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September 18, 2007

Islamism: Hizb ut-Tahrir: A Danger To The West? 1 of 4

This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared yesterday in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

Hizb ut-Tahrir: A Danger To The West?

Part One (of four)

Introduction

Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) is banned in virtually all Arab nations in the Middle East, such as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. It is banned in Tunisia and Libya, and also Turkey. It is regarded as such a threat that it is even banned in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which are already cauldrons of extremism. It is banned in all the former Soviet states in Central Asia, and since February 2003 it has been banned in Russia. It has been banned in Germany - on account of its anti-Semitism and its desire to use force for political ends - since March 2003, and it is also banned in the Netherlands. Yet in Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia, the group remains free to operate.

In Britain in August 2005, then-prime minister Tony Blair announced his intentions to ban the group. Hizb's reaction was to conjure up a veiled threat - a vision of angry young Muslims instigating riots across Britain should the group be proscribed. Blair's extremist advisers from the Muslim Council of Britain opposed the ban and said they would only accept it if the right-wing BNP party (British National Party) were also banned.

Blair quietly allowed the notion of banning the group disappear from his agenda. His unelected successor, Gordon Brown, was questioned in parliament on July 4, 2007, about the Labour Party's failure to ban the group in Britain. Brown prevaricated, saying that "more evidence" was needed. He then said: "We can ban it under the Prevention of Terrorism Act [2006], and, of course, of course - I think the leader of the opposition forgets I've been at this job for five days." Brown had been prime minister for seven days, but had been in the upper echelons of Blair's government for ten years.

In August 2005, after Blair brought up the issue of a British ban, Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock ordered an investigation into the group by the national intelligence service, ASIO. Wassim Doureihi, spokesman for the Sydney branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), agreed to cooperate with any ASIO investigation. Eventually, Ruddock decided against banning the group.

What has happened in Britain and Australia is that politicians and legislators have looked at the surface and not the substance of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and have decided that it is not a threat. The group has numerous front groups, which dissolve and rename themselves. It has numerous websites, where extremist documents appear, only to be removed when attention is drawn to them. In recent years, Hizb members have presented themselves publicly as articulate and even moderate. In Britain, where the group has a strong base, its spokespeople dress smartly in suits and ties. It produces a glossy journal, called New Civilization, which also appears online. Though this discusses the Caliphate, it downplays the group's support for revolution and violence.

Publicly, HT claims to be against terrorism and violence. In practice, HT has been increasingly involved with incidents of terrorism in the former Soviet nations. Lebanese members of the group have been implicated in failed bomb attacks upon two trains in Germany last year. HT openly seeks the destruction of democracies and the establishment of an Islamic super-state. It also publicly supports terrorism against Israel.

Behind its public proclamations, it has produced virulent anti-Semitic documents, such as the following from 1999, which was subsequently pulled from one of its websites: "In origin, no one likes the Jews except the Jews. Even they themselves rarely like each other. He (swt) said: 'You would think they were united, but their hearts are divided' [TMQ 59:14] The American people do not like the Jews nor do the Europeans, because the Jews by their very nature do not like anyone else. Rather they look at other people as wild animals which have to be tamed to serve them. So, how can we imagine it being possible for any Arab or Muslim to like the Jews whose character is such?"

The group maintains that it is non-violent, but on February 23, 1995, British members of Hizb ut-Tahrir brutally murdered Ayotunde Obanubi. This African student was attacked on the steps of his college in east London for "insulting Islam". Since 1995, the group has been banned from student campuses in the UK because of its violent campaigns of intimidation against women who do not wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf. Throughout the 1990s, members of HT made death threats to Peter Tatchell, a UK homosexual activist. When one British HT member called Shiraz Maher left the group, he endured a campaign of vilification, with his parents' home address published on internet chat rooms, and individuals impersonating him on blog sites, misrepresenting his opinions.

An 186-point draft "constitution" which appeared on a Hizb website claimed in its Article 7, clause c that "Those who are guilty of apostasy (murtadd) from Islam are to be executed according to the rule of apostasy, provided they have by themselves renounced Islam." This constitution similarly "disappeared" when it drew negative attention.

In Australia in January this year, the question of banning HT came up again. Morris Iemma, state premier of New South Wales, was concerned about the leader of Indonesian Hizb ut-Tahrir who had been allowed into the country. Mohammed Ismail Yusanto attended a HT conference in Canterbury Road, Lakemba, Sydney on January 28. At this meeting he had urged 500 HT followers to "Call for all military-aged Muslims to obtain military training and prepare for jihad. There is no victory and glory without hard work and sacrifice - no pain, no gain." A Palestinian HT leader, Issam Amera, told the Sydney conference: "If two people are united and a third person comes along and tries to incite disunity... kill him."

Originally, the conference was scheduled to be held at the Town Hall in Bankstown, a suburb of Sydney. Tanya Mihailuk, the mayor of Bankstown, had banned the group's use of the public building. She said: "The promotional material was shocking. It showed daggers with blood put through the state of Israel. It would have certainly breached our conditions of hire in that it would incite racial vilification and violence." In April 2006 HT members protested outside Bankstown Town Hall, voicing contempt for democracy, secularism, and Australia.

Ruddock claimed this January that Australia had no evidence that Hizb ut-Tahrir supported terrorism, but suggested that if Iemma wanted to ban HT at a state level, he could. Even prime minister John Howard argued that "If they break the present anti-terrorist laws or indeed any other laws then they will be dealt with, but until there is sufficient evidence of that made available to the attorney-general, we can't, or shouldn't, act."

In Indonesia, Ismail Yusanto has 100,000 followers in all 33 provinces, and campaigns for sharia law and abolishment of the country's secular-pluralist "Pancasila" constitution. Hizb ut-Tahrir is also involved in violent campaigns to close down churches within Indonesia. Despite this, Yusanto was invited as a guest speaker at an Australian federal conference on national security. This meeting was sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and was held in the capital, Canberra, in August 2004. Yusanto is said to be a frequent guest at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Hizb ut-Tahrir has been increasing its influence around the globe. Around the time of 9/11 it was known to have footholds in 40 countries. It is now estimated to be flourishing in 45 countries around the globe. HT, which does not recognize countries as such, calls these national branches "vilayas", or "provinces" - an allusion to the future global Caliphate. Even though HT despises democracy and elections within nations, it allows its vilayas to elect their leaders and executive committees.

There is one central leadership of global Hizb ut-Tahrir, called a Qiyada. The head of this central committee is called an "emir" and his tenure exists until his death. There have been three such emirs since the party was founded in 1953. Though the group has become more open about its structure and membership in recent years, sources for its funding remain a mystery.

The other parts of this article will examine the various Hizb ut-Tahrir "vilayas" and local groups, their methodology and activities, as well as their growing influence in the United States. Before this, any understanding of the group's motives needs to take into consideration the circumstances that led to its creation.

Origins

The founder of HT was Mohammed Tagiuddin al-Nabhani (1909 - 1977). He was born in a village near Haifa to a family with a history of Islamic scholarship. His family ancestors had a long history in this region. His maternal grandfather Yusuf an-Nabhani (1849 - 1932) was a poet and had served as an Islamic judge under the Ottoman Caliphate. Through the teachings of this man, and also his mother, Taqiuddin al-Nabhani became immersed in the intricacies of Islamic jurisprudence. By the age of 12, states HT, Taqiuddin was able to memorize the entire Koran.

On March 3, 1924, the Ottoman Caliphate was officially abolished by the National Assembly of the newly-formed state of Turkey, founded by the secularist Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. This event would have horrified Taqiuddin, his mother and grandfather. The re-establishment of a Caliphate - a universal Islamic super-state - would become one of his main goals. It would also become the main plank of HT's beliefs. The dissolution of the Ottoman Caliphate would also inspire Hassan al-Banna to found the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) in Egypt in 1928.

It is not surprising that two individuals who were to become Taqiuddin al-Nabhani's close associates and mentors would themselves become senior figures in the Muslim Brotherhood hierarchy. One of these, according to Michael. R. Fischbach in the Encyclopedia of the Palestinians, was Haj Amin al-Husseini (1895 - 1974). During the British Mandate, which lasted from 1918 to May 1948, Husseini had been chosen to represent the Palestinians. The British appointed him the "Mufti of Jerusalem" in 1921. Husseini organized deadly attacks against the Jews in the region, and also protests against the British. Husseini was sacked from his post in 1936, but after fleeing the Mandate territories in 1937, he went on to become a guest of Adolph Hitler in 1941. He also established the Handschar, a Muslim division of the Waffen SS in Bosnia. Husseini collaborated with the Nazi slaughter of Jews. Though prevented from returning to Jerusalem, Husseini was named a local leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1940s.

The other influential figure associated with the young Taqiuddin al-Nabhani was an immigrant from Syria called Izz ad-Din al-Qassam (1882 - 1935). Qassam had fought the French in 1921, and had been forced to flee from his native Syria to Haifa. From this time onward, Qassam was involved in al-Hussaini's demonstrations and attacks against Jews. In 1930 Qassam organized cells of jihadists to attack Jews and also the British and their interests. For this, he would be hunted down by the British and shot on November 19, 1935. By this time Qassam was a prominent figure in the emerging Muslim Brotherhood movement. His name survives in the name given by the terror group Hamas (founded by Muslim Brotherhood members) to their military wing - the Izzedine Al Qassam Brigades. Qassam's name was also given to the Qassam rocket. Taqiuddin al-Nabhani had been an associate of Qassam during his teens and also after he graduated from his studies.

Taqiuddin al-Nabhani's career as a practitioner of Islamic jurisprudence began after he had attended Al Azhar University and also the Dar al-Ulum (house of knowledge), both based in Cairo, Egypt. According to Fishbach, it was during his time studying in Egypt that al-Nabhani joined the Muslim Brotherhood. He was a teacher in Palestine from 1932 until 1938 but objected to Western based academic practices. He applied to the Palestine High Court which employed him in Bisan, Tiberias and then Haifa. He became a legal assessor until 1945, and at the time he founded his "party of liberation" he was an appeals court judge in the Sharia court in Jerusalem.

Al-Nabhani became involved in a plot master-minded by Colonel Abdullah al-Tall. Tall was a notorious anti-Semite. Al-Tall, author of The Dangers of World Jewry bemoaned the death of Husseini's associate Eichmann as a "Martyr". Colonel al-Tall was Jordan's military governor in Jerusalem and King Abdullah's negotiator with the Jews when the state of Israel was being formed and the Arab-Israeli conflict took place. Originally both Palestine and Transjordan had been ruled under British mandate but the UN establishment of Israel was exploited by Jordan's Hashemite king, Abdullah I. His kingdom had been formed on May 25, 1946, before Palestine was free from the UK mandate. From May 1948, King Abdullah's forces had occupied Jerusalem.

Israel signed an armistice with Jordan on April 3, 1949. Defying UN protocols, King Abdullah had wanted to annex Central Palestine (the West Bank). His government had passed a resolution to this effect on April 25, 1950. On July 20, 1951, King Abdullah was shot dead at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem as he arrived for Friday prayers. Colonel Abdullah al-Tall was one of six people found guilty of plotting the assassination, but he had fled to the sanctuary of Egypt. He was sentenced to death in absentia. Hizb ut-Tahrir admits al-Nabhani's involvement in the coup, but in its official biography gives no specific details.

Al-Nabhani published the first of his 19 books in January 1950. This was a work entitled "Saving Palestine". Al-Nabhani became distrustful of the Arab League (formed in 1945) after August 1950, when it had ignored a communication he had sent, urging the League to focus on uniting along religious lines. He seriously set himself the goal of establishing a political party. He founded Hizb ut-Tahrir with others between November 1952 and early 1953 at Jerusalem. The Jordanian government almost immediately declared the party illegal.

According to Michael. R. Fischbach, al-Nabhani's establishment of Hizb ut-Tahrir came at the same time as his official break from the Muslim Brotherhood. He had become disillusioned with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) because of its close links with the Jordanian establishment. Jordan has never sought to outlaw the MB, where it operates under the name Islamic Action Front. The MB had sent numerous fighters against Israel and had initially colluded with the "Free Officer's" coup in Egypt, which took place on July 23, 1952. This brought Nasser to power, but the Arabist dictator did not reward the MB with political influence, as he had promised. By the time Hizb ut-Tahrir was established, al-Nabhani was doubting the authenticity of the MB's interpretation of Islam.

Al-Nabhani formed Hizb ut-Tahrir with the intention of "liberating" Palestine and also liberating Jordan from the Hashemite dynasty, which had been put in place by the British. The ultimate goal of Hizb ut-Tahrir was to establish a pan-Islamist Caliphate in the Muslim world, leading eventually to a global Islamic rule.

Even though the MB has recently been courting the Shia of Hizbollah and Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood had traditionally been a Sunni institution. For al-Nabhani, his notion of a Caliphate would not be one riven along sectarian lines but would operate along the lines of the jurisprudence practiced by his grandfather under the Ottoman Caliphate. When Taqiuddin al-Nabhan had practiced Islamic law in the West Bank, the system which had applied under Ottoman rule was still being enforced.

In his book The Islamic State, written in 1953, al-Nabhani discussed the importance of ignoring national boundaries that separated Muslim countries. He argued, much as MB now follows the precepts laid out in "The Project" document, that Muslims in non-Muslim countries should erode those nations from within. He wrote that Muslims in non-Muslim lands "should work towards turning their land where Islam is not implemented, and which is [thus] considered as Dar al-Kufr, into Dar al-Islam... It is therefore the duty of every Muslim to work from this moment on in order to establish [a] greater Islamic State [that] would convey the message of Islam to the world. One's work should start by carrying the Islamic da'wah (invitation to become Muslim) with the aim of resuming the Islamic way of life in all the Muslim countries; concentrating one's practical scope in one country or some selected [others] in order to achieve the point of support so that this serious task can be resumed."

In the 1950s, Hizb ut-Tahrir spread through the Levant and in Saudi Arabia, and during the 1960s it spread to the nations of north Africa and Turkey, followed thereafter by other Muslim countries. Taqiuddin al-Nabhani was the first emir of HT. In 1955 he left Jordan, where he had been living, to travel to Damascus and Beirut. He was banned from returning, and lived in Syria and then Lebanon. He traveled to Iraq in 1973, and was imprisoned and tortured. Hizb ut-Tahrir claims that Nabhani had been wrongly identified as a "scribe" of HT, rather than its leader. He died in Beirut on December 20, 1977.

His successor as emir was Abd al-Qadim Zallum (Abdul Kaddim Zalloum) a Palestinian graduate of Al-Azhar University. When Zallum died, the Jordanian HT spokesman took his place. The new emir was installed on on April 13, 2003. His name is Ata Abu Rashta (full name Abu Yasin Ata ibn Khalil Abu Rashta), a scholar who was born in Hebron in 1943. Extremely little is known of this individual, including his current whereabouts. In February 1997 he was imprisoned for three years for treason, following an interview he had given to al-Hiwar newspaper in 1995. Rashta publishes texts which are distributed on HT's numerous websites, and tape recordings of his speeches are played at the start of meetings.

Adrian Morgan

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Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at September 18, 2007 1:31 PM

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