Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir (Arabic: حِزْبُ التَحْرِير; English: The Radical Islamist Party of Liberation) is an influential international Islamist movement which is very popular at universities with brown and white posh kids (especially at British universities).
History[edit | edit source]
The ‘party’ was founded in 1953 by the Islamic Qadi (judge), Taqiuddin al-Nabhani. Strictly speaking, or speaking in any manner whatsoever, it is not a political party because, as HT itself says:
| “ | Allah does not believe in democracy, or votes, or any human government. [1] | ” |
Its formation, in 1953, is easily understood when one takes into account the fact that many Arabs at the time believed that their countries were verging on being utter shit. Who made these Arab countries that way? It was, according to Islamists of all stripes, the kafir colonialists.
The Hizb and the Islamic Caliphate[edit | edit source]
The Hizb is unique from most other Islamist movements in that the party focuses not on local issues or on providing social services, but on unifying the Muslim world under its vision of a new Islamic Caliphate. Its leaders argue that local issues and social services are for ‘wimps’ – that is, those people who don’t think about Allah, and fight for Allah, ‘24/7’ (as the Americans and the Hizb put it). Like revolutionary socialists, if the party were to attend to local issues or social services this would only slow down the revolution, or Jihad, by making life better, Allah forbid, for the ordinaries. However, once the Caliphate is ‘restored’ (and if there is anyone left alive but the Hizb), then the party will happily attend to social services and local issues.[2][3]
To the end of the Caliphate HT has drawn up and published a constitution for its proposed caliphate state. Critics have argued that Allah could not possibly recognise a state because He is an internationalist as well as a Global Village type geezer. Similarly, the notion of a ‘constitution’ makes little sense because Allah’s citizens only need to speak to Him personally to know what not to do and what to do. Despite these arguments, the ‘constitution’ has 187 articles, mostly about sex and pigs, which specify policies such as sharia law, a ‘unitary ruling system’ which was basically ‘specified by Mohamed and his immediate followers’.[4]
HT also argues that Arabic will be the ‘sole language of the State’. After all, it argues, ‘Allah is an Arab and He would never dream of speaking a language like Greek or German’. Similarly, slightly better languages like Urdu (better because a lot of Muslims speak it) are not befitting for an Arabic God.
The History of the Islamic Caliphate[edit | edit source]
In its focus on the Caliphate, HT takes a different view of Muslim history than some other Islamists such as Muhammad Qutb.[5] HT sees Islam’s pivotal turning point as occurring not with the death of "Ali" (not to be confused with Muhammed Ali or Ali G), or one of the other "four Rightly Guided Caliphs" in the 7th century (many years before the Rolling Stone’s first album), but with the 1918 or 1922 abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate.
From then on many Islamists believed that things just went downhill for all Muslims. Despite that argument, many (non-Islamic) historians are keen to stress that since the ‘Islamic renaissance’, which ended around the 14th century, things ‘have always been pretty shit in Arab/Islamic countries, not least their McDonald's and telephone services’. Qutb, on the other hand, believed that things began to disintegrate more or less straight after the Prophet’s death. Apparently it never occurred to Qutb that this might have something to do with the religion of Islam itself, as well as the mind-set of the Arab nations. As some bloke or other said:
| “ | If every time the cheese goes missing, Mickey Mouse is in the kitchen, one should at least suspect the mouse for stealing the cheese. | ” |
Instead, Islamists and Islamic historians have blamed everyone accept themselves and their religion for the Shitiness of Things. Would one blame Steve the Spider for stealing the cheese when he does not even like cheese but actually drinks the malt whiskey instead? [6]
Back to the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate. The Hizb argues that this is what ended ‘the true Islamic system’, something for which it blames ‘the disbelieving (Kafir) colonial powers’, working through Turkish modernist Mustafa Camel (rather than a taxi). Commentators wonder why, if Islam is so great, and indeed if Allah is Himself an Arab (if not, strictly speaking, a Muslim), did the kafir have such easy time kicking Arab/Muslim arse? If Allah was on the Islamic side (which surely He must have been), why did He let the Arabs/Muslims get such a good kicking from the ‘degenerate’ and ‘decadent’ kafir? It is also argued, usually by non-Muslim historians (for some reason), that the hated Atatürk was bright enough to realise that a medieval religion, that is, Islam, could not, and had not, provided the Arab and Muslim nations with things like running water and, later, hard-core porn. When Atatürk visited Europe he had such a good time on the trams and in its clean brothels that he said to himself: Yes, I wouldn’t mind a bit of this. Thus he went on to secularise the Turkish nation. But, like revolutionary communists, the Islamists soon realised that when people are ‘having it so good’, they simply don’t want to start a revolution or blow themselves up to further the Jihad (or Caliphate). Thus the "socialist revolutionary", or Islamist, can either wait for things to get worse for the people, or make things worse themselves. And there is nothing worse than bombs going off all the time and getting constantly prodded by people with very long beards and very long dresses telling you to pray six times a day.
The Hizb is a party that does not want your votes (sic)[edit | edit source]
The Hizb does not itself engage in armed jihad or vote-getting because jihadists tend to end up dead. Thus the members of the Hizb, if dead, could not pass on the message that it is a good thing that (other) people are prepared to die for Allah and Hizb u-Tahrir. As for vote-getting, ‘Allah does not require votes’. And, in any case, ‘He has the vote of every Muslim anyway’. HT, instead, works to take power through ‘ideological struggle’ to change public opinion, and, in particular, through elites who will ‘facilitate’ a ‘change of the government’.[7] This ideological struggle involves the use of very loud voices and lots of leaflets (which are pushed into the face of Muslim university students) and the encouraging of spiritual and revolutionary beard growth.[8]
Time for a Coup[edit | edit source]
HT allegedly attempted and failed in coups in 1969 and 1969 in Jordan, and in 1974 in Egypt, and is now banned in both countries (for reasons the Hizb ‘don’t understand’). Both the Jordanian and Egyptian Governments asked: ‘If Allah is on your side, why did the party make such a cock up of these coups?’ Perhaps Allah had a off-day, or off-days, during each coup. Despite such actions in Jordon, Egypt and other countries, it has been noted that the Government of the UK has never banned HT. After all, it is ‘simply impossible that this group would take over the UK Government’ when that very government treats them, according to a very posh man at the Home Office, ‘so well and has even invited it round for sand witches a couple of times’. It is the case that ‘the hand that feeds is never bitten’ (except for the hand that feeds a crocodile, a tiger, or even a hamster). Other top-notch civil servants have also said that ‘if only we could teach them cricket and how ruddy great it is to be British, then they would see the error of their ways’.
Is the Hizb Leninist?[edit | edit source]
The party is sometimes described as ‘Leninist’ and ‘rigidly controlled by its central leadership’. Some think it odd that the Hizb is Leninist since Islamists have called Lenin himself ‘a piece of atheist sucking-scum’. Also, many have asked: ‘Isn’t Hizb u-Tahrir supposed to be controlled by Allah Himself – or is He the central leadership of the central leadership?’ However, this Leninist aspect of the Hizb is not surprising when one considers how well Islamists and Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyite-Harmanists actually get on. The Socialist Workers Party, for example, despite originally being an atheist, pro-gay, pro-abortion, pro-feminist and pro-plus party, has now become a God-fearing party which is also anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-feminist and anti-coagulant. The SWP says that this hefty bunch of damascene conversations has nothing to do with ‘its penchant for licking Muslim arse’ in return for receiving the same favour back.
Hizb argues that Leninism has not influenced its position that its estimated one million members are required to spend ‘at least two years studying party literature under the guidance of members (Murshid)’ before taking ‘the party oath’. The plan is that if a typical member spends every single minute of the day reading the official literature of the Party, then they would simply not have the time to take in any other (contrary) ideas. However, critics have said that if someone were required to read the collected works of Adolph Hitler, or Pol Pot, every day, then similarly she or he would not have time to take in any contradictory ideas. The Hizb, however, insists that this is not ‘brainwashing’. It is, they say, ‘only the constant instilling of the truth’. In any case, it continues, ‘brainwashing for Allah can only be a good thing’.
A Global Party (of the boring kind)[edit | edit source]
HT is particularly active in Central Asia, various Arab countries and Bradford. In the UK its rallies have drawn thousands of Muslims, as well as many members of the Socialist Workers Party (plus other misfits and psychos who are angry about something or other). These rallies tend to include the burning of the American flag, the burning of the Union Jack, the burning of the French flag, and, for some reason, the burning of the Canadian flag. If the chance arises, rallyists may go on to burn a church, McDonald's, a synagogue, the Houses of Parliament, branches of Tesco, and, more importantly, the offices of any rival Islamist groups. Unfortunately, if a lone Hindu chances upon the rally, they too may well get a burning from moderate Hizb fans.
The Hizb is said to have outpaced the Muslim Brotherhood in both membership and radicalism. The latter group was well-known for assassinating the leaders of Arab countries and has had its doctrines passed onto the Muslim Association of Britain.[9] As for radicalism, although the Hizb is more ‘radical’ than the MAB, it is not as radical as the radical Islamist group, Kill Everyone.
Footnotes[edit | edit source]
- ↑ One may think that ‘the Hizb’ - as it is known on the streets of Bradford - should not, therefore, be made up of human beings at all - many say that it isn’t.
- ↑ One wonders whether the Global Caliphate, by definition, would have any ‘local issues’.
- ↑ Note: As for the Global Caliphate, even the Hizb has said that it doesn’t really want to include the UK city of Liverpool in it. The party has argued that ‘Liverpudlians are simply beyond redemption’.
- ↑ HT admit that the system has changed through history, but ‘only a few thousand times’.
- ↑ Qutb became an Islamist after attending a Christian dance in the United States where had the unutterable experience of many Christian people ‘loving’ one another, as he himself put it.
- ↑ I don’t know how Steve the Spider gets into the whiskey bottles because I’ve just made this story up.
- ↑ The Socialist Workers Party would use the word ‘vanguard’ instead of ‘elite’.
- ↑ HT argues that most radicals have beards – Allah, Mohamed, Marx, Trotsky, and Yvonne Ridley.
- ↑ Although MAB says that its more violent and extreme doctrines and suggestions must not be spoken about on Question Time, but if you want to know about them, just send them an email.