Hizb ut-Tahrir: Dreaming of Caliphate

Abstract

Against the background of turmoil in Muslim majority countries that began with escalation of the Palestine and Israel conflict, and the processes of the decolonization and internal collisions between Arabic states, the appearance of Islamic movement like Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) struggling for own version of justice was not unexpected.1 However, in a world where the conjunction of religion and politics was long ago dismissed as regressive, the ideas of a new movement claiming to be a political party, but obstinately fighting for an Islamic Caliphate on the Prophet’s model, was definitely unusual. The Party persistently spreads this message among Muslims on the global level, while rejecting cooperation with other Islamic movements, and perhaps has never been so popular as it is now. It is the particular focus of close attention by security services and social and political institutions in Central Asia, where Hizb ut-Tahrir attained wide popularity since the collapse of the Soviet system. Yet, Hizb ut-Tahrir gained less international attention than other fundamentalist Islamic movements and often research on this Party is rather controversial, oscillating between labelling it as a ‘terrorist’ or a ‘peaceful’ group. In this regard, this chapter attempts to provide more insights into the history and ideology of Hizb ut-Tahrir and the position it takes on violence.