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| Fighting the War of Ideas: Myth and Reality |
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HT also defined the method by which it will achieve its objectives:
“He (i.e. the party) also arrived at the method which he must follow to achieve his objective. The method is based on the method used by the Messenger of Allah since he was chosen by God as a Messenger until he established the Islamic State in Madinah.”
HT believes that the method it has to follow must be based on the method and steps taken by Prophet Muhammad, which led him to create the first Islamic State in Madinah, thirteen years after his mission had begun. HT outlines the reason why its method should be political (page 9):
“And this group work must be a political work, and cannot be anything but political. That is because the establishment of the Caliphate, and the appointment of a Caliph is a political work, and because the ruling according to Allah's revelation is political as well, and cannot be anything but political.”
HT goes further in its argument to claim that any group that assumes any work besides the political work will not be able to achieve the objective of re-establishing the Caliphate.The party goes further to examine all the other differing methodologies which HT thinks should not be followed. Those include the charity oriented groups, the spiritual groups, educational groups, the militant groups that engage in preventing evil by force and groups calling for moral behaviour. HT explains how these differing methodologies are not suitable for achieving the objective of re-establishing the Caliphate.
In its literature and teachings, HT discusses at length the issue of violence and carrying arms against regimes which are not ruling according to the Shari'ah (laws) of Islam.The militant Islamic groups use a statement (Hadith) of Prophet Muhammad to justify the use of violence to create the necessary change. The statement was in response to a question posed by one of the companions of the Prophet, called Obadah Bin Samit, who asked "Shall we fight them (the rulers) with our swords?" The Prophet replied "No, unless you see them ruling you with laws other than those revealed by Allah". HT maintains that this Hadith does not apply to the current situation in the Muslim world. That is because the Hadith talks about an already existing Islamic State in which the ruling regime diverts the state from its Islamic status to a non-Islamic one. In other words, the Hadith talks about the potential use of force to preserve the Islamic ruling in an Islamic State. However, the current situation in the Muslim world is one in which the Islamic rulings are absent altogether.As such,the issue at hand is not to preserve an Islamic code,but rather to establish one from scratch.This case is more similar, in HT's opinion, to the case when Prophet Muhammad was in Makkah and was working to build an Islamic State. HT states (page 18)
“The Hizb is committed to the ruling of Shari'ah and to the steps taken by the Messenger to establish the state.”
The Prophet is known to have established the first Islamic State without using any form of violence or military action. When he was urged by some of his companions to use force against the infidels of Makkah, his response was “we are not ordered to fight back’” This case is depicted in the Qur'an (Chapter 4,Verse 77):
“Have you not turned your vision to those who were told to hold back their hands (from fight) but establish regular prayers and spend in regular Charity? When (at length) the order for fighting was issued to them, behold! a section of them feared men as - or even more than - they should have feared Allah”
To make the point absolutely clear, and to assert beyond a shadow of doubt that HT will not resort to the military option no matter what the conditions are, it states (page 23)
“Even though the Hizb is committed to his open, frank and challenging approach; he will constrain his activities to the political ones only. He will not resort to material actions against the rulers, or against anyone who stands in the face of its mission, or against anyone who seeks to harm the Hizb. This commitment is in line with the acts of the Messenger of Allah in Makkah being constrained only to verbal acts without using any material means during his struggle until he migrated to Madinah.When the people who pledged the allegiance to support him in Madinah asked his permission to fight his enemies in Makkah, he replied to them ‘We have not been permitted to fight yet"’Allah also asked him to be as patient as the Messengers before him when he is harmed;‘Messengers before you were rejected, and they remained patient when rejected and harmed until our victory came to them’ [Qur'an 6:34].”
The permission to fight and use military actions was revealed later in Madinah after the establishment of the state. Hence, the rules of fighting in Islam (Jihad) are associated with the state (the Caliphate) rather than with the method of establishing the Caliphate. HT believes that the Caliphate will define the rules of war and peace in light of the Islamic rulings of the political system and the foreign policies of the state. But that will be within the scope of the state rather than the scope of the Hizb and its methodology.
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