HT in Oz: Foolishness on both sides

As I write this, Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT) has just held a conference here in Australia. Now for those of you not in the know, HT is an Islamist organization founded in 1953 with the goal of establishing a global caliphate. The theme of the conference was “The Struggle for Islam in the West”, keeping in with the group’s dualistic world view.

Predictably, the newspapers became ablaze. The site of the conference itself saw a picket by the Australian Protectionist Party, a xenophobic anti-immigration group. Wherever one turns, headlines scream of assaults on democracy (which HT has called for Muslims to reject) and ‘western culture/values’ in general.

What a circus. HT claims to act in the best interest of Muslims, but their methodology raises more questions than answers. For a start, how exactly do they plan to get ‘back’ former Muslim territories like Spain, as they desire? What will the non-Muslim inhabitants make of it? And how about the Shi’a? How will they be a part of the caliphate?

And they believe in a War on Islam – nobody is denying that Muslims so often bear the brunt of persecution in today’s world, but this self-indulgent luxuriation in paranoid “WAHHH the whole world is against us” conspiracy theories is simply obscene. It achieves absolutely nothing except perpetuate a hopeless victim mentality and further entrench the Huntingtonian concept of a “Clash of Civilizations” which has already been the source of so much pain and suffering in the world. People are complaining of being treated as a faceless, monolithic entity, but are all too happy to return the favour. Ya Allah, do they think that the Prophet s.a.w was sent to further divide humanity? Such an approach is good for nothing but the creation of fitna.

The opposing side is definitely not free from blame either. They go on pontificating about their sacred “democracy” and proclaim secular fatwas against those who offer even the slightest hint of criticism. So they say that democracy should be defended from Islam? If by “democracy”, one means the ability of the common people to have their voices heard by government, then this is absolutely compatible with Islam. In fact, one could even argue that throughout history, Islamic societies have done a much better job of this than their Occidental counterparts. But if by “democracy”, one means the specific institutions developed in Western contexts, it is nothing more than ideologically-motivated hubris to suggest that a particular system of governance is superior, has been superior, and will always be superior regardless of time, place and circumstance.

Both parties suffer from a bad case of cart-before-the-horse syndrome. If you want to change society for the better, purify your heart first! If this is not done, then even the most “perfect” external structure will be nothing but an empty shell. Why are people so obsessed with their ambitions in the dunya? This world is meant to be used for the benefit of the akhirah, not the other way around. You want to "save" Islam? Oh brother, sister, Islam is not a thing which is for "saving", and certainly not by the dabblings of politicians - don't you even have enough iman to realize that God's victory is assured already? He is the Greatest, the best of planners. Just follow the shari'ah and the tariqah, and everything else will come natually.

I am reminded of a sohba I attended last week when the sheikhs talked about how Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi (q) used the example of a flute to illustrate the relationship between the external and internal realities of things. Now, there is the flute as a piece of wood, and the flute as a thing which, by the interaction of its physical, external form with an inner quality, allows for the creation of music as the air flows through it. If we apply this analogy here, I daresay we are caught between two sets of musicless flutes which incidentally deny the validity of all other wind instruments.