Islamic group coming to Hamilton has manifesto calling for ‘jihad’

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An Islamic group facing a withering reception to plans for a conference dedicated to overthrowing governments to start a Muslim caliphate has issued a rare media statement denying it poses a security risk, and accusing critics of creating fake news.

The organization’s own materials, however, including a detailed manifesto, bluntly outline the group’s starkly anti-democratic, totalitarian, misogynistic, intractably monotheistic, militantly antisemitic worldview, where unprovoked jihad is a routine duty, Islamic law is paramount, and Israel must be exterminated — not even “a square inch” of the Jewish state can exist without constant war.

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Their goal, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s manifesto says, is to ensure “Islam encapsulates the world.”

Unnamed officials of Hizb ut Tahrir Canada, a branch of a strict international organization that is banned in several countries, issued a stern denial their conference poses a threat after a public outcry to its planned resurrection of their Khilafah Conference, a meeting that was abruptly cancelled last year after its sister organization was declared a terrorist entity in Britain.

“Hizb ut Tahrir categorically rejects the use of violence or material means in its methodology. The accusations linking the party to terrorism, extremism and violent activities are fabrications aimed at tarnishing its reputation,” said the statement released Tuesday night.

“In light of the recent false accusations directed against Hizb ut Tahrir, it is necessary to clarify the truth and expose the baseless nature of these claims,” it said.

Their statement, however, seems at odds with the political organization’s internal guiding documents, and perhaps uses linguistic nuance and ambiguity to gain wiggle room.

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The planned Khilafah Conference, calling for a Muslim caliphate where everyone lives under Islamic Shariah law, was originally scheduled for Jan. 18 at a secret location in Mississauga, just west of Toronto, but over the weekend, after a backlash from city officials, it was rescheduled for a secret location in Hamilton.

Mississauga’s mayor, Carolyn Parrish, called Hizb ut Tahrir a “very extreme group” and said she was “relieved” they were heading 50 kilometres down the highway. Hamilton’s mayor, Andrea Horwath, was not as pleased, saying the event “has raised significant concerns for me and our community,” and led her to contact police.

Hamilton police said they are assessing the situation.

“We are actively working with our intelligence partners and the City of Hamilton to address this development and are closely monitoring social media for updates,” said Const. Adam Kimber, a Hamilton police spokesman. “We want to reaffirm that hate has no place in our community.”

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On Wednesday, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Holocaust education and human rights advocacy organization, added its voice to calls from Jewish organizations for Hizb ut-Tahrir to be added to Canada’s list of designated terrorist entities.

“This organization speaks to the extremism and radicalization that are becoming increasingly visible and toxic to Canadian society, posing a serious threat to our shared values and public safety through its hateful rhetoric and incitement,” said Michael Levitt, the centre’s president. “Hizb ut-Tahrir’s public calls for the defeat of Western democracies and promotion of antisemitism and terrorism are deeply concerning.”

B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish service and advocacy organization, said it was working with governments at all levels to ensure the conference was cancelled, saying: “This conference is a platform for radicalization and hatred. Canadians must stand united against this assault on our values of tolerance and inclusion.”

Hizb ut Tahrir Canada, however, said they are not to be feared.

“Hizb ut Tahrir is an ideological and political party that works exclusively through intellectual and political struggle. Its sole objective is the resumption of the Islamic way of life through the re-establishment of the Khilafah (Caliphate) in the Muslim world on the method of the Prophethood, as obligated by the Quran and Sunnah,” their statement said.

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(Canada’s branch does not use a hyphen in its name and has not been designated a terrorist organization in Canada.)

Hizb ut Tahrir claimed that criticism is for the purpose of “distracting from its call to establish Islam as a comprehensive system of governance and mercy for humanity.”

The language and description in the public statement is significantly vaguer than the blunt words in the international group’s manifesto, designed to guide and govern members. It details beliefs and objectives over 41 pages, originally published in Arabic and translated by the group for its English-speaking members.

“Islam is the only correct ideology in the world,” the manifesto says. Muslims must return to living in “an Islamic society such that all of life’s affairs in society are administered according to the Shari’ah rules.”

It does not seem to imagine a peaceful transition.

“Jihad then is the fighting to raise the Word of Allah (swt) and to spread Islam, and it is a duty which has been established in the Qur’an and Sunnah,” the Hizb ut-Tahrir manifesto says.

“Jihad originally is fard kifayah (a collective duty to be fulfilled by a sufficient number of Muslims) but when the enemy attacks it becomes an individual duty for all Muslims. … If no one from the Muslims begins fighting in any period of time, all Muslims then would have committed a sin by leaving jihad. And therefore jihad is not a defensive war; it is in fact a war to raise the Word of Allah (swt), and it is compulsory originally in order to spread Islam and to carry its message even if the disbelievers did not attack us,” the manifesto says.

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Their worldview divides the globe into three categories: Muslim land, land of unbelievers, and land of war.

The relationship of their envisioned Muslim caliphate towards other nations — “in the East or the West,” it says — “is defined by the demands of jihad and the interests of Muslims and the Khilafah State according to the divine law.”

The party’s manifesto specifies that “colonial/imperialist nations like the United States, Britain and France” as well as “countries which have intentions on Muslim lands, like Russia,” are in a “potential war” with the caliphate.

Israel is singled out in the Hizb ut-Tahrir manifesto as a country considered an “actual warring nation,” where peace is never an option.

“As such, the basis of all relations are as if war is engaged between us and them, irrespective of the current situation whether one of war or cease-fire.

“If any of these nations occupies Islamic lands as Israel has occupied Palestine, then legally no peace can be established with her even if the occupied territory only exceeds a square inch, because she has become an aggressor by this act,” the manifesto says.

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“Islam then makes it imperative upon all Muslims to engage her in war and exterminate such a state and free the Muslim lands from her.”

Despite describing itself as a political party, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s view of governance is opposed to democracy, and life within its caliphate would be devoid of public debate where personal freedoms are forbidden.

“This democratic system is against the laws of Islam,” their manifesto says. The group rejects freedom of belief, freedom of speech, personal freedom, and freedom of ownership of capital; these “four common ‘freedoms’ are in conflict with the laws of Islam,” the manifesto says.

“The Muslim is not free in his opinion. His opinion is the opinion of Islam, and it is not allowed for a Muslim to have an opinion other than that of Islam… Personal freedom does not exist in Islam because a Muslim is not free in personal affairs, but he is rather restricted by the Islamic Law,” according to the interpretations of Hizb ut-Tahrir in its manifesto.

Women can join Hizb ut-Tahrir but are treated as second-class members: “The women’s circles in the Party are separate from the men’s circles. Women’s circles are supervised by either their husbands, relatives who they cannot marry or by other women.”

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In the caliphate, there can be only one leader, the caliph, and any challenger must back away or be killed, it says. The caliph is an authoritarian ruler with sole power to “enforce Islamic opinions in the State.”

Hizb ut-Tahrir’s aim, the manifesto says, is “to change the situation of the corrupt society so that it is transformed into an Islamic society” and return the Islamic world “to her previous might and glory such that she wrests the reins of initiative away from other states and nations, and returns to her rightful place as the first state in the world.”

There can be no individual Muslim-majority countries, according to the manifesto. All current Islamic nations must cast out their leaders and erase their borders to become a single entity, the party says, making it unpopular with governments in Muslim countries.

It is an expansionist ideology. Land can be taken by war, the manifesto says. Foreign relations is heavy on converting and taking, even by force. Once Muslim countries are unified in a caliphate, it “will then carry Islam to the world through invitation and jihad.”

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Not much of that policy was conveyed in the Hizb ut Tahrir Canada’s media statement.

“The party operates in adherence to the Islamic prohibition of violence in political work, relying instead on intellectual engagement and political struggle to build public opinion and bring about societal change,” the statement said.

Rashad Ali recognizes how the group thinks and speaks. He is a former leader of the Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain who now works in extremist deradicalization as a senior fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a counter-extremism think tank based in London, England.

Separating the beliefs of Hizb ut-Tahrir from violence is, Ali said, “a technicality in their minds rather than in reality.”

“They believe that actions may be allowed by their interpretation of Islam, but as a group they don’t do those actions,” he said. “But the language and rhetoric they use will highlight the reality of their views in an objective sense,” Ali said.

The Centre for Social Cohesion, a non-partisan British think tank, cautioned against Hizb ut-Tahrir in a 2009 report, saying that in the West, the group had learned to “disguise its intolerant ideology” and use “euphemistic language to hide its support for jihad, antisemitic beliefs and totalitarian system of governance.”

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While it did not consider the group a terrorist organization, it placed its ideology in the same spectrum as al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood and said the party’s ideology “legitimizes acts of terrorism.”

Questions over apparent disconnects between the Canadian group’s statement and the party’s manifesto went unanswered as of publication deadline.

Meanwhile, the conference listing on Eventbrite, an online ticketing portal, was recently deleted. A request to Eventbrite on whether the conference was kicked off the platform or quit was not answered prior to publication deadline.

An alternate ticket platform for non-profits is now distributing conference tickets, organized under the name “Hizb Canada.” 

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