Abstract:
Hizb ut Tahrir (party of liberation) is a supranationally active islamist party that rejects the currently existing nation-states in the islamic world and their political systems.
The present study starts with giving an overview of the party’s origin, its relation to political violence and its attitude towards democracy. It then turns to Hizb ut Tahrir’s (HuT) main programmatic objective, the fusion of all muslim countries into a single islamic state, the caliphate. The main focus is on a draft constitution for the projected state written by Taqi ud-Din an-Nabhani, HuT’s founder. According to this draft, the caliphate is a state with clearly totalitarian traits ruled by a religiously legitimized dictator (the caliph). Its overall structure is designed towards the agressive expansion of Islam. Non-muslims are second class citizens, political terror against dissidents is considered an important business of the state.
Next, the study deals with the question how HuT acts in day-to-day political discourse in a specific country. Most interesting is the case of Lebanon, the only country in the Arab world where HuT can act legally (since 2006) and can thus advance its views without fear of repression. An analysis of party statements and some media appearances of Ahmad al-Qasas, speaker of HuT Lebanon, show that despite its dogmatism, HuT pays some pragmatic regards to political circumstances in the country. In his appearances in the Arab resp. Lebanese media, Ahmad al-Qasas on the one hand echoes HuT’s principles as they are laid down in the draft constitution. On the other hand, he makes some quite skilled efforts to convince his Lebanese audience of his political positions.