[Le Monde Diplomatique-France ] Jean-Pierre Filiu - Ten thousand Palestinians demonstrated in the streets of Ramallah last August, calling for "a return to the caliphate." They had been mobilized by Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Islamic Party of Liberation or HT), which has gained strength since the quarrels between Hamas and Fatah diminished popular support for them. Its influence is extending across the West Bank: it has militants on university campuses who encourage students to abandon the nationalist cause in favor of a return to the caliphate. The movement was founded in 1952 by a Palestinian sheikh, Taqiuddin Nabahani, who advocated the return to an Islamic federation under an Arab caliph, as had existed from the death of Muhammad in 632 until 1258. Hizb ut-Tahrir calls itself HT in Britain, where it runs a huge and legal propaganda campaign. With a tradition of support for the caliphate on the Indian sub-continent, the party found support among the UK's immigrant Indo-Pakistani communities. Remarkably, HT members of Bangladeshi origin are re-exporting this militant tradition from Britain to Bangladesh.
2008-06-05 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive