The Redhunter

Global Security, is, I think, pretty non-partisan. Here's what they have to say:

Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation) a radical Islamic political movement that seeks 'implementation of pure Islamic doctrine' and the creation of an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia. The group's aim is to resume the Islamic way of life and to convey the Islamic da'wah to the world. The ultimate goal of this secretive sectarian group is to unite the entire ummah, or Islamic world community, into a single caliphate. The aim is to bring the Muslims back to living an Islamic way of life in 'Dar al-Islam' [the land where the rules of Islam are being implemented, as opposed to the non-Islamic world] and in an Islamic society such that all life's affairs in society are administered according to the Shariah rules.

Its basic aim was struggle with infidels and the organization of a universal caliphate embracing all Islamic countries. This objective means bringing the Muslims back to living an Islamic way of life in Dar al-Islam and in an Islamic society such that all of life's affairs in society are administered according to the Shari'ah rules, and the viewpoint in it is the halal and the haram under the shade of the Islamic State, which is the Khilafah State...

The group - also known as the Islamic Party of Liberation - believes it can achieve its utopian Islamic state in three steps. The first involves educating Muslims about its philosophies and goals. In the second step, the Muslims would then spread these views among others in their countries, especially members of government, the military and other power centers. In the third and final step, Hizb ut-Tahrir believes its faithful will cause secular governments to crumble because loyalties will then lie solely with Islam - not nationalities, politics or ethnic identifications. At that point the group says a supreme Islamic leader, a Caliph like those of past centuries would rule all Muslims with both political and religious authority.

There's more, but you get the point. They are not bomb throwers, which keeps them off terrorist lists. Yet their end goal is a totalitarian state antithetical to all Western values.

It is just this sort of thing that Walid Phares and others have written so much about. The goal of the Sunni Jihadists is to recreate the caliphate of old and rule the entire world, or at least control it. They view all Arab governments with distain, with the Wahabists only tolerating the Saudi and other gulf state rulers as long as they fund their jihadist efforts.

Hizb ut-Tahrir (sometimes Hizb ut tahrir or Hizb-ut-Tahrir) has it's own website, and it's got both Arabic and English sections. There's also chat forums in both languages, and it all makes for very interesting reading. They make no bones about their opposition to both democracy and capitalism

The fact that the current existing states in the Islamic world are states of Kufr is evident and does not require explanation, for all of their constitutions do not consider the sins as crimes that entail punishment, and they adopt the systems and the rules of the capitalist democratic system and they effectively implement them in economy, education and all the aspects of life. These constitutions deem the sovereignty to belong to the people, not to Allah (swt), they recognise the international treaties that totally contradict Islam and they do not Islam as a intellectual leadership to the world.

Kufr/Kafr literally means "rejecter" or "ingrate," but is more defined as "a person who does not recognize God (Allah) or the prophethood of Muhammad (i.e., any non-Muslim) or who hides, denies, or covers the "truth"." In other words, an infidel or apostate.

The chat room is also quite illuminating, as well as depressing. Islam will take over the world, the United States and West is at war with Islam, Obama is just as bad as Bush and they aren't fooled, capitalism and democracy are evil, and of course armed resistance to the American occupiers of Iraq is good and just. Reform minded Muslims are roundly denounced.

A January 2006 MSNBC article profiles the group and gives us a bit of their background (h/t Always on Watch)

(The fall of the Turkish Caliphate in 1924) is what inspired the group most directly focused on the push for a new caliphate, Hizb ut-Tahrir, or Party of Liberation. The group, which claims to be active in 40 countries, began in 1953 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. But while the Brotherhood, which also favors a caliphate, embraced realpolitik, growing into a potent opposition force in Syria and Egypt, Hizb ut-Tahrir charted a more subversive path....

(Their desired) system includes a caliphate, revived after national governments are subverted by Hizb ut-Tahrir members working in their highest levels, according to the plan. Hizb ut-Tahrir members have been charged with planning such coups in Jordan and Egypt. Zeyno Baran, an analyst at the Washington-based Nixon Center who has written extensively on the group, said it could "usefully be thought of as a conveyor belt for terrorists."

The group has a rigid, cellular, secretive structure and a bookish set of beliefs describing its utopian vision for a future caliphate. Hizb ut-Tahrir insists it has renounced violence, a policy that differentiates it from groups such as Kaplan's motley band or the Chechen guerrillas who carried out the deadly 2004 siege at a primary school in Beslan, in southern Russia -- and who would seat a caliph in the northern Caucasus, according to Chechen guerrilla groups' Web sites.

The question to ask Muslims is not "are you in favor of terrorism," as almost all will say no. The question is "do you favor sharia law in the West" or "should Muslims in the West be allowed to govern themselves by sharia law?" If you get any equivocation at all, they're a problem. If they say "no", they're on the good side and are to be welcomed.

Is Hizb ut-Tahrir a Threat?

No doubt it's tempting to write these people off small potatoes. We on the right are often enough accused of a "War on Islam" or "Islamophobia" by those who wish to ignore the truth.

I think these folks are a problem, and not just because of this one organization. If it was just Hizb ut-Tahrir then no problem, and after all there are kookly Christian groups and all manner of militia groups throughout the U.S..

But with Islam the problem is unfortunately quite widespread. The Muslim Brotherhood, the Wahabists from Saudi Arabia, and for that matter Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), all want to introduce sharia law into the West. The problem is worse in Europe than in the United States, but a threat here to be sure.

As Walid Phares likes to point out, the sad fact is that most Westerners remain woefully uneducated about the Jihad, how widespread it is and who is involved, and it's objectives. Now is not the post for a full dissertation, as details can be found on this blog by scrolling through the Book Reviews, Creeping Sharia, Islam, and Jihadism and the War of Ideas sections under "Categories" at right.

Of course there are good Muslims, who are secular and reject Jihad. The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is one, and yesterday they issued a press release denouncing Hizb ut-Tahrir. In the release they also point out that the silence of groups like CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in not "condemning the ideologies of Hizb ut-Tahrir and their agenda of insurgency in America speaks volumes to their own, albeit, more camouflaged Islamist agenda." The AIFD is one group that gets it, but I've profiled others too.

As for the Hizb ut-Tahrir, look to see who denounces them and who won't. That will tell you everything you need to know about them as well.