specifically in the context of a blowback resulting from the Western use of jihadism has nothing to do with HT.(Please refer to the works of Nafeez Ahmed on the War on Truth )

The unfortunate reality is that the politics between the UK Home Office and HTB is locked in until at least one of the parties decides to change the rules. Until then Maher and Husein will most probably continue to justify their co-option by the UK government and media by maintaining a politics of fear through perpetual efforts at fabricating a link with terrorism along with the doomsday scenario of a Caliphate. As the quotes below clearly demonstrate, behind the actors garb operate British neo-cons disguised as ex-Islamist Inc.

“We can wait for their state to come about and then confront them as we did the Nazis, at a very late stage and at a high human cost, or we can stop appeasing Hizb ut- Tahrir and its offshoots and demand: either change, or perish. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye.” (Ed Hussein, Chilling Similarities, Commentisfree, Guardian, 10th July, 2007)

Copyright © Noman Hanif 2007

David Cameron and Labour Strategy towards Hizb ut Tahrir

2007-07-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

By: NOMAN HANIF
Published: July 8, 2007

On the 4th of July, 2007, in the British House of Commons, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, David Cameron in his first public exchange with the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown launched an attack on the government for not having proscribed the Islamic movement Hizb ut Tahrir. According to Cameron: “We need to act against groups which are seeking to radicalise young people. Almost two years ago, the Government said that they would ban the extremist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir. We think it should be banned—why has it not happened?"

Gordon Brown seemed surprisingly to have been caught off guard by the question. Especially, as is convention, he would have been provided advance warning to prepare and respond. Hence his reply was quite perplexing in attemting to avoid the question and dealing in generalities about expanding the measures on terrorism. The best he could muster was a general statement on evidentiary requirement. Cameron however persisted with his questioning on the government’s handling of Hizb-ut-Tahrir pushing Brown on specifics: “A very interesting answer, but I asked a specific question. The Prime Minister said that we need evidence about Hizb ut-Tahrir. That organisation says that Jews should be killed wherever they are found.

What more evidence do we need before we ban that organisation? It is poisoning the minds of young people. Two years ago, the Government said that it should be banned. I ask again: when will this be done?

Brown tried to give Cameron the slip by assuring him that, “We can ban it under the Prevention of Terrorism Act – of course”. It was left ultimately to the intervention of former Home Office minister, John Reid who argued that there had been two reviews carried out by the government wherein it had decided not to ban the group. The issue of evidence was the baseline argument. John Reid stated:

“I therefore ask the Prime Minister to stay absolutely on the course that he set today, and to stick by the law and the evidence and not to be swayed by any arbitrary political advantage that he thinks might be gained…Nothing would be more politically disadvantageous than taking on a case without evidence and losing it. That would confirm all the accusations made against us by our opponents”

In my article entitled “The Future of Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Britain,” I made the argument that the British government was merely going through the motions in respect to proscribing HT. Rather it had a higher political agenda which was to temper HT domestically and utilise it internationally. To a large extent the British government has been successful in its approach which has followed a defined strategy involving;

1. Maintaining the threat of proscription under Anti-Terrorism legislation in order to pressurise HTB into ideological compromise.

2. The heavy utilisation of compliant former HT members in the media in order to sustain a suggestive link between HTB and terrorism.

3. To use HTB’s security vulnerability in the UK to influence the movement from within.

4. To openly promote HT pragmatists through the media, with the aim of building platforms for engagement.

This policy has achieved a considerable measure of success largely due to the pragmatism of the current HTB leadership which has moved intellectual mountains to avoid proscription by bringing HTB closer to the mainstream of British politics. One has to situate David Cameron’s exchange within the context of this background. The failure to proscribe HTB by Tony Blair and the Labour government strategy towards HTB has perplexed many analysts. Whether Cameron is privy to Labour’s policy and strategy is an open question. Was the House of Commons exchange a real frustration on the part of Cameron or was it politically staged as part of this strategy with Cameron and elements of the media firmly within the esoteric policy loop. Although John Reid’s statement seems to indicate that Cameron may be an outsider and an irritant, the timing of Cameron’s comments along with a series of events within the current political and security climate may allude to another line of argument.

On the 24th of June, 2007, HTB announced on its website that Abdul Wahid had been appointed as the new Chairman of the Executive Committee. Abdul Wahid replaced one of the key pragmatist’s Canadian convert Jamal Harwood who would continue to remain part of the committee (www.hizb.org.uk). Abdul Wahid a doctor from London is a well known member of HTB having represented the movement in the media on numerous occasions. He has been central to the process of moderating and pragmatising HTB’s approach. He was a key proponent of the HTB local election campaigns and was instrumental in promoting a democratic friendly language for the elections. In those campaigns, the ideologically charged language of “democracy is Kufr(non-Islamic)” was shunned in favour of elections not being in the “interests” of Muslims, which by default legitimises the democratic process. Hence, his appointment further consolidates the dominant pragmatic influence in the HTB leadership committee. Abdul Wahid’s moderation was also picked up by Ed Hussein, former HT activist, author of ‘The Islamist and a close confidant of the UK security services who disclosed his assessment of Abdul Wahid prior to Wahid’s appointment as Chairman:

“I am aware that the current pressure that Hizb faces will ostensibly unite moderates such as Abdul Wahid with the extremists wing of Hizb, but the intellectual divisions are sufficiently deep to resurface repeatedly soon” (www.theislamist.tumblr.com)

The media clearly seems to have been briefed about Abdul Wahid’s moderation. For only this can explain why the UK Daily Telegraph on the 28th of June, 2007, took the decision to heavily promote Abdul Wahid. In a review of the Blair years, under the shocking title “The Great and the Good”, the paper promoted Abdul Wahid as the only non-English and Muslim personality amongst a host of exclusive former dignitaries. Wahid had been chosen over close establishment favourites such as Sir Iqbal Saccranie, Lord Nazir, Shahid Malik etc. Furthermore, he had been presented explicitly as a member of Hizb-ut-Tahrir. It is highly improbable that this was an oversight.

It seems highly likely that David Cameron’s Parliament onslaught on HT would have been situated in the context of testing this new HTB appointment. As mentioned above, the main part of Labour’s overall pressure has been the sword of terrorism. Cameron’s attack comes in the wake of the heavy securitised environment created by the London and Glasgow bombings. Brown’s statement that “We can ban it under the Prevention of Terrorism Act – of course” was equally suggestive as was Reid’s timely intervention in returning matters to the status quo. The media’s involvement in this strategy was further explicit when BBC’s Newsnight programme on the 3rd of July broadcast an interview with former HT member turned BBC advisor, Shiraz Maher. Newsnight’s agenda with Maher was blatantly obvious. It was to maintain pressure on HTB by perpetuating the possibility of links between HTB and terrorism.

In the interview Maher talks of being an associate of Glasgow airport bomb suspect Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdullah whilst at Cambridge, the crucial insinuation being his membership and activity with HT at that time. The tactic seemed to have worked with Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman on the 5th of July, after another exposé from Maher announced that HTB had contacted the programme while on air and denied any links with the Glasgow bombers. It is important to point out that HT is dogmatically political in its methodology and there exists absolutely no evidence of any HT involvement whether domestic or abroad of terrorist involvement. This issue is well understood about HT globally. For this reason the consistent agenda pushing of the HT-terrorist link puts huge question marks on the credibility of Shiraz Maher and Ed Hussein as mere neutral observers.

Cameron’s focus on HT’s position towards the Jews could also be construed as part of the continuum of the general strategy aimed at ideological degradation. It is here where the results of the government pressure in moderating HTB have been quite spectacular. In order to avoid proscription and fall foul of the race laws, HTB has removed from its website all Koranic and other references to the Jews and the destruction of the Israeli state. Instead the vocabulary of ‘Zionism’ has been inserted along with logical and political argumentation for a unified Palestinian state.

Moreover, HTB puts forward the argument that they are not against the Jews because they have protected status as “dhimmi” under Islam. In essence this argument is a deviation from its own ideological understanding which considers the concept of “dhimmi” only applicable under the concept of an Islamic state. Since there is no Caliphate or true Islamic state, the default position according to HT’s own original understanding is a state of war with the Jews because of their chastisement by the Koran and the considered illegality of the Jewish occupation of Palestine in the form of the Israeli state. The measure of the success in the British strategy was evident in one of the most astonishing leaflets on the Palestinian issue ever released in the history of HT entitled ‘Palestine – Why Only a One State Solution Will Work‘, June 7, 2007. The leaflet was a complete rationalisation of the conflict supported by arguments from former Israeli PM, Ben Gurion instead of the customary Koran and hadith. Amongst the five reasons rationalised for a unified state the most bizarre seems to have been:

“According to demographic trends, Muslims will outnumber Jews in 10 years or so and polls have clearly shown their preference for Islamic rule and hence a rejection of the so called 'roadmap' which would hand most of Palestine including Jerusalem to the Israelis.”

With this success in mind, it is unlikely the British government would be interested in proscription. Undoubtedly the British government would want to push HT’s boundaries further towards the recognition of Israel and the two state solution. David Cameron’s agenda regarding the jewish issue merely enhances the strategy.

The interesting question however relates to the strategy of Labour’s engagement with HTB. Because of HT’s belligerent ideological conception towards Britain, political engagement is a very sensitive issue for the movement. HT is very quick to draw conclusions of agency regarding individuals and movements who engage with Western governments. However, Imran Waheed and Jamal Harwood, two of the most influential and senior members of the HTB executive committee have taken steps to actively engage with the British political establishment. On March, 2006, Waheed and Harwood accepted an invitation from Labour peer Claire Short to address the political establishment at the House of Commons. There was an information blackout on this meeting by HTB, the details of which were only released on a blog from a participant in the meeting. Although the extent and nature of their engagement requires further investigation and analysis, the main point is that Waheed and Harwood have provided the platform. The duality of Labour’s good cop bad cop approach is also consistent with the style adopted by David Cameron. His public posture in pushing for the proscription of radical and extremist movements is not consistent with his appointment of personnel relating to community relations. His choice of shadow minister for social cohesion Sayeeda Warsi is an open advocate of engagement with these movements. Warsi’s appointment is no accident. Cameron’s duality is confirmed by the fact that he has stuck with Warsi despite the attack on her appointment by the Conservative think tank, The Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. According to the director Nigel Gardiner: “The appointment by the Conservative Party of Sayeeda Warsi as Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion sends the wrong signal at a time when Britain is fighting a global war against Islamic terrorism and extremism, both domestically and internationally.” (ConservativeHome, June 4, 2007)

The appointment of Warsi is the firmest indicator that Cameron is in sync with the Labour strategy having the potential to utilise Warsi for a backdoor engagement with HTB. The question is whether this engagement has already occurred with HTB. In a dramatic turn of events Sky news on the 5th of July, 2005, revealed that David Cameron’s office in August, 2006 wrote to Jamal Harwood in reply to a letter from HTB. Sky news quoted that Cameron’s staff wrote;

“ David is most grateful to you for your comments on relationships between Western governments and the Muslim world…He fully takes on board the points put across to him in correspondence from members of the public and it is very helpful of you to have taken the trouble to write…your comments are noted and appreciated..” (Full letter can now be found on hizb.org.uk)

The letter seems also to have caught out HTB, because they had not publicized the exchange. What could possibly have been the purpose and timing of the letter by Sky news is unclear. Was it aimed to provide cover for the possibility of contact for Cameron? Was it a warning for Cameron to lay off Labour policy? Or was it simply to test the new HTB appointment? No doubt the reality of Cameron’s intentions and position vis-à-vis HTB will become clearer in time.

Meanwhile both HTB and the Cameron office seem to have gone on the defensive. HTB tried to conduct some damage control by interestingly re-issuing an article on David Cameron written by Imran Waheed in February 2007, entitled “After Blair‘s New Labour, Cameron‘s Neoconservatism“. From these actions it is clear that HTB saw the revelation of the exchange with Cameron as a politically sensitive issue culminating in a flurry to distance itself from him. This was provided in the form of an official response by Imran Waheed entitled “Cameron's letter exposes his opportunism in calling for ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir”, in which he states:

"Many will find it remarkably hypocritical and opportunistic that less than a year ago, Cameron was expressing his gratitude for our comments on Israel's bombardment of Lebanon, yet now he calls for our banning, alleging that we call for the killing of Jews…We completely reject David Cameron's playing of politics with security and his baseless accusation that our organisation calls for the killing of Jews. His accusations are not surprising given that Hizb ut-Tahrir has been an ardent critic of the Zionist state, while Cameron has described himself as a Zionist. Perhaps Mr Cameron has not, this time, jumped onto a bandwagon, but onto a sinking ship."(Hizb.org.uk 4th July,2007)

The rhetoric however fails to mask the question as to why HTB would engage Cameron’s office knowing full well his views and position vis-à-vis Zionism and Israel. It is noteworthy that HTB did not publish their own letter to Cameron as it would be interesting to know why a “Zionist“ would give such a favourable reply to HTB on the issue of Israeli action towards Lebanon. No doubt there is more to the exchange between HTB’s leadership and the Conservatives than meets the eye. Again as with Claire Short, Jamal Harwood and Imran Waheed seem to be the central figures. Cameron’s letter being addressed to Harwood and Waheed’s obvious attempts to initiate damage control. The exchange further confirms the success of Labour’s strategy and the potential or existent role of Cameron in it. However, the accomplishment of Labour’s strategy cannot be achieved without the active participation of the HTB leadership which seems to be clearly reciprocating. It is no wonder that John Reid was so emphatic in warning Gordon Brown to resist the calls for changing the strategy.

“I therefore ask the Prime Minister to stay absolutely on the course that he set today, and to stick by the law and the evidence and not to be swayed by any arbitrary political advantage that he thinks might be gained…” (John Reid, PMQ 4th July, 2007)

Noman Hanif is lecturer in Radical Islam and International Terrorism at Birkbeck, University of London. He is currently researching the Global Politics of Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

http://www.icssa.org/article_detail_parse.php?a_id=1136&rel=1129

The Future of Hizb ut Tahrir in Britain

2007-07-07T08:28:00.000-07:00

By: NOMAN HANIF
Published: June 27, 2007

The release of Ed Husain’s book, “The Islamist” and its serialisation
by the UK media seems on the surface to be a coup’detat for British
intelligence. A former insider from the seemingly “secretive” and
“impenetrable” radical Islamic organisation, Hizb-ut-Tahrir
(Liberation Party) has openly shared with the public the “inner”
dynamics and thinking of this well known but little understood
organisation. In the absence of a comparative what are we to make of
this supposedly “insider” view. One must firstly give credit to HT in
that since its launch in 1952, there exists no account of any member
whether serving or disgruntled to have engaged in any efforts to
expose or undermine its organisational structure or idea base
individually or through co-operative measures with any state media
and apparatus. Especially since Ed Husain himself points out that HT
members are unique in their loyalty to an idea rather than the
organisational structure and as the example of Mr Hussein himself
suggests, intimidation or coercion etc is not a practice conducted by
HT of former members and hence not a barrier to speaking openly. Ed
Husain is probably the first and follows an increasing trend of
former members of radical movements in the Western world turning
super grass, the prominent ones being Hassan Butt from Muhajiroun
(News of the World, May 25th, 2007) and jihadist Abu Qatada (Guardian
30th March, 2007).

Along with this, MI5’s success in recruiting Abu Qatada as a double
agent (Guardian 30th March, 2007), Mohammed Aswat (linked to Abu
Hamza and alleged 7/7 bombers) to infiltrate and spy on the jihadist
network in the UK (Guardian 10th Feb, 2005) and possible courting of
Al –Muhajiroun founder Omar Bakri Mohammed (who according to credible
sources is currently under UK secret custody), would seem to vindicate
the oft criticised policy of the UK government in fomenting radical
movements on UK soil. If home advantage has been a clear positive for
the UK intelligence services, it has been a critical vulnerability for
the radical movements. Nevertheless, it would be safe to assume that
there is very little the UK intelligence services would have gained
from Ed Hussein’s insider view. Infiltration of HT in the UK would
not have been difficult as it can be gauged from Ed Husain’s own
account that HT and Muhajiroun had essentially an open door policy.
One must also not overlook the fact that HT is not an alien concept
for the UK. The party has been a subject of study for MI6 because of
its core level of support in Jordan and the consistent level of
activity in other areas of the Middle East for over five decades
(Farouki, Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the Elusive Caliphate, Grey Seal, 1994).
This point is even more poignant considering it was Britain directly
through its ‘viceroy’ in Jordan, Glubb Pasha which resulted in HT
being banned and refused registration as a political party in the
country in 1953.

So questions arise as to why Mr. Hussein would break his own silence
and attempt such a disclosure at this particular time? And whether
there is anything of value from his narrative in considering the
future of Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Britain? In this essay I will argue that
although Ed Hussain will undoubtedly be of some value to British
intelligence in creating problems within the HT membership, very
little can be gained from Ed Hussein’s narrow experience and scope in
understanding the contemporary politics of Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Britain
(HTB) and the relationship with its global position. In turn I will
demonstrate that contrary to Husein's assertion, HTB is not an
extremist or radical organisation, rather one which has moved away
from its ideological rigidity towards a cooperative pragmatism. This
transformation has positioned the organisation within the framework of
British politics in a manner that has become conducive to British
interests. Hence, its proscription is both unnecessary and highly
unlikely.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT) or Liberation Party was formed in 1952 in
Palestine by Taqiudine an Nabhani, an Islamic scholar, thinker and
judge. Although HT started in Palestine it quickly spread throughout
the Islamic world and beyond including Europe, Australia and Russia.
Unlike the intellectual founders of other Islamic contemporary
movements such as Hasan al Banna, Maududi and Sayid Qutb, Nabhani
received special scholarly training in Islam from his reputable
family and the Egyptian Al Azhar Islamic University. Nabhani
perceived the existence of Western culture and colonialism as the
reason for the continued decline and subjugation of the Islamic
world. In consequence, he argued for a ‘liberation’ from this state
of affairs through an intellectual struggle against Western culture
and influence through building a popular base for Islamic revival and
seizing the reins of power to establish Islamic authority in the form
of a Caliphate. The contention was that the Islamic world had
reverted to the period of ‘jahiliya’ (before Islam) and the only
methodology to change this state of affairs was to emulate the
political journey of the Prophet Mohammed in Arabia, from his
development of a vanguard in Mecca to his establishment of an Islamic
government in Medina. HT contends that this methodology explicitly
rejects the reformism of the Muslim Brotherhood and the militarism of
the jihadists’ in its quest to transform society and state. In its
evaluation of Islamic history and contemporary politics, HT proclaims
Britain, France, US and Russia as the perpetual enemies of Islam with
whom there can be no contemporary engagement and with whom any future
Caliphate is prohibited to conduct treatise. HT and its members became
renowned for their resoluteness in adhering to the doctrine of
rejecting co-existence with what it considered un-Islamic ideas,
individuals, organisations and states. As a result HT was banned by
most of the regimes in the Islamic world and continuously attacked by
secular, nationalist and reformist organisations for its ideological
rigidity. Although, its presence in the Western world has grown, its
primary field of work remains the Islamic world. In the Western
world, governments have been under intense pressure from the US and
internally to ban HT because of what is regarded as its anti-Semitism
and anti-democratic radicalist agenda. Germany has taken the lead in
banning HT group activity but not its membership. The British
government has so far resisted the calls for HT’s proscription.

Ed Hussein’s raison detaire as proclaimed in his book and interviews
is to make us understand through his experience why young Muslims in
Britain are becoming extremists. According to Husain, “Islamist
groups pose a threat to this country that we –Muslims and non-Muslims
alike- do not yet understand”. (Husein –The Islamist). He endeavours
to help us understand the real causes of radicalisation, extremism
and terrorism through his personal but brief experience of
involvement with the trans-national radical group Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT)
or as it is known in Britain HTB. However, questions are raised in my
mind as to the timing of Ed Husain’s book and the nature of his
message, especially since the accuracy of his understanding of HT as
an organisation would be compromised fifteen years after departure.
With the “causes of radicalisation” having become the centre of
gravity in terms of policy and research towards Muslim communities in
the UK, further questions are raised in terms of opportunism. One of
the reasons cited by Bob Beckley, lead spokesman on community
policing and counter-terrorism issues for the Association of Chief
Police Officers (ACPO), for advising the Blair government not to
proscribe HTB was that although “members are against terror” they
“can provide an insight into why people might become radicalised.”
Has Ed Hussein contributed towards this void now that he has
purportedly challenged what Dean Goodson had insinuated in the Times,
that even beyond the issue of proscription, “senior officers aver that
Hizb- ut-Tahrir… plays a ‘stabilising role’ in certain areas.” As
Madeleine Bunting responsively wrote,

“It helps that the book happened to come out last week, within a few
days of the verdicts in the Crevice trial, Britain's longest running
terror trial. Ed Husain, overnight, became one of the experts on what
needs to be done to tackle home-grown terrorism.” (Guardian, 12th
May, 2007).

As a researcher of Nabahani’s ideological and political thought I was
quite startled with the superficial understanding and treatment of
HT’s ideational base by Husein. Husein’s critique of Nabahani needs a
fuller explanation which will have to be dealt with separately and at
another time. However, some general points need to be addressed. From
Husein’s own account it is evident that the first and only point of
contact with the HT literature from within was under the leadership
of Omar Bakri Mohammed, which according to reports inside and out,
forms the most conceptually deviant period of HT’s existence in the
UK, diverting quite sharply away from its core ideas. According to
Husein’s own narrative, virtually all of his conceptual interaction
under this period was of a secondary nature from equally uninformed
members and with demonstrable ignorance in understanding the basis of
Nabahani’s thinking towards matters relating to Sharia and Western
thought. From these conceptual inaccuracies, Husein’s ‘second
reading’ of Nabahani which is from the outside, further compounds the
fog when he takes as his standard of interpretation a new found
perspective in the form of Western thought. By doing so he is unable
to comment on the vast and detailed understandings of classical Islam
given by Nabahani to justify the rejection of those areas of Western
thought which are seen to conflict with the Islamic belief and those
areas which are open to adoption. Husein applies the lens of Plato,
Hegel, Gramsci, Rousaeu etc in order to interpret Nabahani without
understanding that Nabahani had indeed echoed some similarity in
their arguments and even adopted them (Nabahani never claimed to be
the originator of these ideas), while at the same time where and why
he differed from them on basic conceptions and definitions of
realities were clearly laid out. In consequence, Husein comes to a
ludicrous conclusion which is evident to anyone familiar with
Nabhani’s work in stating:

“It seems to me that Nabhani is a product of Rousseau”. (Husein, The
Islamist, p162)

Husein’s critical agenda becomes even more questionable when he
attempts incorrectly to undermine the position and value of the
Caliphate within classical Islamic literature from a selective
reading of Sufi Islam. It was ironic that HTB representative Taji
Mustafa had to correctly point out that Husein had mislead even from
the texts of Sufi Islam;

“he (Husein) argues that key orthodox political ideas such as the
caliphate are alien to "traditional" Islam.., one of the scholars
who Husain cites as a new found reference point is the respected Sufi
Shaykh Nuh Keller. In his translation of the classical jurisprudential
work Reliance of the Traveller he states that the caliphate is
"obligatory in itself" and an integral part of orthodox Islamic
thinking. There are many examples of Muslim scholars and thinkers
more famed for their spiritualism who endorse the ideas of Shariah
and caliphate as inherently part of Islam. Husain has chosen to
ignore the opinions of these Sufis who agree with those he labels
Islamists” (The Islamist Bogeyman, Guardian 14th May 2007)

HT’s ideology and methodology to re-instate Islam is quite unique in
that it is radical yet non-violent. A concept, governments’ in the
Islamic and Western world have found difficult to deal with.
Although, it is banned in most countries in the Islamic world due to
its non-recognition of what it considers non-Islamic and hence
illegitimate regimes, it has maintained a unique structural
discipline in its adherence to its non-violent methodology.
Frustrated with efforts to combat HT’s political strategy,
governments such as in Jordan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan have attempted
but failed to bring terrorism charges against the group. For this
reason, it is not Hussein's sentiment towards terrorism but his
attempted link between HT, extremism and terrorism that needs proper
scrutiny. Indeed, Husain’s constructed linkage is not new. He follows
the same logic of Zeyno Baran from the US Hudson Institute and Nixon
Center who first termed HT as the “conveyor belt of terrorism”. Zeyno
Baran in her article for the US journal Foreign Affairs entitled the
War of Ideas described HT as the “greatest threat to Western
security”. Although Baran’s declaration of HT as a terrorist
organisation lacks any factual premise, her association with US
energy companies and Central Asian dictatorships hostile to HT cannot
be discounted as a major factor in her extreme attempt to bring HT
under the rubric of the war on terror. Moreover, Baran’s and by
default Ed Husain’s enterprise is comprehensively dismantled by
former Swiss civil servant and historian, Jean-Francois in his
research paper entitled “Hizbut Tahrir--The Next al-Qaeda, Really?”
and by the suspicious fact that neither Baran or Hussein draw upon
the only established research on HT by Exeter university academic
Suha Taji Farouki, which categorically discounts their logic.

Similarly, with recognition in Western circles that the War of Ideas
against resurgent Islam is being lost, I do not consider it mere
coincidence that Ed Husain’s exposure can be divorced from the focus
by Western governments on combating radical Islam by co-opting and
promoting elements in the Muslim world from the Sufi and secular
persuasion. Think tanks especially in the US which have graduated
from the war of ideas against Communism under the Cold War paradigm
have been awash with policy initiatives to combat radical Islam under
the same framework, the latest being the RAND corporations report
entitled, “Building Moderate Networks”. (www.rand.org) Madeleine
Bunting in her interview with Ed Hussein reveals that his conversion
to secularism coupled with his Sufi inclination seems to fit quite
neatly with this equation.

“There has never been much love lost between Sufism and Islamism -
the former criticised as politically quiescent - and one way to read
Husain is that Sufi Islam now has a sympathetic hearing in Whitehall
and the media, and has the confidence to challenge Islamist
domination of the UK Muslim community”(Guardian, 12th May, 2007).

However, the key question remains, how do we qualify the accuracy and
quality of Ed Hussein’s account and explanation?

The only official narrative available on HT is the research of Dr,
Suha Taji Farouki detailed in her book, A Fundamental Quest- Hizb-al
Tahrir and the Islamic Caliphate. Although Farouki was not an
insider, it is clear from the comparison that her understanding of HT
thought and level of organisational access was far higher and superior
than that of Ed Husein. Unlike Farouki, Ed Hussein had no experience
of HT in the Arab world and no access to understanding the ideas
outside of the British box. It can be very easily ascertained that Ed
Husein was in fact a very low level foot soldier whose organisational
access was regionally restricted and who alongside many of the young
hot-blooded recruits of that period had no real appreciation of the
complexity of HT’s ideological thought and global strategy. It cannot
be over-stated that HT is not a Western phenomena. Its membership and
area of activity remains firmly rooted in the Islamic world. HT in
Europe is largely a post 1980’s occurrence and as Farouki points out
within its own framework of importance a rather irrelevant and
tangential one at that.

“It is likely that the Party will continue to attract disaffected
young Muslims in Britain. The importance of such success to its
over-all objective of establishing an Islamic state in a Muslim
(Arab) country is questionable, however. Conversely, so is the
relevancy of its agenda, conceived for a Muslim context, yet exported
lock, stock and barrel to the context of minority Islam in a secular
Western state. Its strategy revolves around preparing society in a
location that constitutes a suitable potential home for the
Caliphate. The fruit of the struggle of ideas in a particular
location, and the process of interaction of which it is part, can
only be realised only through a process of consolidation having at
its end product the erection of the Caliphate. Such consolidation
must assume as its focus a location, within the party’s sphere of
activity, which strictly speaking does not encompass Western
countries. These remain peripheral to the Party’s primary area of
concern”. (Taji Farouki, p187)

Herein lies the crux of situating Ed Husein’s exposé. Suha Taji
situates her critique at the time of Ed Husain’s activity in HT. This
period was an extreme anomaly for HT as it deviated radically from its
stated thought and methodology via its targeting of British society
under the regional leadership of Omar Bakri Mohammed. HT’s subsequent
removal of Omar Bakri for this deviation drew an abrupt end to this
short period of anarchy. Omar Bakri subsequently went onto continue
his programme through the establishment of Muhajiroun. The refocusing
of HT in Britain, re-branded as HTB bears very little resemblance to
that period. One of the spokesmen for HT, Taji Mustafa, in responding
to Ed Husain was categorical on this point.

“The book is a personal recollection from over 10 years ago. Leaving
aside the many flaws and inaccuracies, it claims to be an account of
Hizb ut-Tahrir [the Party of Liberation] under a brief period of
aberrant leadership, which was recognised at the time. That is why
Omar Bakri Mohammed was expelled from Hizb ut-Tahrir. Husain's brief
association also ended, and the group, as many others will testify,
moved on.”(Guardian, 14th May 2007)

The truth is however that HTB has moved from one aberration to
another. In fact one could say that HTB has moved radically to the
other end of the Islamic spectrum. Today, one would find it very
difficult to identify HTB from what are recognised as the moderates.
Unwilling to face proscription and even extinction resulting from
some of its core positions, it has attempted to present a more
acceptable face to the British government and society. More
specifically, HTB has gone to extra-ordinary lengths in order to gain
legitimacy from the British establishment. In doing so it has deviated
considerably from its position of non-cooperation and co-existence
with what it considered as non-Islamic concepts and entities. Despite
its long standing opposition to co-operation with stated deviant
Islamic organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB),
Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), the Islamic Human Rights
Commission etc, HT has shared platforms with them, even participating
in the signing of collective petitions, the text of which would have
been originally termed as un-Islamic and groups such as the MAB, MCB,
ISB etc considered as too close to the British establishment and
consequently acting as their agents.

The most subtle but monumental change has been the use of language,
which fundamentally alters the meaning of its basic political
position and concepts. For instance HTB was signatory to a petition
organised by Muslim and non-Muslim organisations and individuals
pertaining to the anti-terror laws entitled “United to Protect Our
Rights”. Despite HTB’s official rejection of non-Divine laws (Kufr),
it accepted the text of the petition despite one of the sections
calling for “The Amendment or Repeal of the Human Rights Act”.
According to the text of the petition;

“We the undersigned have not forgotten the experiences of the
conflict in Northern Ireland and the lessons of the last 30 years
when the removal of fundamental rights and the creation of an entire
suspect community achieved nothing other than the continuation of
violence, fear, bitterness and the creation of an unbridgeable
divide. We call on the government to protect all of the people by
advocating a proper and judicious use of the existing law and by
realising that over-reaction will be deeply
counterproductive.”(hizb.org.uk)

This petition and others like it signal a new pragmatism amongst its
membership for this petition and others like it bear their individual
signature. It reflects a monumental change in the basic framework
within which the HT member is developed. The grooming of its members
is expected to produce uncompromising leaders in society. The shift
from resoluteness irrespective of popularity to pragmatism in order
to gain acceptability challenges the very essence of what HTB states
is the characteristic of its members:

“A leader does not lie to or flatter people; he leads and refuses to
be led, and influences instead of being influenced. We tell people
whatever is true and correct regardless of whether they like it: we
appreciate that our approach is tough and that they may distance
themselves from us for periods of time...” (Internal document,
Farouki, p107)

The most explicit example of HTB’s own deviation from its renowned
exclusiveness was displayed at a recent demonstration on May 26th
2007, in London organised as a protest against Pakistani General
Parvez Musharraf. HTB’s own expression was the standard need to
establish the Caliphate. However, this was not the message given by
the anti-Islamic, secular and nationalist parties with whom HTB chose
to form an alliance and share a platform. Such political tactics and
platform sharing were thus no different to that of the religious and
political parties in Pakistan that HTB had criticised consistently in
its own literature. More importantly, HTB sidestepped the issue of its
fundamental political programme in the requirement for society to have
deeply absorbed the Islamic thoughts and rejected non-Islam or (kufr).
The irony here was that the groups they were supporting on the
demonstration were the complete antithesis of this ideational
requirement. One of the groups, the Benazir Bhutto led Pakistan
Peoples Party had consistently its direct opposition to any notion of
Sharia in Pakistan. Not to mention that HT rejects as against Sharia
the notion of a woman being the leader of a state. HTB went even
further and agreed a common declaration incorporating the demands of
all the parties with a press release couched in conciliatory language
with a unifying base premised on the least common denominator i.e. the
removal of President Musharraf.

“All opposition parties from Pakistan, including the main political
parties and key civil society figures unanimously sent a message to
Musharraf that he must leave office immediately and make way for a
new chapter in the future of Pakistan. The demonstration came about
after a culmination of key discussions in the past week between
opposition parties where it was agreed that a public demonstration of
disapproval against Pakistan's Western dictator was urgently needed.
Amongst the resolutions is an agreement that to co-operate with
Musharraf in any way is treachery and a crime against the people…The
other leaderships were appreciative of the gesture for sincere and
open dialogue and warmly greeted the Hizb's central role in making
the demonstration successful and for the first time bringing all of
the Pakistani opposition together” (hizb.org.uk)

What was explicit here was a clear manifestation of bandwagoning on
the influence of the secular and nationalist parties ensuing from
HTB’s desperation at not being able to achieve any measurable
partisan support in the UK and impatience with the lack of its own
success in Pakistan. It is well understood that the Pakistani
political parties have made it part of their established work to
engage with Western governments in order to lobby and enlist their
support for the achievement of their political objectives. In the
context of HT’s ideas this is tantamount to a betrayal of the Muslim
ummah (nation) yet the deviation was resounding, with no open
criticism of the stance taken by the Pakistani political parties. In
its pragmatism, HTB had effectively undermined its own opposition to
‘colonial’ assistance and legitimised the politics of these parties,
hence moving away from their own books;
“The colonialists exploited the fact that their personality had
become the focus of culture and attention in the political aspects.
They made the seeking of foreign assistance, as well as dependence
upon them, the focus of contemporary politicians, who viewed politics
as a career, rather than a responsibility. Therefore, most of the
groups attempted unconsciously to seek foreign help. Those who sought
the assistance of foreign states did not realize that any such help,
and advocating any idea of dependence upon the colonialists,
regardless of their origin, would mean that they are contaminated by
foreign poison, and it would constitute a betrayal to the Ummah, even
if the intention was good. They did not realize that linking our cause
with any other people would constitute political suicide. Therefore,
any movement whose thought was poisoned with the idea of relying upon
or advocating foreign assistance was doomed to failure.” (Party
Structuring, p12)
Similarly, even on its core political issues, to avoid censure in the
UK, HTB has gradually but consistently compromised and removed from
its website and literature references to physical jihad and the
destruction of Israel, a move which lowers its perception
considerably amongst other Islamic organisations as a genuine radical
outfit. More so, in order to avoid the charge of anti-Semitism,
subtly, the language and context of its core rallying cry, the
Israeli issue has been re-engineered from one of destruction of the
state to that of “illegal” occupation, “state terrorism” as well as
that of “Zionism” rather than the conventional language of a jihad
against Jews (the original text of the verses of Koran and the
traditions of Mohammed used by HTB to support the argument against
Israel categorically referred to the term “Jews” not Zionism) even
printing photographs of Hasidic Jews holding a HT banner on a
demonstration against the state of Israel. The manifestation of this
change of context and language is evident in two examples from HTB.
The first from a leaflet issued in July 2006 in response to the
Israeli attack on Lebanon entitled, “Israel's Massacre of Lebanon
Marks a New Zenith in The ‘War on Terror’ “. In this leaflet, by
moving the focus onto the context terrorism, HTB manoeuvred the
subject matter away from the conventional position over the
“illegitimacy” of the Israeli state and the call for its destruction
via a jihad. What could be read from the text was not a problem with
the existence of Israel but rather with its “terrorist” actions.

“Amongst those who seem unable to condemn Israel's terrorism are the
rulers in the Muslim world, who are ever more distant from the views
of their populations. While their populations demonstrate and call
for action - cutting diplomatic ties, oil sanctions on supporters of
Israel, and security for civilians - the rulers continue to support
the ongoing bloodshed.”

Further evidence of its compromise in language over Israel is
illustrated in HTB’s report entitled “Iraq: A New Way Forward”, which
attempts to establish a number of rational steps required to solve the
Iraq issue. In step 5, HTB endeavours to rationalise the issue of
Israel and in consequence for the first time uses the term
“annexation” to describe the 1948 scenario. Recognising a priori
legitimacy and existence of Israeli existence for “annexation” to
occur and then inferring a concept of “illegality” from the Western
perspective. All notions of Israel’s destruction were again carefully
avoided:

“In the context of ensuring long term stability to the region,
Israel's annexation of Palestine in 1948 should not be recognised….
Until it is recognised that the annexation of Palestinian land in
1948 was not just illegal but heralded the ethnic destruction of
lives, property and lands of millions of Palestinians, the so-called
imposed 'peace process' will not work and instability in the region
will remain. If the Zionist regime that governs in Tel Aviv has a
right to Palestine, a region it annexed in 1948, then Argentina had a
right to invade the Falkland Islands in 1982. Yet Britain sent an
armada of naval ships across the globe to reassert British
sovereignty. Today Palestinians are asked to recognise this illegal
annexation.” (HTB Iraq: A New Way Forward)

The most dramatic engagement however has been with Western
institutions, organisations and notably with the British political
establishment. One cannot overstate the significance of these
departures for they break with the very essence of its political
understanding and strategy towards Britain as the “head of the
snake” because of its considered long standing enmity towards Islam,
practice of colonialism and responsible along with France for the
destruction of the Ottoman Caliphate. The most noteworthy engagement
was when HTB responded to an invitation from Claire Short to address
politicians at Westminster on March 3, 2006, as to why it should not
be proscribed. This was indeed a monumental step for HT. For the
conventional position of HT globally was of a state of aggression
with Britain, France and the US. Under this position, the only
conceivable engagement was either ‘jihad’ on the battlefield or an
invitation to Islam. Neither of these formed the basis of exchange at
Westminster. Moreover, HTB in uncharacteristic fashion underplayed the
meeting on their website with a virtual information blackout. The
pertinent details could only be ascertained from a blogger, Harry’s
Blog who was present at the meeting. What was conveyed can only be
described as analogous to a scenario of Gerry Adams and Martin
McGuiness being interrogated by British Parliamentarians and pleading
for their sympathy for Republicanism. The Parliamentarians were
expected by the HTB delegates to find some cause of endearment for
HTB and its goal of an Islamic Caliphate. For only this could explain
why a copy of the HT Draft Islamic Constitution was given out to the
attendees instead of the conventionally understood discussion on the
Islamic doctrine itself. Imran Waheed and Jamal Harwood were
effectively courting the British establishment which was reciprocated
by Claire Short. According to the account:

“Clare Short hosted Hizb ut-Tahrir for a meeting in the Houses of
Parliament. The meeting was supposed to give Parliamentarians an
opportunity to quiz Hizb ut-Tahrir before the attempt by the Prime
Minister to have the organization proscribed. The meeting began
rather tellingly with Clare Short refusing impolitely the request by
the Jewish Chronicle to take photos of herself with either of the two
representatives of HuT. At the meeting were around a dozen
parliamentarians from both houses, including some heavyweight figures
such as Lord Lawson and Lord Avebury. To open, a document was
distributed with an open letter to Clare Short from Lord Avebury, the
letter Peter Tatchell wrote and an article from the
Bangladeshi Daily Star, entitled, ‘The long history of violence
behind Hizb ut-Tahrir’. The two representatives of HuT, Imran Waheed
and Jamal Harwood (a white, middle-class ‘city accountant’ – poor
sod) sat facing their would-be interrogators. Imran Waheed dressed in
a sharp suit with an open collar and proceeded to give a
well-rehearsed autobiographical outline of his life that made Richard
Curtis seem like a working-class rebel. Waheed went to the top grammar
school in the country (where, rather surprisingly he found HuT), after
university he joined the NHS to become a psychiatrist. The subtext; I
am a proud British Muslim, I have a good living, I have children, I
am the very embodiment of middle-class values, I listen to Radio 4 –
how could I be a threat? In-between predictable jokes about The Sun,
bonhomie about Birmingham being ‘the centre of the world’, and his
anger at the injustices in the Middle-East, Waheed managed to create
a discourse of mutual dialogue between Islam and the West that seemed
respectable and reasonable. The story climaxed with Waheed explaining
to his audience that many Hizb ut-Tahrir members were out on the
streets on 7/7 helping the victims of the terrorist atrocity.”
(http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2006/03/03/short_on_debate.php)

This is far from the extremist image of HTB, experienced and
portrayed by Ed Husain. In an interview for radio 5 on the 16th of
May 2007, Husain had to concede that in comparison to its break off
faction, HTB was “liberal” and then contradicted himself by
maintaining his call for its proscription on the basis that HTB was
instrumental in radicalising Muslim youth in Britain. Clearly,
Husain’s knowledge is ossified in the Omar Bakri era. Fifteen years
on and the hot-headed young university firebrands have evolved from
the Omar Bakri diversion. Most of the HTB leadership now consists of
middle aged professionals interested in emulating Western political
styles. HTB has evolved into a totally unrecognisable animal.
Obstacles to its proscription are clearly manifest from within the
British establishment. Where Western intelligence failed in the
Middle East to penetrate or influence HT, it may have succeeded in
doing so in Britain. HTB is clearly playing ball. In its quest for
state legitimacy, the guiding hand of the establishment is firmly on
it. Indeed even if this is not directly the case, HTB has done itself
no favours in terms of its image with other radical organisations and
the deeply suspicious and conspiratorial Muslim world at large. The
crude manifestation of this image and HTB’s ideological departure was
evident in the recent debate organised by the exclusive and
establishment influenced Oxford Union, where despite protestations,
interestingly but not surprisingly Jamal Harwood was given a
platform. A transcript of the speech was pasted on HTB’s website. In
a debate entitled ‘This House Regrets the Founding of the United
States of America', Harwood broke the mould and lay praise on the
political thinkers of the US as well as its statesmen. But, the most
fundamental shift occurred when Harwood avoided addressing the
secular doctrine and instead focussed on the more specific idea of
“individualism”. Again like the meeting in Westminster, the
invitation to Islam was notably absent. In a speech indicative of an
address by Iran’s reformist former President Khatami to the United
States; Harwood endorsed the concept of self-determination and
explicitly moved away from the established position of Islam’s
universality towards an implicit notion of co-existence. Was this an
implied recognition of democracy by the openly pronounced “Chairman”
of the executive committee of HTB?

“This debate is not about choosing between Caliphate and California
as claimed by Matt Frei (opposite) the choice is about the right of
peoples to choose their own way of life without US interference or
continued US oppression. You have an opportunity today to give a
resounding message against what the US has become… It is a sad irony
that despite the ideals promoted by the founding fathers, America has
proceeded in the world emulating the approach of European
colonialism.” (hizb.org.uk)

There is no doubt a duality in HTB’s persona. Its appearance on the
Sharia, Caliphate and Western adventurism in the Islamic world is
indeed couched in radical language. But as I have demonstrated above,
there has also emerged a very subtle dynamic which has aimed to
neutralise the radicalism. It would be folly to argue that HTB’s
approach in the UK was not sanctioned by its central leadership. The
unorthodox direction of the British branch is consistent with some
its leaderships own diversions. On the 1st of January 2004, the HT
central leadership addressed an open letter to the French government.
Such an address to a Western government was unprecedented in HT’s
history. Citing the issue of the French proposal to ban the wearing
of the hijab and other religious symbols in schools, the plea to
overturn the decision was based on two stated points:

“Firstly: 480 years ago in the sixteenth century, we, the Muslims,
undertook an act of goodwill towards France. Secondly: Historically,
France has a tradition of chivalry and reciprocating acts of
goodwill.” (An Open letter from Hizb ut-Tahrir to President Chirac,
President of the Republic of France)

HT’s central leadership without precedent acted in the capacity of a
Caliphate and overlooked the explicit state-of-war as outlined in its
own draft constitution based on France’s exploits in the Islamic world
post sixteenth century. The delegation sent to deliver the letter to
the French President was from HTB. It was this same delegation
comprising the standard Imran Waheed and Jamal Harwood that were
utilised to approach other Western institutions and NGO’s in order to
seek a change in their policy over the brutality of the Central Asian
governments towards their members. The conventional conceptual and
political assessment of HT is to view Western NGO’s with suspicion
considering them extensions of the policy of Western governments and
by default agents not to be trusted. As for official government
forums especially Western forums such as the OSCE, EU etc, are by
their very nature considered hostile towards Islam and the Muslims.
It would accordingly be betrayal to the cause to approach these
Western organisations for any kind of assistance or exposure. Yet
such a position was indeed adopted by its central leadership in its
various leaflets addressing Western and other humanitarian
organisations working in Central Asia and specifically in Uzbekistan
where the government has brutally tortured and intimidated HT
members. This pragmatism had broken rank with its history in the
Middle East where HT consistently refused to call upon any NGO or
Western influenced intervention despite the most ferocious onslaughts
on its members by local regimes. Using the example of its central
leadership, on November, 2006, a delegation from HTB, having been
denied a hearing by the OSCE on Central Asia, finally got to meet
Bertrand de Crombrugghe, the Chairman of the OSCE Permanent Council
and Head of the permanent delegation of Belgium to the OSCE, in
Vienna. HT was explicitly regarded by the members of the OSCE as a
threat to its security in Central Asia and it was no stranger to the
reports by various NGOs’ over the treatment of HT members. The fact
that the OSCE had not acted despite its understanding of the
situation did not deter the HTB delegation. The delegation was
clearly looking for support and assistance from its declared enemies.
According to its own press release on the meeting;

"The delegation updated the Ambassador on the deteriorating
situation in Central Asia, where peaceful political dissent has
become a justification for torture, arbitrary detention and even
extrajudicial killing. The Ambassador was reminded that previous OSCE
meetings have heard how thousands of members of Hizb ut-Tahrir have
been incarcerated in Central Asia for political dissent…The death of
several Hizb ut-Tahrir members in custody in suspicious circumstances
have also been widely commented on at OSCE meetings." (hizb.org.uk)

From these examples it can be ascertained to a certain extent that
the notion implied by some that HTB is an aberration from its central
leadership is not strictly true. The departure from conventional
positions runs through the chain. Having refused consistently to
challenge its proscription in the Middle East through the system and
the courts which it describes as un-Islamic and hence illegitimate,
HTB has again broken the mould in the UK, with the explicit
acquiescence of its central leadership. In an interview with the
Jamestown Foundation, HTB member Taji Mustafa avoided answering the
question as to the possible extinction of its organisational
structure as a result of its possible proscription. Instead, he
confirmed HTB’s commitment to fight such a move through the UK
courts:

“We will fight proscription through the courts and people should not
forget that we have a very strong case.” (Jamestown Foundation, Feb
13th 2007)

Although HTB has never given an open and clear Islamic justification
as to why it has been allowed to approach the UK court system in
order to fight its proscription, there is a clear departure from its
political understanding on the matter which regards the judiciary as
an inseparable arm of the executive in those cases which are
politically sensitive and involve national security. Thus, according
to its own political paradigm, any recourse by HTB to the courts
would entangle it in a political not judicial process or outcome.

From the above examples, there is an argument to suggest that the
consistent departure by HTB from its conventional principles forms
the backbone of disagreement between the various British institutions
regarding its proscription. For if there is benefit in HTB to the UK
government, proscribing it would ultimately lead to its extinction
for it thrives solely on the freedom of activity to keep its
membership functional. Despite its own internal memos highlighting
the futility of demonstrations, members’ anger and frustration has
been channelled away from the lack of purpose and reason for its
continued existence in the Western world towards its own failure in
the Islamic world.

This of course bodes well for the UK intelligence services. HT’s
stated pride in not having been infiltrated by Western intelligence
would no doubt have been severely tested on British soil. Indeed the
evidence seems to point exactly in that direction. Abu Qatada,
Mohammed Aswat and Hassan Butt have demonstrated the benefits to the
British intelligence services of having home advantage. In this
regard HT’s liason with OBM seems to have been a critical one. Many
analysts have questioned the relationship between UK intelligence
and OBM, particularly because of the impunity with which he operated
in the UK and secondly the convenient manner in which he left the UK
for Lebanon whilst maintaining his contact and influence with
Al-Muhajiroun fronts such as Al-Ghuraba. OBM’s startling disclosure
in an interview to the Jamestown Foundation that he had established
al-Muhajiroun as a shadowy parallel structure in Saudi Arabia in 1993
without the knowledge of the HT leadership is the strongest pointer
that he may have been himself implanted by British intelligence
(www.jamestown.org, March 23rd 2004). The reason for this is the
discrepancy in OBM’s story highlighted by the concealment of Al
Muhajiroun’s set up even to HT members and foremostly the revelations
of former US Justice Department prosecutor John Loftus who stated in a
live interview with Fox News that along with Mohammed Aswat and Abu
Hamza, Omar Bakri had been recruited by MI6 in the mid 90’s (around
the time of him taking HT leadership in the UK) to draft up British
Muslim’s to fight in Kosova. However it was John Loftus’s off-camera
remarks in the same interview which present the gravest doubt on
OBM’s story that Al-Muhajiroun had been established in Saudi Arabia;

“We arrested the New York branch of Al-Muhajiroun two years ago…The
rest of the group is under surveillance. But the US was used by
Al-Muhajiroun for training of people to send to Kosova. What ties all
these cells together was, back in the late 1990’s, the leaders all
worked for British intelligence in Kosova. Believe it or not, British
intelligence actually hired some Al-Qaeda guys to help defend the
Muslim rights in Albania and in Kosova. That’s when Al-Muhajiroun got
started..The CIA was funding the operation to defend the Muslims.
British intelligence was doing the hiring and recruiting. Now we have
a lot of detail on this because Captain Hook, the head of
Al-Muhajiroun, he sidekick was Bakri Mohammed, another cleric. And
back on October 16, 2001, he gave a detailed interview with al-Sharq
al-Aswat, an Arabic newspaper in London, describing the relationship
between British intelligence and the operations in Kosovo and
Al-Muhajiroun. So that's how we get all these guys connected. It
started in Kosovo..” (Fox News, July 27th, 2005)

What seems to transpire is that OBM’s abdication seems to fit in with
John Loftus’s key revelations that the British intelligence had been
protecting their assets such as Mohammed Aswat and Abu Hamza from
domestic and especially US law enforcement authorities. Nafeez Ahmed,
Sussex University academic and researcher on the role of British
intelligence in the War on Terror argues that despite the evidence of
various terrorist plotters links with OBM, the official reluctance to
act against Bakri and his active associates in the UK does not match
the governments willingness to act pre-emptively to foil various
terrorist plans. Instead:

“The MI6 connection raises questions about Bakri’s relationship with
British authorities today. Exiled to Lebanon and outside British
jurisdiction, he is effectively immune to prosecution” (Raw Story,
18th Sept 2006)

OBM’s influence and even leadership over people such as Abu Hamza and
Saudi dissident Mohammed al-Masaari gives an indication as to his
importance amongst the followers of jihadism and thus his potential
as an intelligence asset. More importantly, OBM’s interview with
Jamestown clearly suggests that he had high level access throughout
HT’s global chain. His six year reign as HT leader in Britain, would
have provided British intelligence ample opportunity to have deeply
and widely penetrated the organisation. Whether and to what extent
HT’s central leadership has been affected or infiltrated from the UK
is a difficult question in point and one which at this point is
unanswerable. Although, success in the currently engaged local HTB
set up is a foregone conclusion. But, HT is not Muhajiroun. It is not
a jihadist outfit and shuns violent action and terrorism. Yet, as has
been shown in the case of the jihadists and Muhajiroun, there have
been and remain potential policy uses for Islamist movements by
Western intelligence. Moreover, there is a lot of suspicion from
governments in the Islamic world that Britain is recruiting from HT
as well as Muhajiroun and using its members to further its policy
interests in places like Pakistan and Bangladesh. Hassan Butt’s work
in assisting the establishment of Al- Muhajiroun in Pakistan is a
case in point.

For this reason, HT’s non-proscription in the UK is more than just a
homeland issue. Despite its own irrelevance in the UK, HTB forms an
integral part of the wider foreign policy picture for the UK. In
spite of Ed Husain's very superficial attempt to address HT
ideology, it remains the only Islamic organisation to have detailed a
complete programme and constitution for the running of an Islamic
state and society. The notion of the Caliphate has indeed permeated
the vocabulary of most of the Islamic movements in turn becoming
widespread throughout the Islamic world. A fact that even HT’s most
ardent critic, Zeyno Baran had to admit:

“HT's greatest achievement to date is that it has shifted the terms
of debate within the Muslim world. Until a few years ago, most
Islamist groups considered the notion of establishing a new caliphate
a utopian goal. Now, an increasing number of people consider it a
serious objective. And after decades of stressing the existence and
unity of a global Islamic community (umma), HT can take pride in the
growing feeling among Muslims that their primary identity stems from,
and their primary loyalty is owed to, their religion rather than their
race, ethnicity, or nationality.”(Baran, Foreign Affairs, 2005)

This point has become more acute with the RAND report highlighting
the failure of the West over the war of ideas in the Arab world. No
doubt, Western adventurism in Iraq has dealt a severe blow to the
democratic project. In consequence, the appeal of Islam is fast on
the ascendancy. HT remains the only group capable of filling that
vacuum. Here lies the likely importance of HT in Britain’s global
calculation. The revival of a failed Cold War model by the West to
create a puppet Communist China through Hang-Kai Chek cannot be
discounted. The gaming of a potential Sunni Caliphate with a Shia
Iran has been an established scenario in contemporary security
discourse. The acute focus in the speeches of US and UK political
leaderships on the ‘Caliphate’ bears testimony to the increased
recognition of the term in radical Islamist literature since 9/11.
There is a sense of déjavous here. Having been condemned to the
dustbin of history for the past eighty years, the Caliphate as an
issue has been remarkable in its political comeback. It was the
British foreign secretary, Lord Curzon who stated in 1924;

"the point at issue is that Turkey has been destroyed and shall
never rise again, because we have destroyed her spiritual power: the
Caliphate and Islam.”

And it was British Home Minister, Charles Clarke who declared in
2005;

“…there can be no negotiation about the re-creation of the Caliphate;
there can be no negotiation about the imposition of Sharia (Islamic)
law...”

Yet despite this ideological resistance, the Western alliance or even
its individual members would have gamed for the ultimate series of
events to occur in the Islamic world i.e. the collapse of unpopular
regimes and the declaration of a trans-national Caliphate. Britain in
contrast to the US stands with the experience of history on its side
having precipitated the Arab revolt and other insurgencies in order
to bring down the Ottoman Caliphate; the Eastern Question and
Sykes-Picot are the lasting legacies of this policy. Ironically,
there is also precedent in British policy for the idea of
pre-emption. In 1915, fearing the backlash of sentiment in planning
the post Ottoman period, Britain toyed with the idea of a pliant Arab
Caliphate as a replacement for the inevitable collapse of the Ottoman
version. According to the McMahon-Hussein correspondence, a series of
ten letters between the British High Commissioner of Egypt and its
Arabist client Hussein Ibn Ali of Mecca, Britain was promised support
for an Arab revolt in return for leadership of an Islamic Arab
Caliphate. Bearing the Cold War model in mind, such planning is not
altogether in the realm of impossibility. More succinctly, HT would
have to form the central pivot in such an audacious move, as HT is
without contest renowned as the forerunner of the Caliphate. However,
a cursory understanding of the contemporary frustration and anger in
the Islamic world, as well as the religious connotation of a
Caliphate would no doubt have the potential to take on a momentum of
its own such as what happened in China in 1949 when the pro-American
elements of the Communist Party in China were executed and Hang Kai
Chek was chased out making way for a powerful and independent
Communist leadership under Chairman Mao tse Tung. Could such a
pre-emptive plan to establish a paper Islamic Caliphate be on the
British cards? Interestingly there has been quite considerable
activity at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on such
an issue. Only recently the FCO organised a closed door meeting
inviting experts on HT and radical Islam to discuss the topic “The
Future of the Caliphate”. One can only speculate that such events are
not organised in a conceptual or policy vacuum.

Under such a paradigm, HTB would be an enormous asset to British
foreign policy if effective infiltration, ideological degradation and
engagement were achieved. Even in the event of an independent
Caliphate being established, access on home soil to one of the main
movements which would either support or even form the leadership of
such an entity would no doubt be an asset. Such a position is also
recognised by its own membership. According an account by Ed Husain:

“We were also concerned about Omar’s (Omar Bakri Mohammed)
application for political asylum. I worried that the Hizb’s high
profile in Britain might jeopardise the chances of him staying in
Britain. I raised this with Bernie (member) too. ‘Oh no’, he said,
‘On the contrary’. ‘The British are like snakes; they manoeuvre
carefully. They need Omar in Britain. More likely, Omar will be the
ambassador for the khilafah here or leave to reside in the Islamic
state. The kuffar know that – allowing Omar to stay in Britain will
give them a good start, a diplomatic advantage, when they have to
deal with the Islamic state. Having Omar serves them well for the
future. MI5 knows exactly what were doing, what were about, and yet
they have in effect, given us the green light to operate in Britain.”
(Ed Husain, The Islamist, p116)

Paradoxically, since Omar Bakri Mohammed’s (OBM) departure from HTB,
he has been viewed with increasing suspicion by HT members
themselves. The burning question remains as to whether OBM was an MI5
plant. The use by British intelligence of OBM’s al-Muhajiroun
organisation to assist policy in the Balkan’s conflict has already
been highlighted above and by former British cabinet Minister Michael
Meacher who wrote:

“During an interview on Fox TV this summer, the former US federal
prosecutor John Loftus reported that the British intelligence had
used the al-Muhajiroun group...to recruit Islamist militants with
British passports for the war against the Serbs in Kosovo…The now
disbanded al-Muhajiroun group held meetings in Manchester after 9/11
praising the courage of the suicide bombers and claimed to be helping
UK Muslims to fight US troops in Afghanistan.” (The Asian News,
October 2005)

Based on some of the evidence presented, it would be very naïve to
suggest that OBM himself was not aware of Muhajiroun’s use by the
intelligence services. OBM’s consistent transformation from political
ideologue to jihadism would no doubt have raised further questions in
the minds of HT members and others including the manner of his
departure to Lebanon and most suspiciously his recent secret entry
and detainment in the UK. If in fact OBM was an intelligence plant
inside HT, then the manner in which he departed from HTB (which
according to HT spokesman Taji Mustafa was expulsion but according to
OBM was voluntary), would indicate firstly a heavy environment of
suspicion under which his situation had become untenable, secondly,
the priority of disclosing al-Muhajiroun in order to concentrate on
jihad in the Balkan’s and/or thirdly, an internal disenchantment or
struggle with the ideological exodus under OBM’s leadership. The
green light in Britain for HTB to organise a conference on the
Caliphate at Wembley stadium in 1994, despite many objections from
governments in the Islamic world, raised many eyebrows even amongst
its own members. It was at this time that suspicions started to flow
as regards Britain’s intentions, HTB and OBM. Interestingly, even if
one takes the argument that Britain was only interested in thwarting
any future Caliphate, it is difficult to understand why HT’s central
leadership would have allowed such a conference on British soil. This
is because HT has proclaimed quite categorically its understanding of
Britain’s historical role in infiltrating and thwarting key events
aimed at mobilising support for the revival of the Caliphate. In its
book ‘The Islamic State’, under a chapter entitled ‘Preventing the
Reestablishment of the Islamic State’ HT asserts:

“…many steps were taken by the enemy, especially Britain, in order to
quell any moves-whether directly or indirectly – aimed at reviving the
Islamic state…al Hussein bin Ali was expelled from Hijaz and
imprisoned in Cyprus as he had an eye on the Khilafah…the British
through their collaborators, intervened to make sure that the
Khilafah conference held in Cairo was called off and doomed to
failure; and again in that same year, the British worked hard to
dissolve the Khilafah associations established in India, making sure
that the movements ambitions were aborted and its tendency was
transformed into a nationalist and sectarian one”. (Nabhani, Islamic
State, p216)

Despite this, the holding the Khilafah conference in the UK in 1994
was seen by HTB as a positive experience, especially its media
representation throughout the Islamic world. However, the perceived
effect of such conferences by HTB in developing, aiding and building
a sound support base in the Islamic world is open to question. The
evidence for this is that the high level of activity and media
exposure in Britain has not been directly proportional to its
influence in the key areas such as the Middle East. Rather, HT’s
influence has waned considerably in those regions seen as crucial to
its work. HT’s central leadership has looked to overcome its failure
to build the popular base by relying on high profile media events
which exaggerate its influence. The recognition of this failure and
the concentration on seeking power without societal support base is
aptly highlighted by a letter addressed to members by the former
leader of HT globally, Abdul Qadeem Zaloom:

“…But the Ummah was overwhelmed by despondence and despair. She has
lost hope in everything and lost confidence in everyone after they
had deliberately placed her in certain conditions in order to make
her reach saturation point so that she would lose her hope and attain
a state of despair and submission, thus she would be easy to control
and they could pass anything upon her, without her being able to lift
a finger once her sensation became slothful and once she lost all hope
and vigour. All of this affected the Shabab(member), for they on
the-one hand look forward to the rise of the Khilafah, and their wait
has become long, thus they started to think that seeking the Nussrah
(material support) by the Party would spare them the burden of having
to perform the other actions. On the other hand, they looked to the
level that the Ummah had reached in terms of stagnation, indifference
and despondence which have almost reached the point of despair,
submission and loss of confidence and hope in everyone, and no matter
how hard they attempt to move her, she would not respond nor react…”
(HT internal document, undated)

Hence, despite its clearly stated shortcomings, HT continues to
openly call for the armed forces in the Islamic world to overturn the
regimes, sustaining a façade of readiness to its membership in order
to maintain their confidence, loyalty and support. It is worth noting
that according to HT methodology “seeking the support” forms part of
what is termed the ‘interaction stage’ with society. In the
literature of HT, seizing power is not a separate stage but a natural
conclusion of popular uprising. The concept of a military coup was
conceptualised by Nabhani as a style of support not a necessary
outcome.(Nabhani, Party Structuring) However, one would be hard
pushed to conclude this from the consistent exhortations addressing
the armed forces which can be gauged by the following example;

“In your capacity as the effective force Islam obliges you to remove
the existing rulers who govern according to the systems of
unbelief…and to place us in power so we can establish the
Caliphate…You possess the physical force which enables you to compel
these rulers to do what Islam obliges.” (leaflet, Ma’dhira ila
rabbina, Farouki, p104)

It is in this context that HTB is set up as a pivotal cog in this
media manipulation. The example of Pakistan is a case in point where
even before HT had announced itself in Pakistan, HTB had already
moved its media circus and conducted a large conference entitled
“Khilafah for Pakistan” aimed at supporting the virtually
non-existent influence in that country and primarily calling for the
armed forces to overthrow the military regime. In this regard HTB has
become a beacon for other branches throughout the world. The local
office in Indonesia has just announced the largest ever International
Khilafah Conference in August 2007 to be held at the 100,000 capacity
HGelora Bung Karno Stadium. In no manner does this reflect the
relatively small influence of HT in the Islamic world’s most populous
country. Not surprisingly Imran Waheed from the UK is listed as one of
the key speakers, demonstrating the importance of the UK branch in
terms of the conference projection. Without question, the holding of
conferences by HT and their global media manipulation has become not
only a substitute for developing a deep support base in society but a
means to veil its shortcomings. In doing so HT has deviated sharply
from the words of its own founder who warned that;

“…some colossal tasks have to be achieved before the existence of the
State…desire and optimism would not therefore be sufficient for the
State to rise, nor would hope and enthusiasm…every error in the
analogy and every deviation from the path would result in a stumble
and introduce sterility into the work. It therefore follows that
‘holding conferences’ on the issue of the Khilafah would not in
itself lead to the establishment of the Islamic state…” (Nabhani,
Islamic State, p238)

Two further issues arise from this proposed event. Firstly, the
question of its allowance by the Indonesian government as it
represents on paper a potential threat to its own constitution and
state. Secondly, the position of US and Australia being key allies
and neighbours, having defined HT as a vital threat to their
interests as well as openly expressing concern over the increasing
radicalisation of Indonesian society. If no real action is taken by
the Indonesian government or pressure exerted by its Western allies,
then one can credibly assume that a green light has been authorised
for HT. In this case the game may be the same as that of Britain.
Discussions with HT members’ have revealed suspicions about US plans
to establish a pliant Caliphate in Central Asia, the objective being
in their analysis, to cause enormous problems for Russia and even
China in order to severely restrict their struggle with the US in
international politics. It is unclear what they consider Britain’s
position on this issue. Yet it cannot go unnoticed that HT in Britain
is at the forefront of marketing globally the success of HT in Central
Asia even though it does not target the region for the seizure of
power. The idea being to capitalise on the enormous success of HT in
the region for which Britain’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig
Murray has been openly co-opted due his perceived sincerity ensuing
from his removal for criticising British policy. It is also notable
that the media onslaught by HT on Central Asian governments has been
unhindered by the UK government despite causing strains in their
foreign relationships with the region and to the frustration of
prominent US think tanks whose lobbyists such as Ariel Cohen and
Zeyno Baran have labelled HT as the greatest threat to US interests
in the region. HT members also maintain however that there is
evidence to suggest the US may have backed away from such a move
because of the possibility of uncontrollable consequences engulfing
regions adjoining Central Asia such as the Middle East, Gulf and
South Asia where Islamic radicalism has strong influence. It could be
argued from this analysis that such concerns are minimised in the case
of Indonesia due to its geographical proximity and weaker affiliation
to radical Islam as identified by the RAND report, despite being the
most populous Muslim country in the world. Given that the RAND report
also argues for a return to Cold War strategy, the above example of
the failed attempt by the US to develop a compliant China as a
Communist counterweight against the Soviet Union post 1945 is a
reminder that we may not be talking here merely in the realms of
political speculation.

So what are the prospects of the UK government finding openings for
engagement inside HTB? On the basis of the evidence so far, HTB’s
move from ideological to pragmatic politics has indeed provided such
an opportunity. Conventionally, the existence of a deep understanding
of its core idea base amongst its members has been relied upon to form
a self corrective in the event of conceptual departure. This process
has however malfunctioned and even broken down, especially in the
case of HT in Britain. A major reason for this is a consequence of Ed
Husain’s narrative which demonstrates a radical degradation of the
thought base of the HTB membership. The lowering of the bar for
membership coupled with the excessive reliance on filling bodies for
continuous activity rather than ideational leadership has punctured
this mechanism. As highlighted above, the gradual but radical
deviations lead by its senior members such as Imran Waheed and Jamal
Harwood continues unchallenged. Ironically, HT member Taji Mustafa
indicated above, that a challenge to OBM from the old guard and
traditional ideologues seems to have been instrumental in his
departure. However, the weakening of the ideological base under the
current leadership seems to have penetrated deeply and widely. As a
result any challenge to the pragmatic direction of the HTB leadership
is unlikely to receive any measure of internal support. Instead
resignations from frustrated and despondent ideologues is likely to
increase. Under the current state of affairs there is a high
likelihood of pragmatists replacing ideologues and dominating the key
positions within the HTB structure. As long as the foot soldiers are
kept busy with a high level of activity, the HTB leadership is
unlikely to meet any serious challenge or redress.

In fact this state of affairs is somewhat confirmed by Ed Hussein
himself as it transpires that he has come across some interesting
information having become a darling of the UK intelligence. It was no
wonder that Zia din Sardar in his review of The Islamist stated that
it seems to have “originated from the mandarins in the Home Office”.
In November 2006, on the DeenPort forum, Husain wrote,

"Even within HT in Britain today, there is a huge division between
modernisers and more radical elements. The secret services are
hopeful that the modernisers can tame the radicals. And hence the
suspension of any ban. I foresee another split. And God knows best. I
have said more than I should on this subject! Henceforth, my lips are
sealed!"

This major division confirms what I have detailed above, what Hussein
is targeting and upon which the security services are hoping and
working for a split in the organisation. In a more recent thread,
Husain writes of HT,

"Allah is opening a window of opportunity for their
hidayah(salvation). There is a major development within HT that will
lead many of the more thoughtful activists to reconsider their
worldview and relationship with mainstream Islam and Muslims. Once
news breaks within party ranks of what is happening within their
leadership, some of the HT people will be receptive toward
traditional Islam and may well leave their brand of radical
Islamism."

Then on the same thread on 2nd May 2007, Husain writes, "Maajid
Nawaz has left HT. And there are several others inside waiting to
escape, but waiting for the right moment and reason. Don't ask me
how I know. Until last weekend, Majid was a member of the Hizb's
National Executive Committee in Britain. Some of you may remember him
from the media coverage of his imprisonment and release from his
four-year prison sentence in Egypt. Huge reverberations within HT as
to why and who is else is next etc. Ideal moment to engage with HT
people, particularly those on the Jalaludding Patel wing of the
group."

Continuing with the theme of trying to foment divisions within HT,
with respect to Majid Nawaz, Husain has claimed that Nawaz is linked
to him and that Husain influenced Nawaz's decision to leave HT. In
an interview with altmuslim.com, Husain says, "In this, I'm backed
by Majid Nawaz who, recently left HT partly as a result of
conversations we had about these issues, and more importantly, his
exposure to traditional Islam in all its diversity. Soon, Majid will
speak publicly and I ask HT members and others to listen and learn
from Majid's wisdom, knowledge, and experience. Now the good news is
that HT has proven in Britain that it can change and when pressure is
applied it has changed. And I'm hopeful that this pressure that's
on them now - exposing those core fascist values - that exposure will
cause them to change those ideas and come on board the mainstream
Muslim caravan."

In an interview with Husain by the New York Times, Husain said that
Nawaz would soon go "public with the reasons for his departure, and
explanation he hopes that will cause a stir like his own."

What this demonstrates is that despite the shortcomings of his book,
Husain has been successful in updating his information base by
penetrating HTB through his link with Nawaz and in turn becoming a
useful weapon in the hands of the UK intelligence services. However,
at the time of writing the reasons for Nawaz’s departure are not
known. Moreover, it remains to be seen what will be the effect of
Hussein's quite candid disclosures and whether there will be a
change in his public posture which aims to maintain the pressure for
proscription.

In conclusion, Ed Husein’s assessment of HT in Britain as an
extremist outfit that needs to be proscribed does not match with the
contemporary reality, a point Husein seems to be familiar with in
private and most likely advocated by him as part of the pressure to
help the “moderates“ take charge within HTB. The timing, tone,
content and publicity of his book seems to be part of this broader
game. Thus there is no real value in his book related to
understanding the ideology and politics of HT as a global movement,
precisely because he had the understanding or the access to produce
such an evaluation. Rather it is a political move most likely
engineered by the Home Office. Whatever the truth, the reality is
that the tactics seem to be working on HTB. The current HTB
leadership starting from Jalal ud Din Patel has moved literally,
intellectual mountains in order to avoid the threat of proscription.
The reason for this is because its proscription in the UK would
effectively dismantle its policy of using the international media
position of the UK for the purposes of maintaining a façade of global
influence. Ironically, it is worth noting that since Omar Bakri
Mohammed, HTB has come full circle, for according to HT members, Omar
Bakri’s departure from HTB was a result of his refusal to accept the
curtailing of media activity in the UK ensuing from his apparent
sensitive disclosures to the Arabic magazine Al- Majallah in 1995.
Although there was a clear recognition of harm from such a policy, no
explanation seems to have been given by the current leadership even to
its own members for this reversal, although it is quite evident that
HTB’s survivalist response in order to maintain this position in the
UK has once again become its own vulnerability. As such, there exists
a demonstrably sharp contrast between the deviations of the HTB
leadership and the confused but loyal foot soldiers that have been
kept busy in securing an ill defined and tangential post-Caliphate
scenario through the mobilisation of British Muslims. In this sense
the UK government’s double edged sword of applying a mere ‘threat’ of
proscription has worked quite effectively in gradually manoeuvring HTB
into compromising situations whilst allowing its media circus to
artificially inflate its influence.

HT’s existence on British soil along with its open door policy has
given British intelligence unprecedented access and the potential to
influence one of the most secretive, impenetrable and globally potent
organisations in the world. In this sense HT’s presence in Britain is
more of a threat to its own existence than to the security of the
British state. Besides, HTB has demonstrated its usefulness for UK
internal and external policy. It has already been suggested by senior
police officers that HTB provides a stabilising effect in some areas.
Moreover, unlike the ineffectual moderates, it not only speaks the
same language as that of the identified extremists but at a higher
and hence neutralising level. No doubt HTB has been successful in
the radicalisation of a generation of Muslim’s in Britain. However,
unlike renegade jihadists, they are peaceful and form no threat to
the internal security of the state. Similarly, HTB’s attempts to
affect British foreign policy through the use of open activity and
the media has been largely cosmetic. Instead, the British government
has benefited from HTB’s Muslim medium which on occasion converged
with its own goals in highlighting problem areas such as in Central
Asia and Africa etc.

Perhaps most controversially, as argued above, in the event of a
pre-emptive plan in the Islamic world, HT would be central to British
calculations and access to it from home soil via HTB essential. The
good cop bad cop policy toward HTB by the British establishment has
been very effective in regulating the direction of its leadership.
HTB and its various fronts such as ‘New Civilisation’ have already
enjoyed the hospitality of political Quangos such as the Institute of
Strategic Studies (IISS), Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and
other prominent platforms in the name of enlisting support from
Western intellectuals for an Islamic state, an endeavour rendered
fruitless in the absence of a belief in the Islamic doctrine and/or a
functioning state model, not only by its own ideational base but also
by that of other radical ideologues such as Sayid Qutb. Hence,
notwithstanding the UK government wilting to domestic, US and
European pressure to proscribe, HT’s British future seems secure. The
paradox is that it is in the UK’s interest to maintain the status quo
with HTB and build upon the window of engagement offered by Imran
Waheed and Jamal Harwood to Claire Short and other Parliamentarians
at Westminster. The question is whether it can be done without
splintering the movement by way of internal backlash, a result which
could see the disappearance of HTB from British soil.

Copyright © Noman Hanif 2007

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