Respected Ulema, Imams, and those active in the Muslim community. As-salâm ‘alaykum wa rahmatuAllâhi wa barakâtuhu.

I pray my letter reaches you in the best of health and Iman.

I am writing to update you about some work we are engaged with – and to ask for your support, help and cooperation with this.

This summer, the young shabab of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain will be working on a campaign titled ‘If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything’.

Their efforts come at a time when we see young people in Britain increasingly involved in knife crime, drugs and alcohol. Turf wars between gangs are common, with gun crime becoming an increasingly common matter.

We would be blind not to see that what affects all youth in Western society, affects Muslim youth also.

We send our children to madrassahs to teach them to read and memorise the Qur’an al Kareem – which is a great achievement and not to be belittled, but have failed to give them a goal, ambition and purpose in life that comes from this great Qur’an.

As a result, young Muslims don’t stand for anything positive. Rather they are left to fall for any of the various alternative lifestyles that they come across. Some will focus on studies and career – and material success. Others will focus on gangs and dealing – which is a different type of material success, yet leads to harm. Both limit the horizons of young people to themselves.

When society has tried to deal with the most harmful of things through means of law enforcement, it has not reduced the problem – because such an approach neglects focusing on the ideas and values that drive such behaviour.

We believe that an entirely different approach can help focus the minds of young people to stand for the values of the Qur’an and the mission of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

• They should stand for Islam
• They should stand for the global struggle of the Ummah
• They should stand to expose the contradictions in occupation of the Muslim lands
• They should stand to show how Islam came to prevent the problems the West is riddled with
• They should stand with their Ummah and call for the Khilafah

I pray that you can meet with our local representatives to discuss how we can work together towards this end.

Wassalâmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatuAllâhi wa barakâtuhu.
Your brother,

Abdul Wahid
1-Dhul-Qa’adah-1439 / 14-July-2018

Dr Abdul Wahid is a regular contributor to New Civilisation. He is currently the Chairman of the UK-Executive Committee of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain. He has been published in The Times Higher Educational Supplement and on the websites of Foreign Affairs, Open Democracy and the Prospect Magazine.

@AbdulWahidHT