HIZB UT-TAHRIR IN AMERICA

That Hizb ut-Tahrir is a growing presence in the United States is evidenced by the group’s July 2009 conference, “The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam,” held in at a Hilton Hotel in the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, Illinois.  Conference topics included “Capitalism is Doomed to Fail,” “The Global Rise of Islam,” “Life under the Islamic Economic System,” and the “Role of

Muslims in America.”  The general manager of the hotel defended hosting the conference, saying “We’re United States citizens and an American business – if it’s legal, we’re able to host it, as long as it’s nothing that disrupts our other guests’ privacy and security.”364 The event had originally been scheduled to be held at the al-Aqsa Islamic school in Bridgeview, Illinois, but the school canceled the reservation after national media exposure of the event and Hizb ut- Tahrir’s ideology.365  Hizb ut-Tahrir faced similar difficulties as it attempted to find a Chicago-area venue for its 2010 conference.366  The future direction of Hizb ut-Tahrir in America may be seen in the experience of Britain, the Western country in which the group has the largest and most visible presence.  For instance, in the U.K., Hizb ut-Tahrir is now sufficiently well established that it has gone from recruiting students to actually teaching them in some of the country’s most prominent universities, including the London School of Economics.367 Based on the British experience, we should anticipate the infiltration of Hizb ut-Tahrir members into other key institutions besides academia. In keeping with the group’s methodology, HT members have been identified working in major U.K. media organizations and corporations.  In 2005, The Guardian newspaper hired Dilpazier Aslam, a Hizb ut-Tahrir member who used his position to write on the 7/7 London bombings and justify the terror attacks.368  An investigation by The Independent newspaper found Hizb ut-Tahrir members working for Reuters and a number of blue-chip companies.369

If the HT playbook in the U.K. is any guide, Hizb ut-Tahrir operatives will be working to penetrate the U.S. government, as well. Perhaps the most serious case of infiltration by Hizb ut-Tahrir in the United Kingdom involved Abid Javaid, who works for the Immigration and Nationality Directorate that is responsible for processing visa and asylum applications. An investigation by the BBC discovered Javaid’s leadership in the organization, prompting the Home Secretary John Reid to launch an inquiry into his ties to Hizb ut-Tahrir.370 Javaid retained his position, however, because the government said it was powerless to fire him since the government had not officially banned the organization.371

 

The claims by Hizb ut-Tahrir leaders in the West that their group’s aims are entirely peaceful are belied by their own publications and statements made by HT members in their more candid moments. This is what reporter James Brandon of the Christian Science Monitor discovered when he interviewed three Hizb ut-Tahrir activists in Amman, Jordan. One member explained

in frank terms the progressive stages to accomplish Islamic rule, culminating in violence directed at anyone opposing their program:

Islam obliges Muslims to possess power so that they can intimidate – I would not say terrorize – the enemies of Islam.  In the beginning, the caliphate would strengthen itself internally and it wouldn’t initiate jihad. But after that we would carry Islam as an intellectual call to all the world. And we will make people bordering the caliphate believe in Islam. Or if they refuse then we’ll ask them to be ruled by Islam. And if after all discussions and negotiations they still refuse, then the last resort will be a jihad to spread the spirit of Islam and the rule of Islam. This is done in the interests of all people to get them out of darkness and into light.372

 

Center for Security Policy TEAM B II,  “Shariah: The Threat To America” 2010, pages 204-105

364 Diane Macedo, “Islamic supremacist groups holds first U.S. conference,” Fox News, July 17, 2009.

365 Hoda Osman, “Extremist Islamic conference shut down,” CBS News, June 25, 2009.

366 Accessed August 28, 2010, http://thehizbuttahrirwatch.wordpress.com/category/newsabout-

hizb-ut-tahrir/hut-america/2010-conference-canceled

367 Sean O’Neill, “Senior Member of Extreme Islamist Group Hizb ut-Tahrir Teaches at LSE,” The Times, January 15, 2010.

368 Shiv Malik, “’Guardian’ Man Revealed as Hardline Islamist,” The Independent, July 15, 2005; “Background: The Guardian and Dilpazier Aslam,” The Guardian, July 22, 2005.

369 Shiv Malik, “How Militant Islamists Are Infiltrating Britain’s Top

Companies,” The Independent, September 11, 2005.

370 “Reid to examine extremist claims,” BBC, November 15, 2006.

371 James Slack and Gordon Rayner, “Extremist at the Home Office Will

Keep His Job,” Daily Mail, November 16, 2006.

372 James Brandon, “The Caliphate: One Nation, Under Allah, with 1.5

Billion Muslims,” Christian Science Monitor, May 10, 2006.