27th December 2009

Dear Mr Caryl,

Re: “Reality Check: The Party’s Not Over” Published on-line 22.12.2009

Your article was interesting and raises some pertinent questions though repeats many inaccuracies.

You rightly say that our organisation has grown in number strength and influence over 60 years, with a clear purpose, never deviating from its intellectual and political method. Our ideas have become more refined and detailed over the decades. Within the past 12 months alone, Hizb ut-Tahrir has presented papers, books, seminars and conferences on the Global Financial Crisis and Islam’s alternative economic model; Hizb ut-Tahrir in Denmark published a paper on the Copenhagen Summit on climate change – which was circulated at the conference (contrary to what was presented in your article, Hizb ut-Tahrir is not banned in Denmark, as a review in June 2008 concluded for the second time in four years there was no basis for a ban); Hizb ut-Tahrir in Indonesia held a conference of six thousand international Islamic scholars in Indonesia following their 2007 conference by Hizb ut-Tahrir in Indonesia that had over one hundred thousand attendees. These examples (and many others) render the comparisons people make with others misplaced.

Over the decades, the Muslim world has moved from a sceptical view of our goal (to revive Islam as its basis for political life and re-establish the Caliphate) to one which enjoys support levels in excess of 70% of the population according to some polls.

This increasing level of support for Islam’s political ideas – in particular the Caliphate – shows the real question that should be asked in the West. That is, how the West can understand and dialogue with this viewpoint?

It is a shame that your article did not voice this. Instead you rehearsed the counter arguments that look at how to counter the effect of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which lie between David Cameron’s Conservatives’ call for a ban and Douglas Murray’s CSC’s call for a more ‘McCarthyite’ response. However, both views go against the argument you cite that the “greatest way to counter religious extremism is to have religious freedom” – and so falls into the same trap as most ‘war on terror’ policies in that they destroy the very principles they pretend to uphold.

You asked the question, “Does Islamist party Hizb-ut-Tahrir pose a threat to Western society?”

There is no threat from Hizb ut-Tahrir to life or to limb. Western colonial governments know this very well. But the dilemma they face is the ‘threat’ to the political survival of the client regimes in the Muslim world that put western colonial and corporate interests over and above the interests of Islam and Muslims. If Hizb ut-Tahrir’s mission to win public opinion and the support of the powerbrokers in Muslim countries succeeds, these “authoritarian lackeys” will be swept aside in favour of a system which is Islamic, that is fully accountable and where the authority belongs to the people.

The other ‘threat’ they sense is that Hizb ut-Tahrir highlights the damaging effects of the secular capitalist way of life and exposes those colonial policies that are hostile to Islam and Muslims. This might well be damaging to the interests of governments, but I would argue this is like damaging an ego with a mirror that reflects an image that is sometimes ugly, but sadly real.

Our model offers the Muslim world much needed stability; whereas the policies of Britain, the United States and their allies are the cause and actively perpetuates the chaos and instability. The Sykes-Picot accord, the abolition of the Caliphate and usurpation of Palestine struck at the very heart and centre of the Muslim world. Consequently, things fell apart and ‘anarchy was loosed upon the world’ (to misquote Yeats) because the Muslim world no longer had its ‘centre’. It is this ‘centre’ that we seek to restore, as Islam obliges and that is the greatest priority; and this does indeed ‘threaten’ colonialism.

When Muslims strive for this goal, western governments and think tanks so easily label us as ‘extremists’ or falsely linked with ‘terrorism’. Yet, it is ironic that at one time George Washington was labelled by the authorities in Britain as a terrorist, because he fought to liberate Americans from despotic British colonial rule based on his conviction in your Declaration of Independence. And when it is recalled that an Englishman called Thomas Paine inspired the Founding Fathers, with his seditious pamphlet called ‘Common Sense’ in 1776, they do not now describe him as a ‘conveyor belt’ for producing terrorists, nor the resultant ideas that motivated them ‘extremist’!

Hizb ut-Tahrir is influenced by Islam alone; our weapons are nothing except ideas and words; our goal is liberation of the Muslim world from colonialism and the restoration of the Caliphate so that people can live in security and under justice; and we sincerely believe the support for this aim will grow ever stronger.

I hope that you might like to hear our views from us first hand. Certainly, from our side I would welcome a sincere dialogue and do hope that you feel able to reply to my letter.

Yours sincerely

Abdul Wahid
Chairman, UK Executive Committee
Hizb ut-Tahrir

 Mr. Wahid’s assertion that the majority of Muslims automatically concur with the goals of his party is an intriguing one. Yes, the poll he cites does indeed show majority support for the idea of restoring the Caliphate. Yet I wonder how many of the same respondents would agree with this if they were asked at the same time whether they would be willing to do so if it meant surrendering the national sovereignty of the countries in which they live today. I suspect that many of them would then decline the offer. The same poll cited by Mr. Wahid also shows that "67 percent of those surveyed agree that ‘a democratic political system’ is a good way to govern their country and 82 percent agree that in their country ‘people of any religion should be free to worship according to their own beliefs’" — both principles that would hardly apply under the terms of the global Islamic state that Mr. Wahid’s party has in mind. (His party consistently assails the notion of representative democracy, for example.)

In short, I don’t doubt that most Muslims around the world would like to see a greater role for Islamic values in many of their societies. Nor do I believe that most Muslims approve of armed intervention in their affairs by the countries of the West. But I certainly don’t think that any of this means that Hizb ut-Tahrir would automatically win all their votes in a free election, or that they have somehow chosen it to act as a mediator between them and existing governments around the world. And it means even less that democratic societies, in the West or elsewhere, should necessarily treat Mr. Wahid’s party as a legitimate interlocutor. A self-respecting democratic society must respect all religions; this does not mean that it should make life easy for religious ideologies that aim at its demise.

3rd January 2010

Dear Mr Caryl,

Re: “Muslims and the Caliphate” Published on-line 30.12.2009

It’s to your credit that you responded to some of the points raised in my letter but I feel your riposte only further illustrates my point that the Caliphate and Islam’s political system is poorly understood.

I attach my response below.

Yours sincerely

Abdul Wahid
Chairman, UK Executive Committee
Hizb ut-Tahrir

A Response to Christian Caryl, Foreign Policy Magazine

Christian Caryl’s response dated 30.12.2009 to my letter addressing his original article of 22.12.2009 only serves as further evidence of how poorly understood Islam’s political system is.

Firstly, Mr Caryl should not be confused by the apparent contradiction of majority support for the Caliphate as well as for a “democratic” political system. This is because most Muslims view the term “democracy” as a convenient term for the obligation of people selecting and accounting their government – something Islam prescribed a millennium or so before modern secular states adopted this. It should not be taken as some kind of endorsement of liberal democracy as practiced in Western Europe or North America as the Islamic system differs crucially from the democratic in that it takes the Shariah as its source of legislation. This is, of course, different to the democratic ideal, which states that government should be by the ‘people’ (I say the ideal because in truth the democratic system ends up as an oligarchy where only the rich and powerful actually influence legislation).

This is borne out by another poll conducted in Pakistan in 2008 which purported to illustrate both support for a much greater role for Islam in political life and for ‘democracy’. In this poll the ‘democracy’ question that was asked referred specifically to being “governed by representatives elected by the people".

The Islamic system is one in which the people elect their ruler and may remove their ruler if he violates his contract of ruling. Moreover, accountability by the people is not so much a right but a duty of the citizens. It can be by individuals, by political groups or parties, or through many other means – whether Mosque, Media, or legal challenge. In addition we propose to revive an Islamic institution, which is a branch of the Judiciary, whose sole role is to scrutinise the Executive and arbitrate on grievances raised by citizens against the Executive.

Additionally, in the Islamic state non-Muslim citizens are given space and respect to practice their own faith. So the statement in the Maryland poll that ‘people of any religion should be free to worship according to their own beliefs’ accords fully with the system Hizb ut-Tahrir proposes.

However, it is laughable to talk about free elections or national sovereignty when these things have not existed in the Muslim world since the demise of the Ottoman Caliphate. There is no ‘national sovereignty’ to lose! Huge numbers of troops directly occupy Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar etc. In Pakistan, the United States has been bombing targets within the country and American security networks have a free reign despite the wishes of the population.

Elections are largely fraudulent attempts to legitimise dictators like Mubarak and Karimov; or occur within a rigged framework where the candidates list is carefully approved, as in Iraq; or both as in the most recent farce in Afghanistan.
Hizb ut-Tahrir has never claimed that it is the only representative of the Muslim Ummah. But it is a matter of fact that we represent the overwhelming trend in the Muslim Ummah regarding the aspiration of a united Muslim World, liberation of occupied Muslim land, the implementation of Shariah and the establishment of Caliphate.

Yet, the problem is that not only is there no attempt to dialogue with anyone who carries these views, but that these aspirations have become the very definition of extremism! The only semblance of dialogue that is ever entertained is with those who agree to sign up to the parameters of secular liberal democracy. The time has now come for western governments to accept that other peoples want to live according to their own values and principles, and end their interference that has caused untold chaos and misery.

We are not ashamed to rock the boat when discussing these ideological conflicts. Mr Caryl might believe that our robust critique of liberal democracy disqualifies us for discussion but our criticisms are absolutely legitimate given that we have witnessed decades of failed attempts to impose this system on the Muslim world, whether by direct force or by colonial interference.

After all, to invert Mr Caryl’s final comment, self respecting Muslims should not make life easy for democratic governments who plot the demise of Islam’s social and political ideas and try to force another far from utopian model instead.