As a postscript to Baybers’ recent post, here is a paragraph taken from a pamphlet produced by the Australian division of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) entited Education System in Islam [PDF]. This one paragraph provides a pretty good illustration of some of the points made in Baybers’ post. Hizb ut-Tahrir explain how things will work under their model of the Islamic state:
The Islamic State will have its own media department that will use every means possible to propagate Islam and the Islamic values throughout the world and refute all the lies and misconceptions that have been propagated by the disbelievers. All the latest technological and scientific means of communications, such as satellite, electronic mail, teleconferencing etc. will be tapped, used and explored by the State in its quest to educate the citizens of the Khilafah. Foreign media sources like BBC World Service, CNN, and Voice of America etc. that exist in the Muslim world to confuse, attack and divert Muslims from Islam will be banned.
If you like the sound of an authoritarian state determined to control the thinking of its population lest they become “confused” and “diverted” from state objectives, you will have to wait for HT’s utopia to arrive. Alternatively, if you are impatient, you could just move to North Korea.
16 comments ↓
Hahaha, gold. The Hizb really do crack me up. It’s like they were the only ones to have read Orwell’s 1984, and think “…good way to run a state, eh?”
This is all scary stuff… how do we weigh this up in regards to freedom of speech and also what some may believe is wrong islamically?
I don’t see how the state can possibly prevent people from coming into contact with different ideas and, even if they could, I don’t believe it is in their interests to do so. Imagine, for example, if the state was to ban BBC, CNN, VOA and, as one would the natural implication of HT’s policy, the internet (or entire sections of it). Do you think people would just lose interest in these broadcasters and their ideas, or would the attempt by the state to “protect” people from them make them all the more curious and all the more likely to see them out? Of course, if Islamists read John Stuart Mill they might know all this because these issues were dealt with in the West a very long time ago.
I’d say that war between ideologies are fought on four levels:
Ideological
Political
Intellectual
Military
The media will mainly come under Intellectual/Ideological war. The Islamic State will openly discuss and debate with the other prevalent ideas which exists and challenge them from the roots.
Banning the media or banning certain channel’s will be the decision of the khaleefah based on the information he receives about the media outlets and their nature of their purpose.
Lets talk about Australia; on the TV and on the radio, the media propaganda is totally against Islam and the Muslims, whether its to do with crime or speaking english or dress-code or praying or challenging the foreign policies of the Governments, all is questioned and all of the above has been made talk of the town. And the biggest reason why the Government seeks to do is to put the Muslims on the defensive so they do not question their foreign policies and also the general public gets themselves busy with discussing these trivial issues and stay well away from the issues which really a matter of concern. But hey, we do live in a country which offers freedom of speech but “as long as it agree western democratic thoughts”!
There are several fallacies in your argument Haroon
1. The media is hardly a monolith, even within one news organization there are several competing agendas. Muslims agree with liberal media such as fairfax press with regards to Australia’s mid east policy, but are more comfortable with the Australians social policy agenda
2. One does not wage war through media unless you are HT
3. The government does not need to put Muslims on the defensive so they won’t attack their foreign policy. That is a delusion. Muslims are 1% on the most marginal and least accepted voices in this country. The howard govt attacks muslims simply because it can. They don’t care what muslims say, its like worrying about offending an ant before you squish it
3. Ah yes the “little people concern themselves with trivial issues”, whilst you, the underestimated colossus is left to your unutterable grand designs. when will these little trivial people listen and understand your greatness? If only they knew
4. And yet in this country where there is no “freedom of speech”, you can post your child like observations wherever you like.
Thankyou Tobias! Well said.
Banning the media or banning certain channel’s will be the decision of the khaleefah…
‘Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!’
Thus State=God.
HT engage in the worst kind of shirk… Where does this supreme belief in the infallibility of the State come from? Man/woman’s justice is always an approximation, it can never even come close to the divine- so just acknowledge that. When it pretends to be- all controversy, dissent, variety in opinion, intepretation and intellectual curiosity suddenly silenced for its “divine” pronouncements.
Utopias then lead to dystopias like the Ayatollah’s Iran and hit squads like “prevention of vice and promotion of virtue.” *shudders*
The point which is being made here is that the media is trying very hard to demonise Islam and the Muslims.
Muslims in Australia do not agree with media such as Fairfax with regards to Australian’s mid-east policy! How did you came to that conclusion?
What’s wrong in expressing different opinions? Why are people worried soo much about people expressing opinions while at the same time silent about the atrocities being committed by the Australian Government foreign policies? We should see the imbalance in such state of affairs!
Not much political profoundness shown in this point. Its not a numbers game and even if Muslims are small in number, their presence cannot and should not be underestimated. It’s the ideology of Islam which Muslims carry which makes them strong.
Government’s, Australian or otherwise would not like to hear any sort of internal opposition to their foreign agendas specially from those who do not believe in their western democratic framework. I wish your comment about “its like worrying about offending an ant before you squish it” was as simple as you put it; The balance of power can change very quickly and if Australia and other countries treat the Muslims in an inhumane manner then this all will result in ramifications in the future. In other words when the Khilafah State gets established then it will seek to put those in account who committed injustices against the Muslims.
sooner or later…
Thanks for your sarcasm however what do you have to say about the sedition laws??
Sarah
What about kufr systems(in east and west) we live under?
are we suppose to live under the man-made system or system of the creator?
“What about kufr systems(in east and west) we live under? are we suppose to live under the man-made system or system of the creator? ”
Oh, br. haroon,
Re: the “kufr system” – I’d be interested as to which specific aspects of it you find particularly offensive?
As a Muslim, I much prefer the “kufr” system that Australia currently operates under than the kind of society the good folk at the Hizb headquarters are trying to manufacture.
I am certainly not referring to some aspects of the system we live under in the west. but rather I am referring to the idoelogy of western secular system itself. The basis of the secular society goes completely against the ideology of Islam.
We should not fall into the trap of comparing the situation in terms of the living standards of the western countries and compare that to the state of affairs in our home countries. The reason being that in the west people believe in separation of powers between the state and the religion and this the western system is build upon this basis. On the other hand in our countries the system the muslim believe ie Islam, is not implemented and thus the bad living standards which we all try to run away from. This distinction needs to be made before aforementioned conclusions are drawn.
Also what is wrong in the idea of Islam being implemented as a system of life again? I mean it was implemented for over 1300 years. The world civilisation benefitted from the Islamic civilisation only because Islam was implemented as a system. Its fair to say that justice and peace can only be achieved through the implementation of the system of the creator and never through the implementation of man-made systems no matter how much reforms are put into place! To substantiate my claims; just look at the situation of the world today and work out why such an imbalance exists amongst the people’s and countries and continents? ie 1st world countries, third world countries, unequal distribution of wealth and resources. Who is responsible for such man-made disasters?
Typical Hizbi tactic. For every one sentence another individual writes, another 100 are written in response, all of which are infused with non-sequiturs, warped philosophical stances and a totally ignorant view of history.
The principle problem is that the HT vision of the Islamic state is utopian. It promises to solve every problem and malaise facing the Muslim world today and is often argued using an idealistic and largely unrealistic picture of Muslim history. For example, the khalifate is held up as an alternative to monarchy and yet pretty much every khalifah from the time of Umar Abdul Aziz until the end of the Ottomans was essentially a monarchy where rule passed from father to son. It purports to solve an assortment of economic problems and yet the Ottomans were an economic basket case.
Furthermore, it seems to me that HT’s vision of a khalifah is itself very much a man-made system. Whilst the laws themselves may be Islamic in origin, the institutions that HT propose be established and the manner in which that state will conduct its affairs are very much the products of men. The Prophet Muhammad (saw), for example, never articulated a vision of a centrally planned economy.
Now as the French and Russian revolutions demonstrated, revolutions to impose some utopian new order on a society usually involve bloodshed and violence. The reason is that that systems, societies and states are organic and are the evolutionary products of history. The sort of massive change that HT espouse cannot possibly be realised in the Muslim world without revolution and, given that little emphasis is placed on reform of the individual, the first people to rebel against such a state are likely to be the Muslims themselves.
When did the Prophet (saw) ever say that it was the objective of Islam to equalise the distribution of wealth and resources througout the world? That’s an idea that has no pedigree whatsoever in Islam but betrays something of the socialist underpinnings of HT ideology.
Thanks for your comments. Unlike the majority I like to use the positive perspective of utopian. There is nothing wrong in being optimistic, is there?
We can ‘start ‘ to solve the problems by implementing the shariah of Allah(swt). The problems will not go away automatically until the muslims succeed in implementing Islam and then dealing with the problems by the shariah of Allah(swt).
I agree on the point of ‘khaleefah’s coming in power’ not through the bayah process. Indeed this was unislamic. However we cannot say that because of this matter the whole Islamic state structure was unislamic? An illustration for this is to evaluate the effect caused by the the leader of a country who comes into power through however does it mean that the entire system implemented in that country becomes invalidated? Surely not. The manipulation of power which was present in the history of Khilafat was there because the muslims became relaxed about such issues. If the muslims remain vigilant, then they will never allow anyone even the khaleefah to abuse his power!
Islam needs to be implemented on the land. If any Islamic movement performs ijtihad and propses a blueprint for the khilafah then nothing wrong with it. HT is not claiming their proposed blueprint for the khilafah to be the only valid one but rather it engages in Islamic discourse with other movements and scholars and concerned muslims. As long the proposed blueprint is based on the Islamic evidences ie ijtihad then there is nothing wrong with it.
The prophet (saw) spend his life after attaining prophethood in a struggle to implement Islam as a system. Does he(saw) needed to spell out his mission in such terms? I think we only need to look at his life from prophethood till he died to realise his mission what other conclusion can we draw other than to implement Islam and spread islam through dawah and jihad?
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