O Muslims of Pakistan!
This Rajab, 1428 AH, you face unprecedented losses and trials. You count your dead and frantically search for your missing after the siege of Lal Masjid. Fear descends upon you due to the lack of security, and even your army and police forces are not safe in the descent into lawlessness. You face ever-increasing economic hardships and even your most beloved possession, Islam, is the target of a strong western cultural campaign. The system of rule that has been imposed upon you has failed you, you despise your rulers and they despise you because of your loyalty to Islam.
In fact, this Rajab, not just in Pakistan, but also throughout the Islamic Lands, Muslims are counting their losses and suffering new trials. The colonial powers have fallen upon you throughout the Islamic Lands, in Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in Chechnya, in East Timor, in Gujarat, in Kashmir, in Palestine, in Somalia and in Iraq to name but a few. They have occupied your lands, slaughtered you in large numbers and dishonoured your mothers, sisters and daughters. The colonialists have even lined up one after another to attack your deen, desecrating the Qur’an and defaming the Final Prophet to Humankind, RasulAllah (saw).
O Muslims of Pakistan!
In this difficult time, we make our call to you during the haram month of Rajab, the month of Isra’a and Miraj of RasulAllah (saw). Indeed, this glorious event is a lesson of hope for you all. For at a most difficult time for the believers, Allah (swt) honoured RasulAllah (saw) by carrying him from Masjid al-Haram to Masjid Al-Aqsa and then taking him (saw) up to the highest levels of heaven. Thus, Allah (swt) raised the status of the believers and gave them a sign that the time of victory was near.
Indeed, soon afterwards, Allah (swt) changed the situation of the believers. Islam was established as a State in Madinah, beginning a new age in which the Muslims carried Islam to humankind, opening new lands to Islam. Thereafter, the Khilafah shielded the Ummah for centuries, unifying them as a single state and implementing Islam over them. The Khilafah’s economy was a shining example for the entire world and there was even a time when there was none needy of Zakah. The Khilafah’s universities were the favoured destination in the world for the princes and princesses of Europe. The Khilafah’s judiciary judged by all that Allah (swt) has revealed upon all of its citizens, regardless of their position or status.
The Khilafah provided peace and security for the Muslims, allowing them to live in harmony together as a single state, regardless of their language or race. The Khilafah even provided sanctuary for those who were persecuted because of their beliefs. The Khilafah State was the leading state in the world for over a thousand years. Its armies defended Muslims when they were attacked and carried the deen of Islam to lands such as the Indian Subcontinent. For hundreds of years of Islamic rule, before the British occupation, the Indian Subcontinent flourished in a manner unrivalled before or since by any non-Islamic rule.
O Muslims of Pakistan!
This Rajab, we wish you to identify the exact reason for your losses and trials, so that your despair turns into hope, your grieving into productive actions. The single reason is the absence of Islam as a rule, as a Khilafah State. For it was only after the fall of the Khilafah in Turkey, on 28 Rajab 1342, corresponding to 3rd March 1924, that the colonial nations who once cowered in fear before the Khilafah, now rejoiced as Mustafa Kamal established a secular state in its place. The British Foreign Secretary at the time, Lord Curzon, boasted in the British Parliament, “The point at issue is that Turkey has been destroyed and shall never rise again, because we have destroyed her spiritual power: the Caliphate (Khilafah) and Islam.” And it was only after the loss of your shield, the Khilafah, did the colonialists fell upon you in a way never seen before in the history of this Ummah.
It was only after the fall of the Khilafah on 28 Rajab, 86 years ago, that the influence of the colonialists now became firmly rooted throughout all of the Islamic Lands. The colonialists divided the lands of the Muslims, which have now been torn into over fifty pieces, and over each piece they appointed agent rulers in succession, whom they ordered and forbade and who in turn submitted to them completely until now.
It was only after the fall of the Khilafah that the colonialists granted the Zionists a state upon the blessed lands of Palestine, the lands of the Isra and Mi’raj of RasulAllah (saw). They provided them the means by which to maintain their occupation, which began with the neighbouring agent rulers as guarantors of Israel’s security. Furthermore, these rulers oversaw defeat at the hands of the Zionists in every war that broke out, such that they have now acquired an air of invincibility, which they neither deserve nor previously had ever enjoyed. And it was only after the fall of the Khilafah that the colonialists granted the Mushrikeen most of the Indian Subcontinent, even though the Muslims had liberated it from oppression and ruled it by the light of Islam for centuries. The colonialists further left Kashmir as a bleeding wound within the Islamic Ummah, by leaving Kashmir under Indian authority, even though the majority of Kashmir’s population was Muslim. Furthermore, in 1971 assisted by the belligerent Indian oppressors the colonialists oversaw a bloody division of Pakistan, which further divided and weakened the Muslims.
O Muslims of Pakistan!
It is a tragedy that you are weak before those who wish you harm, continually counting your losses and facing new trials even though Allah (swt) has blessed you with resources beyond those of the colonialists. The Islamic Ummah possesses lands and population beyond all of the major powers of today, including America. Indeed, Pakistan alone has approximately the combined land areas of both France and Britain and has the world's sixth largest population, larger than Russia, Britain and France. The Islamic Lands contain more than eighteen times more oil than the western countries. The combined armed forces of Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Morocco are over three million, more than twenty times larger than the American forces in Iraq, who cower before unarmed civilians. Indeed, Pakistan alone has the seventh largest military in the world, larger than any of the western European powers.
Without doubt, your weakness is not due to lack of resources, for you have been blessed by means that even the world’s major powers do not possess. The cause of your losses and trials is one reason and one reason alone, the absence of your shield, the Islamic Khilafah State. RasulAllah (saw) said,
“Indeed, the Imam (Khaleefah) is a shield, from behind whom you fight and by whom you are protected.” (Muslim)
So, remember this Rajab, 1428 AH, what you were deprived of. Let the realisation of that loss spur you to work for the re-establishment of the Khilafah.
O Muslims of Pakistan!
This Rajab, 1428AH, throughout the Islamic Lands, from Morocco to Indonesia, from Uzbekistan to Sudan, the youth of Hizb ut-Tahrir are mobilizing the Muslims to demand the immediate re-establishment of the Khilafah.
We call you to add your efforts to theirs, add your du’a to theirs, so that the work for the re-establishment of the Khilafah achieves its goal, by the permission of Allah (swt), Lord of the Worlds. We call you to take your share in the reward of the work to re-establish the Khilafah, whose return is promised by RasulAllah (saw) when he (saw) declared,
“Then there will be Khilafah on the Method of the Prophethood.” (Ahmed)
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Wilayah Pakistan
23 July 2007