The following is a compilation of questions that were asked from Naveed Butt, the Official Spokesman of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Pakistan. If you have any question, please send it to [email protected]
Question by Abu al Mutasim from Alquds: You mentioned the influence of the public opinion in Pakistan, on the policy making in the country. My question is about the influence that the ideas of Hizb ut-Tahrir on the public opinion in Pakistan, especially on those who can affect the policy making decisions, and the army leaders, and the political parties (not only the Islamic). According to your evaluation, do we have enough signs to say that the first signs of having Khilafah in Pakistan; talking about the public opinion and the public awareness, on the Islamic Idea especially the importance of having Khilafah system, and for the trust on the leadership of Hizb ut-Tahrir to the Ummah?
Answer: Hizb ut-Tahrir's effect on the political medium could be gauged from the fact that Musharraf has come on national TV and asked the UK government to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir in UK. Musharraf has made numerous calls to stop people from distributing "hate" literature outside mosques. Nobody distributes literature except Hizb ut-Tahrir. Another thing you must keep in mind that Hizb ut-Tahrir has been active for just few years (seven) out of which the government banned us after three years since we had a large conference in Lahore, the cultural and political capital of Pakistan. Having said that we still need to improve and increase our effect to pressurize the government to change its policies. As far as the public opinion in Pakistan for Khilafah is concerned, A survey supported by the US Department of Homeland Security and conducted by the University of Maryland between December 2006 and February 2007, revealed that the majority of Muslims held a goal “to unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or Caliphate (Khilafah).” Over here people love Islam and the secular lot is a fringe group. However, there is still some confusion about the difference between Democracy and Khilafah. Hence this is the area that we are working on heavily, these days. The government here in Pakistan doesn't use brute force against everybody. It tries to use the Islamic groups as long as they are willing to join the system. The government also allows these Islamic groups to use some of the Islamic rhetoric as long as this not damaging to the system itself. People see these Islamic groups with a lot of skepticism. Hence they usually do not effect our support base as people are in general are clear that there is not much difference between them and other democratic parties.
Question by Nasir Al-Masaeed: Brother Naveed, Could you please brief us about the current situation in Pakistan especially the issues before the assassination of Bhutto. And how much is the acceptance of the idea of Al-Khilafah in Pakistan?
Answer: The situation here in Pakistan after the assassination of Bhutto has been further deteriorated through three other crises, wheat crisis, electricity crisis and gas crisis. It seems that the colonialists and their agents are trying their best to push Pakistan into chaos to weaken it and in the process try to gain more control or destroy our nuclear assets. As per your second question, the people of Pakistan are fed up with the current political parties whom they have tried and tested for the past sixty years. The people are dissatisfied from the current system and are already demanding a change in the system. They have also shown their desire for the implementation of Islam. However they are still not very clear as to what actually Islamic system or Khilafah entails. There is a significant number who still see democracy synonymous with election and consider it to be compatible with Islam. Generally apart for the secular elite the idea of Khilafah and unification is very easily accepted by the masses. Though there are usually questions from the Ummah as to how this objective be achieved but there is hardly a dispute whether we should go for Khilafah or not.
Question by AbdulRahman: Do you believe in a change in Pakistan, especially with the certainty that US controls Pakistan? Look at the trials of EU and its struggle over Pakistan, they failed to gain. What is your position comparing to these big players, we know that barely we can see Hizb ut-Tahrir in the scene?
Answer: Pakistan is ripe for the establishment of the Khilafah, as we have mentioned. EU can never bring change as what they are calling for collides with the aqeedah of the Muslims. This is also why America has grown weaker in its standing throughout the Muslim world. The time is now for the people of power to respond to the strong and growing public opinion for Khilafah. The only thing left is for us to persuade the people of power through mobilizing the Muslims in their demand for Khilafah.
Question by Jalal from UK: May Allah reward you and your brothers there. I would like to ask you about the Islamic groups there. In your latest press statement you mentioned that these groups are not doing the right actions. What do you advise them to do – step by step? Do you think they will be responsive to these demands or have they been taken over by the system?
Answer: First of all the Islamic parties must separate themselves from the current system and openly denounce democracy by declaring it a kufr system. They should call upon the government to implement Islam by establishing the Khilafah. Furthermore they should mobilize the masses for the cause of implementation of Islam by establishing the Khilafah. And also they should use their influence in the people of power and push them to provide nusra and support for the implementation of Islam. As for as being responsive is concerned it is in the knowledge of Allah (swt). Since our work here in Pakistan there has been at least two new parties, who have joined this struggle of establishing the Khilafah. Whereas Dr. Israr Ahmed had accepted this call long ago and their party is already calling for Khilafah.
Question by Abu Bahr from As-Sham: Is it right that US is having a full control over the nuclear weapons of Pakistan?
Answer: Brother, I don't think that they have a physical control over all the nuclear war heads. This could be seen from the anxiety regarding Pakistan's nuclear plans. Though they might be monitoring closely and using the Pak army to control it. They have definitely been able to slow down or even stop (according to some reports) the process of enrichment of uranium which is necessary to build more nuclear war heads. The most important thing for them is not to just control the existing nuclear war heads rather destroy the capability and nuclear infrastructure which Pakistan currently has. This is why this atmosphere of chaos in the country is absolutely important for them, which they can use to attack our nuclear facilities and blame it on the "extremist" or those engaged in Jihad.
Question by Khaled from The West: Dear Brother, a Lion, and Mujahid Naveed: About your announcement of calling Pakistanis for Jihad against the US if it will attack Wazeerstan, the proxy of the enemies are really fighting there on behalf of the US, and they are financed from US, do we wait to fight America until it will attack?
Answer: Our call for the Muslim armies to moblize and drive out the colonialist armies from the region is general. We are not calling Pak army to mobilize only if they attack Waziristan. We believe there is no difference between Kabul and Lahore, both are Muslim lands and they must be protected from the Kafir colonialist armies.
Question by Assyasy from Alquds: A great amount of the army and intelligence employees show support or empathy with the Mujahedeen and mislead the government with misleading data about there movements, although most the leaders are from the Arab origin and easily can be tracked. That means this weakens Musharraf in front of US. Are there any signs that US will replace Musharraf and appoint Kayani in his place?
Answer: Pakistan army and its secret services were trained and developed on the motto of "Jihad fi Sabil lillah". And their only foe was India. They were heavily involved in Afghan Jihad (during Soviet era) and then Jihad-e-Kashmir for about 2-3 decades. Musharraf tried to change their focus from Eastern borders to the western front against its own people. Hence there are still people amongst the secrete services and army officers who are not entirely comfortable with the course Pakistan is taking in fighting "war against Terrorism". Hence it is not like Uzbekistan where Karimov would find a lot of people who hate Islam and are willing to be his eyes and limbs to fight Islam. There had been incidents when 200-300 army personals surrendered as a whole, without firing a bullet. There is definitely a very strong faction developing within the army who does not support Musharraf. As per Kiyani replacing Musharraf, this currently seams unlikely. Rather Kiyani has shown his subservience to Musharraf and has strengthened him.
Question by Humam Ghanayem from Palestine Regarding the tribal issue: 1) What are the reasons? 2) What is its relation with the western colonialism in the neighboring Afghanistan? 3) Taliban of Pakistan, is it same movement as Afghan Taliban or separate movement? 4) What is the Sharii Hukm of the tribal struggle? 5) What is the practical way to finish it?
Answer: 1) There was no tribal problem pre 9-11. It was only created by the US to weaken Pakistan internally. 2) Obviously by engaging tribal Muslims within Pakistan would stop them from fighting the US armies in the Afghanistan. 3) The Pakistani Taliban is not a coherent organization rather it is only a label to the resistance. 4) There is great reward for the Muslims of the tribal areas in fighting the crusader occupiers. However, it does not remove the obligation from the Muslim soldiers who have the capability to fulfill the fard kifiyah of removing the occupation, but are chained by the current regime. Moreover, they are unleashed only to fight their own brothers. 5) The practical way to fight this occupation is to eradicate the current regime in Pakistan and establish the Khilafah, which will not only cut the flow of arms, petrol and food supplies to the crusader US armies but also mobilize its troops to liberate the area from foreign occupation.
Question: What do you say about the meeting between Musharraf and Barak in London was it planned or is it for the normalizing of the relations with Israel?
Answer: As far as the meeting of Musharraf and Barak is concerned definitely, it was planned and it is geared towards slowly desensitizing the Paksitani public opinion, which is highly against Israel. Paksitani officials has made statements in the past that why should be not talk with Israel, whilst we talk with the Indians with whom we have fought three wars.
Question: What is the future of Pakistan in the shades of the hate of the people to Musharraf?
Answer: Pakistan is very rapidly moving towards change. People have no hope from the old political leaderships and the low expected turn-out in the upcoming elections would be another proof of this disenchantment. The whole society is looking for a new leadership which is a perfect scenario for any political movement offering a radical change in the society. We are very hopeful that from the ashes of this system inshallah the spark of Khilafah will arise in a very short span of time.
Question: What is your advise to the Muslims outside Pakistan toward there rulers.
Answer: The Muslims outside Pakistan should continue to say the "Kalima of Haqq" at various forums. They should try to expose the tyranny of these Muslim rulers to the whole world. Also they should expose the covert and overt support of the colonialists to these dictators and despots so that the public opinion of the whole world move against this nexus. Muslims should account the politicians and influential people who go to foreign trips about their obligation to implement Islam.
Question by Muhammad: Could you please brief us about the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Pakistan? And the influence that the ideas of Hizb ut-Tahrir has on the life there?
Answer: As you know that the Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in Pakistan but Al-hamdulillah we are still able to do a lot of activity defying this ban. In the process the shabab run the risk of arrests and imprisonment. We do medium scale seminars, protest demos, presentations, dars in homes, press conferences with selected journalists, emailing, postering, stickering and leaflet distributions. Recently we have adopted a new style of mass SMS (short messaging services) to thousands of mobiles.