The year 2011 is looking to be the defining moment in the history of the Ummah where the Muslim world has spontaneously erupted against tyranny and oppression. It was with the youth that are leading this revolt. Indeed the Prophet (saw) said, "I had victory by the youth." The Sahabas (ra) were all very young as we know. The average age of the populations in the Muslim world is mainly less than 30! Now we are now witnessing Syria going up. There are reports of the security service (the Mukhaberat) using live ammunition and killing many Muslims. The Mukhaberat throughout the Muslim world seems to be doing the same thing, whether its sooner or later. They seem to be wanton killing machines of the rulers. Soon their time will come also along with their rulers inshallah.
Not only this, we have also witnessed a large earthquake followed by a tsunami in Japan. Not only this, we now have an atomic emergency due to the damage caused to several nuclear power stations. The mega-earthquake was powerful enough that caused death and destruction but this was nothing compared to the tsunami! Note that a cubic metre of water weighs one ton or more and the look at the way it literally carve through the landscape and changed it forever. Once there was a city, now there's none.
Even then, compare it to the Day of Judgement:
"When the Earth shall be shaken to its depths. And the mountains shall be crumbled to atoms. Becoming dust scattered abroad."
(TMQ Surah al-Waqia 56:4-6)
If the mountain themselves are shaken to atoms, one wonders what the measurements on the Richter Scale will be?! This brings our entire lives into perspective and shows that this life is but a test where Allah swt tests us of our faith and whether we deserve the Heaven or the Hell.
"I have only created Jinns and Men so that they may worship Me"
(TMQ Surah adh-Dhariyat 51:56)
This life is but to worhip Allah (swt) so that we may seek his (swt)'s pleasure. This involves following His (swt)'s Commands and Prohibitions till our time comes. The tsunami was literally a wall of death sweeping the landscape. Hardly anyone could outrun it and television cameras from helicopters showed this in detail.
"Wherever ye are, death will find you out, even if ye are in towers built up strong and high!"
(TMQ Surah an-Nisa 4:78)
"Every soul shall have a taste of death: in the end to Us shall ye be brought back."
(TMQ Surah al-Ankaboot 29:57)
There have been several large earthquakes in recent years and they have seemed to increase in terms of intensity and numbers. These surely are signs of the coming Day of Judgement. Also more importantly the coming of the 2nd Khilafah Rashidah is yet another sign of the Last Day:
Imam Ahmad, Al-Hakim and Abu Dawud quoted 'Abdullah Ibn Zughb Al- Ibadi who heard from 'Abdullah Ibn Hawwala Al- Azdi that:
"Rasoolallah (saw) put his hand on my head, and then said: 'Ibn Hawwala, if you see that the Caliphate has taken its abode in the holy land, then the earthquake, the tribulations and great events are at hand, and the Last Hour on that day will be closer to people than my hand is to your head."
[Musnad al-Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal Volume 5, p.288 No. 21449; Sunan Abu Dawud, Volume 3, No. 2173]
Not only is this an indication that the Last day on Earth is coming ever closer and we do not know if that will be in our lifetime, but the hadith above mentions that the Khilafah will take its abode in the Holy Land. This Holy Land mentioned here is al-Sham (Palestine) and the capital of the State will be al-Quds (Jerusalem). In our history, the Khilafah has not actually held the capital in Jerusalem. This hadith is a Prophecy which has yet to be fulfilled. So the return of the Khilafah is a surety and the obligation of working to establish it still stands.
Libya fighting
“But if they seek aid in Deen it is your duty to help them.”
(TMQ al-anfaal 8:72)
We again are witnessing yet another Western intervention in a Muslim country. We all know what agendas they have and what mess they create. Why is the Egyptian army standing aside while the Western powers start their plans? The Muslims in the East of Libya are calling for help and not one Muslim should ignore this call while sitting next door! Just recently it was heard that the Egyptian army is providing weapons to the opposition but many of them are not trained and have never alone handled a gun! There were reports that a jet fighter was shot down over Benghazi by the opposition but there were rumours that this was their own plane! Jihad is supposed to be an organised institution where there is training, discipline, obeidience and Iman.
It is known that the method to establish the Khilafah State lies in non-physical actions and dawah only. This indeed started in Libya like in Tunisia and Egypt, but the government suddenly waged a brutal war against its own people instead. This was in stark contrast to the hands-off approach of the military to the protests in Tunisia and Egypt (again shame about the security forces). So the Muslims were forced to fight to defend themselves and mashallah they decided to take the initiative to actually overthrow Gadaffi. What choice do they have? They have to fight to protect themselves, their families, homes and livlihoods!
However on a positive note there are reports of one experienced Libyan army commander who has defected with 8000 men. Alhumdulillah. This shows that an inviting hand must always be extended to the Armies of the Muslims. Carrying the Dawah to them and inviting them to the truth and not to treat them as enemies as they could be the potential future Ansar who will help give us the Nusrah and re-establish the Khilafah. But nevertheless there will be bad elements of the armies such as the ones helping Gaddafi and killing their own people. The Egyption army must come over and coordinate with the opposition including the defectors from the Liyban army and remove the tyrant Gaddafi instead of sitting in their barracks while the West comes in instead.
Wasalaam mu aleikum,
OD
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Statement from Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain on Western intervention in Libya
March 19, 2011
Muslims in Libya, like those in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria and Saudi Arabia, have responded to the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (salallahu alaihi wasallam) who said “The best Jihad is to speak the word of truth against the tyrant ruler”. What we have witnessed in the past few weeks has been the beginning of the end of these tyrant regimes. In the context of calls for Western intervention we would like to make the following points:
1. We, like the Muslims of Libya, want to see the end of Gaddafi’s regime and an end to his murder.
2. However, we strongly oppose the British, French and American intervention in the Muslim lands. These countries are the very colonial powers that backed these tyrants for decades to secure their interests in our lands. These regimes were designed in London, Paris and Washington. It is the Western powers who gave them legitimacy and sold them the munitions which they now use against the people. The humanitarian justifications for intervention are no more than a smokescreen to hide their ugly material interests. It would be a betrayal of the blood that has been spilt by those who have been martyred in these revolutions if they are hijacked and the outcome is the maintenance of the same colonial order maintaining Western hegemony in the Arab world.
3. This latest military adventure in Libya in the name of ‘liberating’ the Libyan people from the murderer Gaddafi needs to be seen in its true colonial context – to try to ensure that whoever takes over Libya will see that Libya continues to remain under Western colonial influence. No amount of talk of humanitarian values and freedom, UN resolutions and a coalition including the despots of the Arab League will erase the memories of the atrocities committed by these powers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
4. The problems of the Muslim world need to be solved by the Muslims. We have allowed others to interfere in our affairs for too long. We call upon the Muslim armed forces in the region to take up their obligation and liberate the people from Gaddafi and his cronies. With a force of over 450,000 the Egyptian army is more than capable of ending Gaddafi’s murder and mayhem. If the Saudi army can enter Bahrain to protect the tyrant there, why isn’t it able to come to the rescue of the people of Libya? If the despots of the Arab League can come to a resolution of a no-fly zone why are they not able to release their armies to enter Libya? Why have they invited in the very same forces that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq?
5. The real issue for Muslims is the removal of these incompetent puppet rulers and their regimes and to replace them with a sincere accountable Islamic leadership that will have the backbone to solve the problems of the Muslim world without the need for America, Britain or any other Western power.
6. We call upon all Muslims who have been inspired by the extraordinary courage and determination of the people in these revolutions to work for real change which can only come by the re-establishment of an Islamic Khilafah State – a state that will unify the Muslim world, will have an accountable leader that will end torture and repression of its critics, will return the natural resources in our lands into public hands and will ensure the rights of minorities and women as enshrined in the Islamic Shariah. This is the State that will realise the aspirations of the people and free the region from tyranny and colonialism.
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Britain
14 Rabi II 1432
19 March 2011
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The Arab Revolt: Reflections on the Uprising
Mafuz Rahman
In the lexicon of recent history the term ‘Arab Revolt' evokes a dark chapter from the annals of the Islamic State. For centuries the Ottomans, like their Umayyad and Abbasid predecessors, symbolised the political base of the Islamic State through the Caliphate institution that was established after the death of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. But the power of the Ottomans was on the wane, slowly its influence and grasp on the Muslim World receded, blow after blow the State began to fragment. It received one of its biggest blows in 1916 when the treacherous Amir of Mecca, Hussein Bin Ali, sided with the British and initiated the ‘Arab Revolt' which would eventually sever the Arab lands from the Ottoman Caliphate. The Ottomans limped on and the biggest blow would come a few years later when the Caliphate was itself abolished in 1924 and the Muslims were for the first time in their history without a Caliph.
In 2011 the term has found new meaning, in recent months we have seen vast populations of the Ummah from the Arab and North African World rise up against tyranny, oppression and corruption. It began last December when Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian vendor, set himself on fire - he would later die from the injuries - in protest after his produce was confiscated by the local authorities who had continuously harassed him. This injustice struck a chord with many Tunisians, who had themselves been suffering oppression for years, and they took to the streets in an unprecedented uprising. Their actions gradually gained international coverage and resulted in them ousting President Ben Ali. The uprising then spread to Egypt where the pharaonic tyrant Hosni Mubarak also fell, similar protests have also taken place in Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, and at the time of writing this, major uprisings and protests have been taking place in Libya against the dictator Colonel Gaddafi. These unprecedented events have reached a global audience as news channels and newspaper columns have continuously covered the developments. But as the coverage on the mainstream media slowly dies down it's important that we reflect on these historic changes and take lessons from what we have witnessed in these past months.
From the outset it is important to address what the protestors have been calling for, we're well aware that the Ummah arose after decades of suffering repression at the hands of these despotic regimes, but many Western media outlets and political leaders have been quick to provide their own narrative. We've been told that this has been a ‘secular' uprising as many commentators have rushed to discern these events from the Iranian revolution of 1979. Many analysts have pointed to the absence of ‘Islamist' elements in these events to highlight that the call of the people has been of ‘democracy' and ‘freedom' as opposed to calls for Islamic revival. One could not be faulted for mistaking this narrative with some sort of policy paper drawn up in Whitehall or the White House. The reality is that after years of oppression the Ummah wants to free herself from the shackles of tyranny and wants to have a corrupt free transparent government that can be accountable. The slogans of ‘democracy' and ‘freedom' represent these wishes and the people are certainly not calling for the liberal systems we find in the West which allow for social behaviours that are seen as reprehensible in the Muslim World. The protests themselves have been organised in Masjids and taken place after Friday Prayers, we've seen masses of people offering the prayers in congregation in Tahrir Square, chants of ‘Allahu Akbar' are clearly audible therefore it seems odd that these uprisings are being labelled ‘secular'. Is the Ummah really looking up to secular values when we've witnessed the devastating effects of these values in the last decade through failed forays into Afghanistan and Iraq, the war on terror, the global economic crisis, social breakdown along with the regular scandals caused by the behaviour of politicians.
We're sure that these developments have led many Western leaders to suffer from insomnia as they work around the clock surveying the damage and trying to work out which of their stooges is next. However the term amnesia would be more appropriate to describe their behaviour; they have all come out to denounce the likes of Mubarak and Gaddafi but these were the same leaders who were praising the likes of Gaddafi and Mubarak recently. In the past few weeks we have seen numerous expose's on how politicians and elites from the West have been propping, supporting, funding and arming many of these despotic leaders. The same weapons were and are still being used to kill and maim many who are involved in the uprising.
These events have quietened the naysayers, pragmatists, sceptics and those with a defeatist mentality. For years now many from our midst have said that the Ummah is incapable of bringing about change by citing odd arguments linking our plight to the way - or lack - of performing rituals. Those who have called for change have done so at a cost, for years they said that the only way to bring about change was through compromise; by adopting erroneous systems, ideas and entering un-Islamic institutions. There have been those who have promoted apathy by staying on the sidelines when they should have been actively involved in bringing about change. The Ummah has shown that it still has goodness within it, as many have been martyred in this struggle, it has shown that change is possible and can be achieved by mass organised movements free from the established political frameworks. But these movements need to be given guidance, the Ummah needs to realise that the answer to their ills lies within the very values which they carry. The Ummah needs to be shown that the Islamic system of governance; which has been highlighted in the Quran and Sunnah, is accountable and transparent; and can solve their problems whilst liberating them, freeing them from oppression and providing them with prosperity and hope.
Most of all, these developments have shook the thrones of all the tyrants from the Muslim World, it is a stark reminder to them that their time is nearing to an end. The story of Hussein Bin Ali, who led the revolt against the Caliphate in 1916, should be a cautionary tale for them. This man sided with the colonialists, helped them disunite the Ummah further, and then expected to be rewarded well. However Hussein Bin Ali was humiliated and sidelined by the British a few years later as they gave their support to the Al-Saud family and helped them establish Saudi Arabia. The likes of Saddam Hussein and now Mubarak and Gaddafi, who expected to sit in their Ivory Towers longer, have received the same treatment. Verily it is Allah سبحانه وتعالى who grants power when He wills and takes it when He wills.
Finally we should not be naive to think that everything will be rosy from here onwards, we need to show awareness about the political developments as the power brokers from the West try to slip in another face that will do their bidding, there needs to be an overhaul of the whole system as opposed to a change of face. We must remember that the last Arab Revolt was one of the many events that led to the destruction of the Islamic State and left the Muslims without a Caliph, something that had seemed unlikely and unfathomable only a few years before. This is the main lesson for us now; although it might seem unlikely and unthinkable to some that these uprisings can lead to anything fruitful, perhaps these events will be the beginning of many that will lead to the Ummah uniting and returning to Islam. We pray to Allah سبحانه وتعالى that this is the case.
وَاللَّهُ غَالِبٌ عَلَىٰ أَمْرِهِ وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ
"Allah is in control of His affair. However, most of mankind do not know."
(Yusuf, 12:21)
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Western Intervention in Libya
Adnan Khan
The UN Security Council has backed a resolution on Libya that supports a no-fly zone and "all necessary measures" to protect civilians. After days of bickering over differences Western allies have, with the absence of China and Russia, managed to pass a resolution that in theory imposes a no fly zone, and allows the West to carry out military strikes under the justification or more likely guise of protecting civilians.
After much discussion, the Americans have now not only backed the British and French resolution on Libya but beefed it up. All of this has taken place as the forces fighting Colonel Gaddafi have been losing their strongholds which were gained when many of Gaddafi's forces defected. In observing the last two weeks and the current UN resolution we make the following points:
1. Western leaders can not be trusted. The West has a long history of pursuing its colonial interests under the guise of humanitarian intervention, liberal interventionism, human rights and protecting people from their rulers. Intervention in Sierra Leon, Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan led to prolonged wars with the deaths of numerous civilians at the hands of the West - who were there in an apparent peace mission.
2. Western talk of intervention in Libya comes when Europe armed Gaddafi and stood by as he killed all those who opposed him. Western complicity with brutal dictators is not an exception but the norm. The US armed both Iraq and Iran when they went to war in the 1980's, the West supported the overthrow of Ben Ali and Mubarak, but freelanced over the fact that they armed them and had cordial relations with them.
3. The imposition of no fly zones is an ominous sign, as this was the same pretext used against Iraq in order to weaken it paving the way for military action. Whilst the West has been clearly exposed in its colonial adventure in Iraq, it is peddling the same justification to intervene in another Muslim country. US intervention in World War II led it to maintain bases to this day in both Japan and Germany 60 years later.
4. In the same week the West constructed a UN resolution against Libya, Saudi Arabia sent its army into Bahrain. Libya shares an artificial border with the most powerful Arab nation, with the region's largest army in Egypt. Intervention by Muslim armies would bring a swift end to Gaddafi.
5. Whilst the West has called for joint operations with Arab countries in the region, it is merely to bring international legitimacy to this new colonial venture. The fact is Egypt can single handily remove Gaddafi and bring an end to this massacre in Libya. Egypt shares a border with Libya and has a fleet of 839 fighter aircraft, with total ground troops of 1.3 million. The Muslim world does not need any more foreign intervention whatever the justification. The intervention of Muslim armies is what is necessary to end the wanton killing by Gaddafi and his spent regime.
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Libya: The silver lining in the hypocrisy of Western intervention
Abid Mustafa
Once again the allied crusader forces have manufactured false pretexts under the fig leaf of international law to invade another Muslim country for the sole purpose of securing Libya's valuable oil resources. Like with Iraq and Afghanistan before it, it is obvious to any sane person with a modicum of common sense that such wars are not about protecting civilians, finding weapons of mass destructions or removing brutal dictators coveted by the West for decades- rather it's all about oil security.
As the crusader forces pummel Gaddafi's obsolete hardware and ravage the country through indiscriminate bombing, resulting in hundreds of civilian causalities-one cannot ignore the fact that only six weeks ago Gaddafi and his family were portrayed by the West as reformed modernizers with a gleam of democratic credentials. Indeed, in Britain Gaddafi and his family mixed with the aristocracy and hobnobbed with the likes of Nat Rothschild who through his friend Lord Mandelson a confidant of ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair helped engineer Libya's rehabilitation in the so called comity of nations. As part of this clandestine assistance, Blair also exercised great freedom over the Libyan Investment Authority, which at the last count had $70 billion of plundered money belonging to the Libyan people. Yet none of these intertwined commercial interests between Britain and their protégé Gaddafi prevented the former from turning against their surrogate for the last forty-one years.
Sensing the cataclysmic nature of protests across Libya, the UK was quick to abandon Gaddafi and expunge any vestiges of cooperation between the two countries. William Hague UK foreign secretary scurried to announce Gaddafi‘s exit to Venezuela and that the UK was looking to a post-Gaddafi era. Nonetheless, the enigmatic Gaddafi whom the British nurtured and protected dug in his heels and decided to fight. Outraged by Gaddafi's defiance the British mobilized Western countries and the UN to use force to remove him power-the unofficial goal of military intervention.
The story hitherto is reminiscence of the lives of several other brutal dictators that the colonial powers brought to power, armed to the teeth, watched as their protégé oppressed the ummah and when the time came ditched them like a disposal tissue. Saddam, Suharto, Musharraf, Mubarak and Ben Ali are just some of the names that come to immediate recollection.
West's unrepentant treachery is not limited to their agents-it is far worse in both scope and magnitude when applied to the Muslim world. For the past eighty odd years, the West has ignored the plight of the Muslim masses, denied them the same values they espouse for their own citizens and turned a blind eye the tyranny of the Arab and Muslim rulers. The callousness of Western duplicity has reached new heights which humanity is not accustomed to. Where is the West's moral compass and human rights standards when Israel slaughters Palestinians at will, Russia covers up the killing fields in Chechnya, India desecrates the daily lives of the Kashmiris and China routinely carries out extra-judicial killings of Muslims in East Turkestan? The crimes of these states dwarf what Gaddafi has committed, but West is muzzled in its criticism. Then there is bitter tyranny of the Saudi and Syrian regime against its people, the savagery of the Bahraini monarchy and the cruelty of Yemeni government. This selective application of western values has left an ineffaceable impression on the Muslim masses about the West's true intentions.
Nevertheless, despite West's colonial suppression of Muslim masses and years of propping-up dictatorial regimes a silver lining is fast emerging that makes uncomfortable reading for both the West and their agent despots. In a recent poll, he University of Maryland surveyed Muslims in Indonesia, as well as Egypt, Pakistan and Morocco, and found that 77% agree to unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state. The quest for the return of the Caliphate is no more a dream, but a reality that is shaping the contours of current thinking regarding alternative political systems for both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In an IBD/TIPP poll, 61% of Americans believe that the establishment of the Caliphate is likely in the next 10 years. The West through its own handiwork has already lost the Muslim masses and now the inner power circles of other loyal agents to Western powers must be teetering on who to support next. The choice is a simple one- the very same colonial powers that someday will intervene and hound them out of power or the e-establishment of the Caliphate that will make them heroes overnight and guarantee their survival in this world and the hereafter.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اسْتَجِيبُوا لِلَّهِ وَلِلرَّسُولِ إِذَا دَعَاكُمْ لِمَا يُحْيِيكُمْ ۖ وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَحُولُ بَيْنَ الْمَرْءِ وَقَلْبِهِ وَأَنَّهُ إِلَيْهِ تُحْشَرُونَ
"O you who believe, answer (the call of) Allah and His Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life, and know that Allah intervenes between a person and his heart, and that to Him you shall be gathered."
(Al-Anfal, 8:24)
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EVENT
SATURDAY 26TH MARCH
AT 7PM
OD
