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September 21, 2007
Islamism: Hizb ut-Tahrir: A Danger To The West? 4 of 4
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
Hizb ut-Tahrir: A Danger To The West?
Part Four (of Four)
To Ban Or Not To Ban?
Omar Bakri Mohammed, who co-founded the British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir in 1986, gave a revealing interview to the Jamestown Foundation in March 2004. Bakri said he had been actively involved in the Muslim Brotherhood from age 15 to 17 in his native Syria, and then joined Hizb ut-Tahrir in Lebanon. His MB connections had drawn attention from the Syrian authorities, causing him to flee to Lebanon. In 1979 he went to Egypt for six months, before going to Saudi Arabia where he established a branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which by 1983 had 38 members. In 1983, HT in Kuwait expelled him from the group, but he continued to operate a group which called itself "Al Muhajiroun".
Bakri arrived in Britain and was approached by the German head of Hizb ut-Tahrir who persuaded him to rejoin HT. He co-founded a British branch of HT in 1986 but this was, he claimed, not part of the official structure of international HT. Bakri stated that he had left HT UK voluntarily on January 16, 1996. It would be a month later that he would form his own group, which he called Al Muhajiroun.
What is interesting from Bakri's interview is the claim that under the leadership of the second emir, Abd al-Qadim Zallum (or Abdul Kaddim Zalloum) who governed HT from the end of 1977 until spring of 2003, there were splits within the international group. Bakri spoke of "camps" which officially came into existence after 1996. Camp 2, led by Abu Rami, was prominent in Jordan. An offshoot of Camp 1 (the main HT faction) was known as Hizb Waed (the Party of Promise) but is only active in Jerusalem. This is Camp 3. Bakri explained that Camp 4 comprised reformists, called Reformers of Hizb ut-Tahrir. This grouping was led in Germany by Dr Tawfiq Mustafa, and in the United States by Iyad Hilal.
For a group that claims to propose establishing global hegemony under a world-wide Caliphate, such splits only highlight how unrealistic HT's aims are. If its own structure cannot unite, it sets a poor model for others to follow. It is unknown if the current emir, Ata Abu Rashta, has managed to fully unite these various factions within HT.
On Saturday, August 4, 2007, Hizb UK held a conference at Alexandra Palace in north London. A poorly-made video presentation (available on YouTube) which advertised the conference attempts to show the global unity of HT. Using snippets of video and pictures from websites, HT activists are shown from the following countries: Pakistan Bangladesh, Switzerland, Jordan, UAE, Palestine, Jordan, Yemen, Turkey, Belgium, Indonesia, Australia and America.
According to Abdul-Adil's resume, he specializes in "evidence-based, culturally-sensitive family therapy for urban youth, including conduct disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, gang involvement, and inner-city violence. Dr. Abdul-Adil is the co-founder of Young Warriors, a youth intervention program that uses modern rap music and hip-hop media to promote critical thinking and prosocial skills in urban adolescents. He remains involved in developing other innovative youth interventions such as using movie and television materials and faith-based collaborations with local religious institutions.".
Abdul-Adil also dispenses online Islamic psychological advice, on CrescentLife.com. A video of Abdul-Adil giving a lecture on Islam can be found on YouTube.
The original emir of HTA, Iyad Hilal, is a US citizen of Palestinian-Jordanian origin. He is the author of several books - Treaties in Islam, Gull Crisis, Palestinian Quest, Masiiahah in Islamic Activities (all in Arabic) and also Muslims in the West, in English. He is better known for his book "Studies in Usul ul-Fiqh". This treatise on Islamic jurisprudence can be found online in an edited version. This book is a required part of course material in the Fiqh course at the Qatar-based Islamic Studies Academy.
In August 2005 Stratfor stated that Hilal had been in the US for 20 years. He had been involved in HT since his youth. Hilal would travel between Orange County in California and New York (from the 1980s onward) while he was establishing the group. HT had offices in these locations, and between around 1991 to 1995, Hilal was imam of a mosque in New York. By 1995, the chapter in New York lost members in rows over ideology and leadership, a situation made worse in 1997 by the splintering of the Jordanian "Camp 2" from "Camp 1". Stratfor states that by 2000 many members of the New York branch had defected to Omar Bakri's group Al Muhajiroun.
BBC journalist Richard Watson stated in a recent report (video) that at the end of the 1990s, Omar Bakri Mohammed wanted to expand into the US. The information on what had happened in New York's HT chapter was made more clear by private investigator Bill Warner. In 2005 he had taken BBC reporter Richard Watson to the Masjid al-Fatima on 37th Avenue, Woodside in Queens. Here, the BBC filmed Aqeel Khan, the founder and secretary of the Queens Islamic Center at the mosque, while Bill Warner interviewed him. During the mid 1990s, the mosque had been infiltrated by radical members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, much as they had tried to take over the Croydon mosque in London.
Aqeel Khan said: "They had their own programs, which were not the directions of the mosque... There were five times (a day) prayer, but then they had their own meetings here and we - the general public - were not invited." The Hizb ut-Tahrir members were officially ousted from the Queens mosque after $400,000 went missing from the masjid funds, but they continued to frequent the mosque. It appears to be at this mosque, where radical Hizb members already worshipped, that Al Muhajiroun developed its first US presence.
The ideology of Hizb was similar to that of Bakri's Al Muhajiroun, but the latter group's direct methods appealed to young radicals. Individuals such as Syed "Fahad" Hashmi from Flushing, Queens, had became involved in Al Muhajiroun. Hashmi, who formerly belonged to the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is thought to have introduced Mohammed Junaid Babar to Al Muhajiroun. Babar had been a student at St John's University. Both attended the Masjid al-Fatima.
In 2004, Junaid Babar was convicted of setting up a terror training camp in Malakand, Pakistan, and assisting Al Qaeda. One of the individuals that attended this camp was Mohammed Sidique Khan, leader of the cell that killed 52 people in London on July 7, 2005. Babar gave evidence at the "Operation Crevice" trial: on April 30, 2007, five British individuals from Al Muhajiroun were given life sentences for plotting terror attacks in the UK. After the convictions, it was revealed that Omar Khyam, the leader of the Operation Crevice cell, had met and discussed jihad operations with Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, another 7/7 bomber, on several occasions in 2004. Their meetings had been monitored by MI5.
Al Muhajiroun was officially disbanded by Omar Bakri Mohammed in October 2004. Using a tactic employed by HT, he continued to guide his followers who then belonged to new groups, operating under new names. In the UK, Al Muhajiroun members operated in groups called Al Ghurabaa, the Saviour Sect, (which changed its name to the Saved Sect) and these also founded a group called Ahlus Sunna Wal Jammah. Members of the US Al Muhajiroun group reformed as the Islamic Thinkers Society.
With its membership plundered by Al Muhajiroun's more radical sect, the US branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir appeared to be in poor shape. Iyad Halil, a greengrocer by trade, had gone back to Orange County. He apparently ceased his role as emir of HTA in 2000. Hizb continues to operate in North America, but its profile until recently has been low. Hizb ut-Tahrir frequently mounts anti-US demonstrations. In Britain, HT has 10,000 active members. With anti-American attitudes prevalent within international HT, it may be harder to recruit from the US Muslim population. Research from Pew Global Attitudes indicates that US Muslims are generally more supportive of America's statehood than British Muslims, who are the most anti-Western in Europe.
HT, regarding itself as an intellectual movement, is keen to indoctrinate its recruits in the intricacies of Islamic law and thought before they can reach positions of influence. According to a report by Madeleine Gruen of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, because HT America members "have been raised on a steady diet of pop culture, they are endowed with the unique ability of being able to export HT and jihadist ideology to a world that dislikes America but loves its entertainment industry." She noted that after 2003, "public mention of HT in the US became scarce."
Despite the absence of overt mentions of the name Hizb ut-Tahrir in North America, Gruen notes that under front names, HTA continues and is undergoing a renaissance. Web businesses proliferate, such as "Khalifah Klothing" which is run from British Columbia in Canada, and in Los Angeles in January 2006, an HT "circle" formed Ummah Films. This group recruits young people from LA mosques to act as production assistants. American HT members are active on chat rooms on the internet.
In a report from last month, Gruen explains that while Iyad Halil had operated in Orange County and NYC, another leader called Mohammed Malkawi set up operations in Chicago and Wisconsin. Malkawi, of Palestinian-Jordanian origin, had been a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin. He had recruited Naveed Butt, who is the spokesman of Pakistan HT, into the group when they had both worked for Motorola. Mohammed Malkawi has written on high-speed software architecture. His video lectures can be found on YouTube.
The arguments on banning or accepting HT are still current. The group has openly allowed anti-Semitic literature to be published. It was on account of its anti-Semitic attitudes that the group became outlawed in 2003 in Germany. In Denmark, HT is legal, but it has come into conflict with the authorities. In March and April 2002, HT Denmark was responsible for distributing copies of a leaflet in a Copenhagen square which, according to the BBC: "makes threats against Jews, using a quote from the Koran urging Muslims to 'kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have been turned you out.' The leaflet also said, 'The Jews are a people of slander...a treacherous people... they fabricate lies and twist words from their right context.' And the leaflet describes suicide bombings in Israel as "legitimate" acts of "Martyrdom"."
The person responsible for these leaflets was Danish HT leader Fadi Abdullatif, was given a 60-day suspended jail sentence for distribution of racist propaganda in October 2002. In 2004, Abdullatif was responsible for leaflets which called upon Muslims to go to Fallujah in Iraq, to fight Americans. He claimed in these fliers that if any national leaders tried to prevent their travel, they should kill these leaders. In August 2005, Abdullatif was arrested for this offense and was officially indicted in March 2006 for threatening the government. On August 17, 2006, Fadi Abdullatif was found guilty, and was given a three month jail sentence.
In 2004, there were requests for Hizb ut-Tahrir to be banned in Denmark, but the director of public prosecutions ruled that the group was legal. Where the group directly calls for the overthrow of governments, such issues could relate either to threats against national security, or sedition. However, the reason why most Middle Eastern and North African countries have outlawed HT are less to do with national security, and more to do with lese-majesty, or "insulting the state". In the Central Asian republics, HT is banned partly because the group destabilizes secular political edifices, and partly because governments, particularly Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, appear threatened by anything that does not conform to their notions of strictly controlled religious practice.
In Pakistan, where there are 65 members of the National Assembly who belong to the Islamist MMA parties, the outlawing of Hizb ut-Tahrir seems irrational. In October 2005, the president of the MMA, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, openly called for an Islamic revolution to overthrow the government, and received no punishment. During the February 2006 cartoon protests, the same individual led calls for the death of the elected President. If the MMA, which seeks to turn Pakistan into an Islamic state, is officially legitimate, then why is HT Pakisitan illegal? Over the past few years members of HT Pakistan have been subjected to frequent arrests. In January 2006, Naveed Butt legally challenged the Pakistani government's decision to outlaw HT, but lost his case.
Maajid Nawaz, who defected from HT Britain after being a member for more than a decade, does not believe that the group should be banned, but it should be challenged and belittled intellectually. Ed Husain, who had only been involved in HT UK for a short time, does support a ban, on the grounds that HT's indoctrination is a springboard to acts of terrorism. The actions of some British individuals from Al Muhajiroun would seem to validate that claim. In November 2005 Britain's Association of Chief Police Officers argued that a ban on the group would send it underground. Shiraz Maher, a former leading member of HT UK, has argued that the group's main activities happen "underground" anyway.
Zeyno Baran and Ariel Cohen are scholars who have argued passionately that the US government should ban Hizb ut-Tahrir. Both have given testimony before Congress to this end. Dr Cohen is the Central Asian expert at the Heritage Foundation and until May this year, Zeyno Baran was director of the international security program at the Nixon Center. Since May, she has been a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute.
An article in the Washington Post from December 2004 stated there had been no reports of HT being active in the US, even though Stratfor has claimed that the FBI (or some of its field offices) has been aware of HTA since early 1994. The article maintains that the International Crisis Group had opposed such a ban.
Zeno Baran has stated in a 144-page Nixon Center report from the same time that: "While HT as an organization does not engage in terrorist activities, it has become the vanguard of the radical Islamist ideology that encourages its followers to commit terrorist acts."
Maybe for this reason, the public face of Hizb ut-Tahrir is changing, at least in America. Madeleine Gruen points to the reinvention of the group's profile, although the underlying doctrine remains the same as it has ever been. Now HT America is trying to be "cool". Even the former regional emir, Iyad Halil, produced a magazine entitled "Khalifornia" as an attempt to make the group appeal. Dr Jaleel Abdul-Adil speaks to HT members like a true Salafist, yet he dresses in bright-colored robes at such events. He also has an interest in Hip Hop culture to boost his "credibility" with young people.
The British HT membership, predominantly made up of individuals whose ancestry comes from the Indian subcontinent, is currently careful not to fall foul of the Terrorism Act 2006. Schedule 1, section 1 (3) of this Act outlaws the "glorification of terrorism", including terrorism abroad. This severely limits what the group can publicly say.
British HT's leadership appears to be struggling, leading to defections. It is possible that Britain is the location of the current HQ of international HT. Its "pyramid structure" of management evolved in countries where the group was banned outright, where it was dangerous to know too many individuals. Such hierarchical principles belong to another time, another place, like the greatly mythologized Caliphate.
The intellectual upper levels of British HT discuss comparisons of Marxist theory against Islamic "Aqeeda" (doctrine) in student fashion, but the lower tiers of the pyramid are recruited from the street and are not restrained by such intellectual conceits. In the days of Omar Bakri Mohammed, senior members could say whatever they liked with impunity. Bakri made outrageous statements. He encouraged his supporters to commit acts of violence against others, including other members. But he had a personality and even a sense of humor that drew loyalty, unlike the current suit-wearing peddlers of dogma.
At the very base of the pyramid are British HT's disaffected and alienated young recruits, who have poor education and who will never hone their Aqeeda skills to rise to upper levels. For them, HT is a vehicle to express contempt and hatred for the society they live in. They are taught that the West hates all Muslims. Within such an environment their anger is encouraged. They are given empty promises of a Caliphate which would only come about in a hypothetical future. Among these youths, beyond the direct gaze of their leaders, threats and acts of violence already happen. How long before such violence involves explosives?
Adrian Morgan
© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at September 21, 2007 3:48 PM
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