Pakistan Today’s investigative features, and subsequent online HT response, prompt a unique participatory series regarding the organisation’s roots, mission and functioning in Pakistan
Friends familiar with intelligence matters speak of a line that does the rounds in Israel’s secret service Mossad, that when Muslims can boast Friday prayer numerical strength in Fajr (morning) prayers, the Islamic world would have become invincible.
The covert world, where these outfits operate, is often savagely double-edged, and the very tactics they are known to employ for national security purposes –surveillance, reconnaissance, spying, etc – can and do sometimes become their own vulnerable points.
And as Pakistan Today investigated alleged attempts at infiltrating important cadres of the military in the aftermath of Brig Ali’s arrest last year, for links with banned extremist organization Hizbut Tahrir, our findings were met with strong online rebuttal from HT loyalists, prompting this series of articles regarding the party’s working and main mission in Pakistan.
This is the first of a multi-part series in which arguments from online responses will also be accommodated. So the more HT affiliates partake in this exchange, the more they can air views in an environment they accuse of usurping their freedom of expression.
Caliphate coming full-circle
Despite its mid-‘50s roots in Palestine, when the immediate aftermath of the naqba (catastrophe of the Israeli invasion) provided fertile ground for movements envisioning the caliphate, HT is now headquartered in the UK. And even though it is banned across much of Europe, the Middle East and Asia, it continues to receive diplomatic safe haven from London.
The organisation dismisses democratic politics as well as free market capitalism, insisting on the system of caliphate as the only way forward for an integrated Islamic world, yet it remains suspiciously vague on specifics, especially its large funding base that enables operations in more than 40 countries.
Current British Prime Minister David Cameron repeatedly called for banning the organisation before coming to power, but has avoided the question since winning the election, raising more uncomfortable questions for the party. For example, how strange that the country (Great Britain) at the centre of the last caliphate’s demise (Ottoman) is presumably encouraging (and funding) a claim to reestablish the institution.
Sharia and subversion
In calling for an overthrow of the ruling elite, and encouraging the military officer corps to turn against its high command, HT officially advocates mutiny and subversion. According to Islamic principles as mentioned in the Quran (Surah al-Ma’idah), which HT proposes to establish as the cornerstone of jurisprudence in its caliphate model, subversion is to be accorded one of four punishments: i) death penalty, ii)crucifixion, iii)cutting off hands and feet from opposite ends, or iv) exile.
“The strong punishment is meant to discourage subversion against the state to the last stage possible,” says religious scholar Amanat Rasool, the main purpose being avoiding a state of civil conflict.
Yet according to information available online and in the press, such tactics are central to HT’s operating strategy, not a measure of last resort.
“It’s not their wish for establishing an Islamic way of governance that upsets governments,” most analysts told Pakistan Today. “It’s their method of dismissing competitive politics and instead advocating overthrow of governments and takeover of armies”.
In its sermons, HT has yet to explain its disregard for Quranic injunction by deliberately promoting subversion and treason.
The Brig Ali episode was the perfect example of an outside force trying to incapacitate a central institution of the state. And since HT’s influence comes from the outside, as no doubt does its funding, security agencies face an active threat of infiltration of the army from external forces. It is a potentially more potent threat than the TTP insurgency in the tribal area, say counterinsurgency (COIN) officials. It cannot be cordoned off and physically constrained. It influences minds, quietly infiltrates sensitive official and military cadres, and complicates the wider war against terrorism.