بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Lessons from the Failure of Previous Islamic Political Movements to the Ummah in General and to those Assume Authority in Particular for the Establishment of the Real Islamic Authority
The Muslim Ummah is truly longing for the Khilafah in the method of Prophethood as mentioned by the Messenger of Allah (saw). Amidst the ruins of humiliation and destruction that afflicts the Muslim world, today, the Muslim Ummah is waiting for the glorious day. The intellectuals of the Kafir states also know this well and the politicians in major countries are frightened for the return of Islam. They fear the return of Islam today from a capable state like that of Turkey whose people dream of re-establishing the glory of Islam as deeply rooted in Ottoman history with Istanbul being the center of the Islamic state and the whole Ummah, or from strong countries like that of Pakistan or Afghanistan combined with other central Asian countries or Egypt since they collectively own a large army and linked to the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Suez (Canal), the World Trade Corridor. These concerns are giving the politicians of major countries sleepless nights, especially America, the current superpower.
The fears of the America and European nations for the arrival of the true Khilafah state (Caliphate) are recognizable when they saw a state of resistance in the Muslim Ummah. The first major observation of this resistance was in 2001 when the Taliban – Afghanistan refused to abandon Al-Qaeda, that America accused of the September 11 incidents and Taliban preferred to fight but lost power due to the US occupation of Afghanistan. However, Taliban refused to comply and continued the armed struggle against the superpower US. After this beginning of US occupation, then came the occupation of Iraq in 2003. When America declared victory over the Iraqi army, it found itself confronted by a fierce resistance that did not fear the US army. This resistance forced America into Iraq’s quagmires and it almost defeated it.
Then, in 2011, there were the uprisings of the Arab Spring calling for the overthrow of the puppet regimes of America and Europe, as their popular legitimacy decayed and eroded to the point where they were on the brink of collapse. These uprisings were not expected by the American and European intelligence services. This sounded the bells of the great danger of the state of resistance that began to explode. Moreover, the call to overthrow the regime accompanied with another very serious call for the establishment of the Khilafah Rashidah (Caliphate). Therefore, these revolutions have made America tremble because it was at the doorstep of the re-establishment of the Khilafah (Caliphate) on the method of Prophethood.
However, there emerged two things; the first one was the failure of establishing the real Islamic authority by the parties which claimed to bring back the Islamic Khilafah, such as the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt and the EnNahdah in Tunisia; and secondly the declaration of a false Khilafah (caliphate) in the city of Mosul by the militant group, ISIS.
In both nations, Egypt and Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the Ennahdah advocated Islamic rule and, as a result, the people voted them both into power respectively, thus marking the beginning of a new era in the Middle East. Despite of the popular support they had, both the parties constantly pursued consensus and, as a result, they regularly compromised Islam in the hope of gaining legitimacy from the local and International community. Ennahda abandoned making the Shari’ah the main source of legislation in the new constitution and declared it wanted to maintain the secular nature of the nation. Ennahda’s leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, highlighted with regards to establishing the Khilafah (Caliphate): “Definitely, we are a nation state. We desire a state for Tunisian reforms, for the Tunisian State. As for the issue of the Khilafah, this is an issue that is not one of reality. The issue of today’s reality is that we are a Tunisian State that desires reform, so that it becomes a State for the Tunisian People, not against them.”
Similarly, the MB in Egypt went to great lengths to demonstrate its moderation. In its rush to placate the so-called international opinion, they abandoned all commitment to Islamic governance. When it came to applying Islamic principles, they cited constitutional barriers and the need to keep minorities onside. When it came to applying Islamic economics, they cited the need to avoid scaring international investors and tourists.
One of President Muhammed Morsi’s first acts as an Egyptian president, of all things, was to send a communiqué confirming Egypt’s commitment to peaceful ties with ‘Israel’! The initial calls for Islam were completely removed from Morsi’s statements as he settled into power. Despite over 80 years touting ‘Islam is the solution’, when the opportunity presented itself the MB failed to meet the challenge governance posted.
The most important reasons why these organizations failed, miserably, after emerging in power are appeasement and working through the existing system, lack of possessing proper political plan and failing in dealing with the opposition etc. As for the appeasement and working within the system, most of these Islamic parties ruled from a position of weakness where they focused more on appeasing others, as opposed to carrying out their mandate of return of Islamic State. Ennahda, for example, constantly reassured secular parties in Tunisia, eventually voting to allow individuals from the old regime to run in parliamentary elections. The Muslim Brotherhood adopted a similar approach; they appeased and worked with international powers under the excuse of “protecting tourism” by signing security agreements with the Jewish entity. Both the parties never realized that such a policy makes them look weak and incompetent. Thus, both groups have compromised and abandoned the Islamic political principles and have affirmed the secular regimes in place by opting to work through them. This does nothing but restores confidence in a dying system that was imposed by colonialist nations and which has so far given the Muslim world nothing but problems. As for lack of having proper political plan, these political parties were existing for decades and had a chance to prepare a political plan for the day they come into power, but they lacked it. The preparation should have come in the form of a constitution, political road map or plans and policies, which are to be pursued. The reality was, unfortunately, that both the Ennahda and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) lacked each one of these things and made the structural, economic and societal problems worse. Egypt for instance had 40% of its population living under the poverty line. Instead of acting to restructure and redistribute the huge resources present within Egypt, MB took the decision to approach the IMF who are notorious for putting countries into a constant debt cycle leading to further poverty. Concerning the failure in dealing with the opposition, these political parties despite having mass support and being elected into power, both Ennahdah and the MB stood stunned in front of their critics. In both Egypt and Tunisia, the old guard were never going to accept being out of power and they tuned every decision by the newly elected governments into a drama and mass stand-off in the streets. Rather than taking on the opposition, with the support of the masses they proved to be incompetent and weak in dealing with these rebels. In Egypt, Morsi did not take on the opposition, neither did he silence them, but in the end he just compromised his own position in order to appease them and eventually removed by the coup d’état and thus both Ennahda and MB failed to deal with their opposition. Thus, as a result, despite winning elections, both parties only played lip service to Islam when they reached power and lost the goodwill of the people that supported them into power and eventually failed to re-establish the real Islamic Khilafah due to their short term, transactions and political calculations.
As for the declaration of the false Islamic Khilafah by the militant group ISIS, they did not even possess the real authority at first place to declare a state. Islamic Shari’ah demands any Hizb (Party) that seeks to announce the Khilafah in an area should have the obvious visible authority on the place, where it can maintain security internally and externally, and that this area should have the components of a state in the area where the Khilafah is announced. ISIS neither had the authority in Syria or Iraq nor had the security for internally or externally protection. Thus, the announcement by the ISIS of the Khilafah is mere rhetoric without any weight. However, the declaration of Baghdadi’s claimed Khilafah in Mosul has greatly benefitted America; this benefit was in the form of destabilizing the situation in Syria which was calling for the Khilafah. Baghdadi’s Khilafah emerged as a mixture of bloodshed, women’s enjoyment as concubines and the rules of tombs, graves and shrines, thus presenting a negative image of the great Khilafah (caliphate) state.
Despite these failed attempts by these Islamic Movements and the establishment of a fake caliphate, Alhamdulillah, still the state of resistance in the Muslim Ummah is growing in a way that frightens America from surprises such as the events of the Arab Spring and most recently, the rise of Taliban into power in Afghanistan. However, America is a superpower that is experimenting with various projects that it implements directly or through its agents, so that its international interests are safe. Therefore, America’s search for a new project is definite to solve the resistance situation in the Muslim world, currently in Afghanistan and not to leave developments to the surprises that may bring the great and real Khilafah.
Additionally, it is important to note that Taliban has announced their government structure to be mere an ‘Islamic Emirate’ rather than establishing it as Islamic Khilafah; also they sought help from agent states like Turkey and Qatar to operate Kabul airport. Are the people of Afghanistan unable to operate the airport? Is Afghanistan devoid of scientific, engineering and administrative competencies capable to manage even the airport? This shows that Taliban doesn’t have a clear political project and capacity to run the state independently without any assistance from other states.
Moreover, Taliban did not still contain all the resistance force like the presence of coalition of uzbek – Tajik forces in Panjshir valley (Northern Afghanistan).
In this connection, Hizb-ut-Tahrir (whose name is synonymous in the Islamic arena with the Da'wah focused on the work to re-establish the Khilafah "Caliphate") strongly advices Taliban to take heed from the previous movements and not to repeat the same mistakes as their predecessors. Alhamdulillah, the Taliban has fulfilled one of the important Shari’ command regarding the removal of the occupation from the Islamic land; however, they should not establish their authority merely as an ‘Islamic Imarah’ (Islamic emirate) as it has no basis in Islam and goes against the Shari’ah evidences. Moreover, Taliban should be politically aware and capable enough to run the State with the Islamic Shari’ah without any compromise for any reason. Taliban should not establish an inclusive government with the mixture of Islam and secularism, as Allah (swt) does not accept it but only pure Islam. Taliban should not give any consideration for the American conditions in the establishment of the Islamic authority and should reject all the kufr institutions like UN, Amnesty International, IMF, WB, etc.
In order to make this authority a real authority of true and strong Islamic State, they should join hands with the Hizb ut Tahrir, a pioneer in the clearness and pureness of the Islamic thought and the clarity of the method in an age plagued with smog, and the farness from the prophetic guidance. Since its inception, Hizb ut Tahrir works tirelessly day and night for the re-establishment of the Islamic Khilafah state, which will resume the Islamic way of life in the Muslim world and propagate Islam to the rest of the world. In the course of its work, the party was pious and committed only to the Sharia rule, freed itself from being influenced by anything that is not legitimate, whether it is a whim or interest, or influence by any other culture, and sincere in its work to Allah (swt) alone so that it does not associate anyone with Him (swt). The party is fully capable enough to take authority and fulfil its Islamic objective at hand.
For this, Hizb ut Tahrir drew a clear a detailed description for understanding Islam, and that Islam can only be implemented in real life by the establishment of an Islamic State, so it placed a holistic vision for the state, its basis, its pillars, and its systems. It showed all these in its books, publications, and articles such as the books “The Islamic State”, “The Ruling System in Islam”, “The Institutions of State in the Khilafah in Ruling and Administration”, “The Economic System in Islam”, “The Social System in Islam”, “The Punishment System”, “Funds in the Khilafah State” and other books, booklets, and publications which cannot be mentioned in full. Via this manner, the Hizb has drawn a detailed and clear path to carry on with the work which it does.
In the field of politics, the Hizb has placed set of political principles to follow in politics in understanding, analysis, and application, so it defined politics to be managing the affairs of the Ummah internally and externally. It considered the Islamic ideology as a political and spiritual ideology, and it used to view the political awareness of the world from a worldly view and from a specific view that is the Islamic ideology. Therefore, it analyzes and follows the political news from an Islamic ideological perspective, thus published the book “Political Thoughts”, “Political Concepts”, “Political views“ and “Political Issues”. By this, the party has compiled full knowledge of the international stance and the international sphere, thus being able to expose the plans and plots being woven against the Islamic Ummah. Consequently, the party has the better picture of how to deal with the colonialist countries which are greedy for the Muslim countries when it is time to establish the Khilafah State, showing the reason why each country is strong, its dangers, its weaknesses, its strong points, and others.
In addition, most Importantly, for the sake of establishing the Khilafah as soon it gets the opportunity, it placed the draft constitution composed of 191 articles deduced through correct Ijtihad and powerful evidence, and it was built upon Sharia sources, the Sharia rules which it adopted, and showed its validity for all aspects of life. The Hizb says this with all praise due to Allah (swt) alone, asking Allah (swt) to grant victory to the Hizb, as Allah (swt) says:
(فَلَا تُزَكُّواْ أَنفُسَكُم هُوَ أَعلَمُ بِمَنِ ٱتَّقَى) “So do not claim yourselves to be pure; He is most knowing of who fears Him.” [An-Najm: 32].
Thus, If the Taliban really cares for Islam and the Muslim Ummah, they should not delay any more time and should join the hands with Hizb ut Tahrir in order to establish the Khilafah with the unification of the Muslim lands in the region like, Pakistan Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan together with the Afghanistan merged into one powerful strong Islamic Khilafah state. The door is still open for the Taliban to take the political project of Hizb ut Tahrir and to put it into practice, and the door is still open for them to hand over rule in Afghanistan to establish the project of a second Khilafah Rashidah on the method of the Prophethood. We ask Allah that this matter will be soon in the coming days Insha Allah, and on that day, the believers will rejoice in the victory of Allah and the glory of the great Islam. Ameen.
(وَيَوْمَئِذٍ يَفْرَحُ ٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ * بِنَصْرِ ٱللَّهِ يَنصُرُ مَن يَشَاءُ وَهُوَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ)
“And on that day the believers will rejoice in the victory of Allah. He gives victory to whom He wills, and He is the Exalted in Might, the Merciful.”
أفغانستان# #Afganistan #Afghanistan
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Hameed Bin Ahmad