This is a guest post by Amjad Khan, a former activist with Hizb ut-Tahrir in Pakistan
Being a little a bored and in the mood for a good chuckle, I decided to visit Hizb ut Tahrir’s website. As usual, I wasn’t disappointed. It seems HT has issued an open letter to the Ulema (religious scholars) of Pakistan. Yes, that’s right, a bunch of computing and engineering students from second-rate British universities want to teach Islam to the esteemed Ulema of Pakistan. The full letter can be read here. I want to respond to some of its more comical aspects.
O Ulema of the Muslims in Pakistan! You have seen with your own eyes and you continue to see what has happened and is still happening to the Muslims in Pakistan; heinous crimes, violation of the sanctity of Muslim blood in Peshawar, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Multan, killing of women and children, the elderly and young people without discrimination, killing in the markets, universities and mosques and relentless bombings by the drones of the kafir Americans against the Muslims in Waziristan, where houses are collapsed upon the heads of their residents, day and night.
Yes the vast majority of these ‘heinous crimes’ are being committed by your bedfellows, the Taliban. Remember them, the ones to whom you wanted to pledge allegiance when they came to power in Afghanistan but who knocked you back.
These heinous crimes are alien to the values and morals of the Muslims in Pakistan. The Muslims in Pakistan are known purely by their deen and for the purity of their souls and good hearts. They are as far from these evil acts as the earth is from the stars, and their Taqwa (piety) prevents them from committing such heinous crimes, and their noble history attests to this.
Does that ‘noble history’ include the public silence over the massacre and rape of millions of their fellow citizens in East Pakistan in 1971? Or the fact that Pakistan’s army armed and trained of terrorists in Kashmir and Afghanistan with public support? Or maybe the brutal suppression of Palestinian refugees in Jordan. What about Pakistan’s ingloriously low ranking in the Corruption Perceptions Index? What taqwa and what noble history is this? Gosh you really are becoming politicians aren’t you!
The reality of the demons and devils who commit these crimes has become clear to anyone who has eyes. It is no longer a secret from anyone. It is the kafir Americans, the murderers of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia and other Muslim countries, with their American mercenary killer companies, Xe Services LLC (formerly known as Blackwater) and others – that are perpetrators of these heinous crimes. It is no longer a secret to anyone that they organize and plan these crimes and are standing behind them. The people saw them with their own eyes, more than once, as they roam the streets of Islamabad and Lahore, sometimes in cars with blacked out windows, at other times with forged local license plates. They have been seen wearing local style clothes in a bid to conceal themselves. The police have arrested them, more than once, in some of these cars, but then the US Embassy intervened and its agent Zardari government ordered their immediate release.
Oh that’s right, it’s not the Taliban who commit these crimes, it’s those damn Americans again. And the evidence for that is… oh yes, you don’t have any. As usual, not a shred. Things don’t become true just because you want them to brothers. Are you just going to ignore the fact that numerous Taliban members have been caught and killed whilst actually taking part in acts of terrorism and the Taliban have proudly claimed responsibility for the attacks? Many others have been arrested with suicide vests, grenades, bomb making manuals whilst still more have been caught on CCTV.
But no it was all just Americans.
O Ulema in Pakistan! Indeed, the treachery of Zardari and the other American agents in government and their plotting against the blood of Muslims and their sanctities is exposed
Really! And what about the treachery of al-Qaida who have killed thousands of Muslims around the world? What about the treachery of the Taliban who kill religious minorities, persecute women and behead those that disagree with them? Not to mention your stated desire to conquer the world through aggressive jihad killing millions of Muslims along the way.
It gets worse.
indeed, the Hukm Shar’i that is upon you is issuing a Fatwa to expel the kafir Americans from these pure Muslim lands and to uproot the traitors who brought them, Zardari and his government.
O Ulema in Pakistan! America is an open, hostile, kafir enemy of Muslims. The Americans plot against Muslims day and night, and they will not be pleased with the Muslims, no matter how many concessions they are granted regarding the sanctities of Muslims.
So the engineers and computer science graduates of Derby and Luton Universities are telling the Ulema what the ‘Hukm Shar’i’ (legal judgment) is! Their arrogance and self-righteousness knows no bounds. Since when did Zardari bring the Americans in? They were there before him. And what are ‘pure Muslim lands’? What is so pure about Afghanistan and Pakistan? From my experience they could more accurately be described as shit-holes where crime, domestic violence and corruption are rife.
O Ulema of the Muslims in Pakistan! The suffering of the Muslims today in Pakistan and other Muslim countries, the occupation of the Muslim lands, the violation of the sanctities, the assault upon the honour, the looting of wealth and resources, and the hardship in all Muslim countries; these and all other afflictions suffered by the Muslims are the result of the absence of the Islamic state, the Islamic Khilafah, and the absence of the Khaleefah.
And we end with the usual predictable nonsense about the Khilafah (Caliphate) being the solution for everything. Yes, the same Khilafah that massacred one million Armenians. That denied Jewish and Christian minorities equal rights. That colluded with European powers when Muslims were being kicked out of Spain. The same corrupt Khilafah system that led the world in slavery and concubinage whilst more than holding its own in the racism and fratricide stakes.
Needless to say, the HT yobs could do with very basic lessons on history, politics and international relations. Some basic Islamic studies classes wouldn’t go amiss either.
Still, life would not be the same without their comically deluded open letters.
