Caliphate State: Hizb ut-Tahrir, Moderate Islam, the State

Hasan Azad, Department of Religion, Columbia University

The transnational Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) was founded in 1953 by the Palestinian jurist Taqiuddin al-Nabhani. HT holds that the Islamic caliphate is a sine qua non for true Islam. It seeks to reestablish the Islamic caliphate (whose last incarnation under the Ottomans fell in 1924) through a three-tiered process of indoctrination of a core membership; disseminating the message by that core group; and once the masses have embraced the message, political struggle against corrupt Muslim regimes to establish the Islamic caliphate.

For my research I travelled to London, UK, where I conducted interviews in anticipation of my doctoral research on Hizb ut-Tahrir. My interviewees included: a prominent member of HT; a former member of HT; a researcher at a think tank established to counter Islamist groups; a prominent British Muslim dai’i (Muslim public intellectual). I also conducted some informal interviews with individuals active in various capacities within the Muslim community of London. At the outset I had questions I asked all my interviewees: i) What attracts young British Muslims to HT? ii) What is/has been HT’s “legacy” in Britain? iii) What kind of future does a group like HT have in Britain? Nevertheless, in all my interviews I was guided by the unstructured approach, allowing the interviewees to cover extensive ground, and affording valuable insights.

The first question elicited a fairly consistent account. In the opinion of all of my interviewees (but not necessarily in the opinion of the member of HT, whom I shall come to later), HT’s appeal lies in its message of radical otherness vis-à-vis the wider British population; its critique of British and American foreign policies in Muslim countries; its pointing to racist/Islamophobic stances by the government and the media – all of which contribute towards reframing Muslim identity as an “ideological” one. This identity, now couched in the mythopoeic language of past Muslim greatness, amplifies one’s sense of self.

Responses to the second question raise significant questions about how one reads “traces” – the presence/absence of an Islamist group like HT (whose membership figures are kept secret) in the public sphere. The virtual demise of HT in Britain announced by all my interviewees (apart from the member of HT) is largely due to the trenchant critiques of widely disseminated “mainstream,” “moderate” Muslim voices. The two most influential voices are those of Hamza Yusuf and Abdal Hakim Murad, both of whom are part of the post-7/7 government-funded initiative, the Radical Middle Way. Given this “new” Islamicity, HT’s doubly othered Muslimness (both by mainstream society, and by ideological choice) no longer offers a reasonable option for British Muslims. However, the interviewees reflected, without appearing to contradict themselves, that HT’s philosophies still prevail across Britain.

Turning to the senior member of HT, he responded to the suggestion that HT is no longer significant in Britain by pointing out that HT is a transnational group with a wide global following. Although he declined to respond as far as HT’s total membership, he pointed out that HT’s annual conference held in July had a turnout of 1000 people. He also mentioned that in 2010 20 to 30 conferences with thousands of attendees were held throughout Indonesia. (He gave other examples of HT’s presence in various countries such as Norway as well as in the newly “liberated” Arab countries to illustrate how HT was very much significant within Britain, and globally.)

Regarding HT’s understanding of Muslim identity, he responded that Muslims have divine laws that must be followed, adding that British society as a whole would benefit from Islamic principles. He denied that HT encourages self-segregation, insisting that Islam teaches Muslims to be kind and charitable towards their neighbors. He then raised the topic of the Prevent Strategy launched in 2007 to stop Muslims from turning to terrorism. In his opinion, since 7/7, media coverage of Muslims has changed radically – in the past because of the policy of multiculturalism there weren’t any significant reports “looking into” the way Muslims live. Now, Britain’s longstanding policy of multiculturalism, which, at least in theory, celebrated diversity, is seen as inherently problematic, encouraging community groups to self-segregate. In this connection my interviewee mentioned the (in)famous “multiculturalism speech” given by Prime Minister David Cameron in Munich on February 5, 2011, in which he described multiculturalism as an outright failure, partially blaming it for fostering Islamic extremism and declaring instead that a “muscular liberalism” actively promoting its values over and above values held by various cultural communities was essential for Britain now. For my interviewee this meant that the only option left for Britain is a “radical” form of secularism similar to that of France, which would result in ever-increasing hostility towards Muslims.

My research helped to lay critical groundwork for my doctoral research on Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain and Bangladesh. Within the British context it raised important, interrelated concerns about:

a) HT’s role in the dialectical processes of identity formation(s): how HT’s “extremist” iterations of Muslim subjectivity negotiate the discourse of “moderate” portrayals of Muslimness – all of which is enacted within the (imaginary) discursive space created by the state.

b) HT’s contribution to the fraught discussion about Muslims in Britain: how HT’s radical critique of governance is challenged by the “moderate” Muslim stream propounding an “indigenous” “British” Islam, and how the two typologies figure within the wider British imaginary – whether through the media or through government initiatives like the Prevent strategy.

c) HT’s implication(s) within the religio-politico-statist complex – how HT’s designation as the “extremist” Islamist fringe (con)strains its rhetoric vis-à-vis the public (Muslim and non-Muslim), how the “moderates” stretch their rhetoric in a (never-ending?) quest for inclusion within the public sphere, and how the state utilizes the old (albeit now highly sophisticated) device of threatening reward/punishment as a strategy of governance, especially within the charged  socio-political atmosphere of post-7/7 Britain.