Reports on Islamist opposition to democracy

In November 2009, the centre-right think tank Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) published a report titled "Hizb ut-Tahrir: Ideology and Strategy", authored by Houriya Ahmed and Hannah Stuart.

The full text is available free of charge here:

www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1257159197_1.pdf

Excerpts: "Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) is a revolutionary Islamist party that works to establish an expansionist super-state in Muslim-majority countries, unifying Muslims worldwide as one political bloc, or 'ummah'. [...] Inherent to HT's worldview is a clash between 'Western' and 'Islamic' civilisations. [...] Promoting democracy, for example, is seen as part of a Western conspiracy to weaken Islam. [...] HT actively seeks mass support for its Islamist revolution among Western Muslims. Party ideology commands them to oppose Western civilisation and to subvert their societies. All Western states are considered 'enemies' of Islam and potential land for HT's expansionist Islamist state via jihad. [...]

"Furthermore, the party denounces Muslim integration, forbids Muslims from voting in democratic elections and describes Muslims who call for human rights and democracy as apostates. [...] HT describes democracy as: '… (T)he political framework of the Capitalist thought…' [....] The party believes that Muslims who adopt democracy reject Allah as the sole legislator: 'For Muslims to adopt democracy means to disbelieve in all – may Allah forbid – the decisive evidences and conclusive evidences, (...) which oblige them to follow Allah and to reject any other law.' [...] Islam is a divinely-inspired political system and therefore superior to liberal democracy which is man-made."

Another CSC publication of possible interest in this context is "Virtual Caliphate: Islamic extremists and their websites" by James Brandon (January 2008).

The full text is available free of charge here:

www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1229624704_1.pdf

Excerpts: "Abu Hamza described democracy as un-Islamic because it allows mankind to make laws which are not based on the Quran. [...] The Islambase website contains audio recordings of several of al-Faisal's sermons given prior to his imprisonment. One recording, [...] contains denunciations of democracy as shirk (idolatry) [....] Abu Uthman [...] attacks democracy as 'man-made law' and [...] urged his audience to struggle against western influences and to actively reject modern-day corruption such as democracy [....] 'Voting in Democratic Elections: The Islamic Ruling concerning its participation' by 'Abu Osama' [...] says that democracy is un-Islamic and that it is not permissible for Muslims to take part in any aspects of the democratic process [....] Democracy: A religion [...] is one of the most important modern works on jihad. The book seeks to persuade the reader that a Muslim who believes in democracy thereby makes himself a 'kuffar' or unbeliever. Those who support the 'man-made' system of democracy, Maqdisi says, should be killed".