Our Open Challenge

The Quilliam Foundation openly challenges Islamist groups to public debates. Our first challenge is to Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), the group that influenced Syed Qutb in prison and is thus the ideological inspiration to al-Qaeda. While HT may disagree with Osama bin Laden's methods, they both aspire to the same end: the creation of a theocratic, expansionist dictatorship.

Our contention is that Hizb ut-Tahrir's Islamism is a post-colonial ideology, at odds with fourteen centuries of Muslim scholarship. As a 'political party' they draw much from the Bolsheviks and, like Stalin, they remain committed, in their literature, to the killing of millions of people to advance their ideology.

Islam, like other world faiths, is a religion, not a political ideology. As such, it makes no specific, monolithic prescription of an 'Islamic state', 'economic system', or 'foreign policy'. Hizb ut-Tahrir, and by extension al-Qaeda, have rejected mainstream Muslim tradition and are an aberration of global Muslim discourse. Their neo-Wahhabite Islamism is the backbone of jihadism, as illustrated by the history of Islamist movements in Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other countries.

We openly challenge Ata Abu Rishta, the current global leader of HT to debate with us in any country. We further challenge HT's Europe leader, also known as Osama, to respond to our invitation. As a last resort, we are willing to accept a response from our former comrades in HT Britain's leadership: Dr Nasim Ghani and/or Dr Abdul Wahid.