EGYPT - The MB/Hizb ut-Tahrir Doctrine.

Through men like Qutub, the MB and Hizb ut-Tahrir share the same doctrine. Both being Salafi organisations, they consider the essential message of Hanbali Sunnism to be an order (nizam) without equal, because it is revealed by God, which has a vocation to organise all aspects of human life: "Islam is dogma and worship, a fatherland and nationality, religion and state, spirituality and action, the Qur'an and the sword" (Banna). This order is valid for all men of all time and all countries.

The objective of the MB is to create an authentically Muslim state. The ideal, to be attained after many preparatory stages, is to restore a single universal Caliphate, a state which will embrace all the Muslim peoples. Until this is achieved, a plurality of states is permissible. The leader in each of such states is elected by the community and is responsible to it. The community acts through qualified elected representatives (the ahl al-shura) who elect the leader, have control over his acts and legislate in collaboration with him. Every person in authority is required to act in consultation with his subordinates; and it is the duty of every citizen to offer his advice (nasiha) to those in authority. The aim of this Islamic state is, internally, to see that the laws of Islam are properly observed and, externally, will present Islam to other nations, and to fight constantly (the jihad) - with arms if need be - for justice and the common good of humanity (al-amr bi'l-ma'ruf wal-nahy 'an il-munkar).

Likewise, Hizb Ut-Tahrir (HuT - Party of Liberation) has the overriding objective of uniting the entire Muslim world under a single Caliph (supreme theocratic leader). It is to revive a system which has not existed since the early decades of Islamic history. HuT freely operates in several European countries, with its largest membership in Britain. But HuT was banned in 2002 in Germany by Interior Minister Otto Schily, who accused it of "spreading violent propaganda and anti-Jewish agitation". (HuT has been seeking to overturn that ban in Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig, which reviews decisions by government ministries. Whether HuT succeeds or not, the case illustrates a vexing aspect of the struggle against Islamic terrorism in Europe. There are HuT and MB groups in Europe which see Osama Bin Laden as a hero, and support the jihad against Christians, Jews and Western civilisation. But HuT's members say they disapprove of Al-Qaeda and its methods, that their goals concern only Islamic countries, and that they are largely intellectuals who do not resort to violence and take care not to violate the laws of their host countries).

The originality of the MB lies not in its doctrine, many elements of which to be found in the preaching of Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani, but in the fact that its founder, by simplifying it and rendering it more strict, made it the ideological basis of a powerful popular formula - not only in Egypt but also in Syria and other Muslim countries.

The believer can know God only through the description which He has given of Himself in the Qur'an and through the words of his Prophet Mohammed. But the Muslim's faith is also ignited and nourished by the light thrown into his mind and his heart by the total commitment of his life to the service of Islam. In the same spirit, the MB is obliged to perform pious exercises based on the recital of the Qur'an with meditation (tadabbur) and to make an assiduous study of hadiths and of the model provided by the history of the beginnings of the Muslim community. Whatever the differences between them, all the professions of faith of the MB show the greatest mistrust of the traditional formulations of kalam, which they consider to be too much impregnated with the Greek spirit. Kalam is foreign to primitive Islam, whose speculations they accuse of having provoked in the past, and of encouraging at the present time, divisions and a sectarian spirit, which form an obstacle to the necessary unity of all Muslims - indispensable in their jihad against the foreign imperialists.

MB dedication to Islam has as its main objective the jihad against Western invasion in all its forms. Abroad first, it is necessary to fight until all the Muslim countries are freed from any foreign domination. Next, within Egypt, the MB had to re-Islamise Egyptian life in the many fields which had been impregnated by Western influence, now considered to be waning. These extended from social habits such as dress, greetings, the use of foreign languages, hours of work and of rest, the calendar, recreation, etc., to the educational, legal and political institutions, not to mention the field of ideas and sentiments. Matters related to the family and to the position of women were not neglected. There was a parallel movement - the Muslim Sisters.

One main point of the MB programme was the abolition of the Egyptian legal codes, based on European codes, and creation of legislations based on the Shari'a. The MB considered the question of the evolution of fiqh to be no longer relevant, since the society which is renewed and really living according to Islam ought to work out for itself a new system of legislation based on the principles provided by the Revelation, according to the new and unforeseeable problems which it encounters (S. Qutub).

The MB strove to work out a whole economic and social doctrine based on canonical ideas, such as the taxes provided for by the revealed law (zakat) and the prohibition of making profit from money (riba, i.e., usury), and in general reintegrating and adapting to modern needs the rules concerning economic and social life provided by the Qur'an, the Sunna and the edifying episodes in the history of the community.

Sayyid Qutub and Mustafa Al-Siba'i were the MB ideologues who mainly systematised this doctrine, defining an Islamic socialism (Ishtirakia Islamiya) which, while combining the advantages of capitalism and communism, differs radically from these two systems in both its nature and its aims. Private property is guaranteed as a right; but its possession is a social function delegated to the individual by the community, which holds these possessions from God - the only true owner (al-mulku lillah).

The state, acting as representative of the community, has the right and the duty to investigate the origin of the fortunes of individuals, to control their use and to deduct from them the portion due to the poor.

In addition to these principles, on which there was to be based a truly Muslim and social legislation, and policy, there are exacted the virtues of disinterestness, of mutual devotion and of brotherhood which, according to these writers, existed in Muslim countries before they were invaded by Western materialism, and which must now be taught again since they are the very ends towards which this Islamic regime is directed.

The ideas of the MB were, and still are, widely spread, even after the association officially disappeared, and they have today a great influence on Muslim literature in apologetics and in popular religion, particularly that written in Arabic. Prominent among Sayyid Qutub's works is "Al-'Adala Al-Ijtima'iyah Fil'Islam" (social justice in Islam - many editions since 1952).

Sayyid Qutub's Experience In USA: An incredible BBC documentary entitled "The Power of Nightmares" puts forward the premise that both international terrorists and the US neo-conservatives (neo-cons), such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and William Kristol, share a common enemy - liberalism and the societal rot which, they believe, inevitably follows in its wake. The series traces the beginning of the ideology behind the MB, which transformed a mild-mannered Egyptian doctor of aristocratic lineage, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, into the face of terror, as Osama Bin Laden's spiritual mentor. It starts with a visit by Sayyid Qutub to Colorado in 1949.

The America Qutub found was not to his liking. He condemned it as a place without a soul, where selfish individualism and greed for material possessions had trumped the good of the community.

Qutub was angered by the racism he encountered, the treatment of African Americans and was repelled by churches, describing them as "entertainment centres..." After fending off the advances of an intoxicated American woman aboard a ship, Qutub concluded that, while Americans believed they were free, they were regressing to an age of barbarity.

So outraged was he that Qutub vowed to fight the spread of this liberal disease to the shores of his own country. Upon his return, Qutub documented in his writings the various aspects of the argument that adoption of the Islamic law (Shari'a) will ultimately save Egypt from cultural, spiritual and political decadence. His works inspired the poor and disenfranchised.

Qutub was jailed, tortured and executed in 1966 for his anti-regime activities. By then his message had deeply affected Zawahiri, then a schoolboy, inspiring the latter to set up his own like-minded group. As an adult, Zawahiri was jailed as a co-conspirator in the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Al-Sadat, considered by the MB as too close to America.

It was during his incarceration that Zawahiri conceived a plan to change the face of the Middle East, armed with the book and the sword.