Yasir Qadhi on Hizbut Tahrir (My refutation in the description)
Yasir Qadhi makes two strawmen about
Hizbut Tahrir:
1. He believes that the Hizb does not understand the phases of the seerah.
2. He believes Hizb wants muslims all over the world to behave in exactly the same manner.
Both of these statements are wrong.
Anyone who seriously studied Hizb's ideas knows that the Hizb has derived an academically rigorous methodology from the
Seerah and applies its various stages/phases in its own struggle. Also, Hizb responds differently to different circumstances. In Non-Muslims countries, the Hizb explicitly says it is not working to establish Khilafah.
However, Yasir Qadhi's own opinions are based
on naivety. In that:
1. He notices the apparent differences in the circumstances of each land, and concludes that these are unrelated and independent situations.
2. He insists that the muslims of one land need not worry about muslims of other lands. And each region's muslims are independent and have to thus resort to a localized strategy independent of a global struggle.
Any serious student of politics would tell you, that the politics of the world is highly inter-connected. At the moment it is the superpower,
America, that directly affects the politics of
Muslim countries. And it has a plan to keep islam dead (i.e. away from politics) and it treats every muslim in any muslim country working for political islam an enemy, whether he is violent or non-violent. This and other materialistic considerations (such as competition for resources and dominance) affects the politics of each third world country including the muslim countries. They have been kept divided for the same reason.
Yasir Qadhi has completely gone against a number of ahadith of the
Prophet (saww) and ayahs of the Quran in insisting that we are now somehow independent small ummahs rather than being just one ummah.
Even though hadith says the ummah is one and it has to work to remain politically united and work with one vision. This does not mean that tactically different actions can not be performed in each region according to differing circumstances, but overall strategy should be interconnected and directed towards a unified political objective -- that of unifying muslim lands under islam and repelling foreign meddling in muslim's affairs.
Finally, what vision does he provide to the muslims of America to deal with the problems of the Ummah politically.
None whatsoever. His advice is: Just be like muslims of
Abyssinia (at the time of the Prophet (saww) and don't care much about
Egypt etc. Even though by his own logic, the US is not exactly like Abyssynia. It doesn't fit like *hand in glove* in his own words.
The difference is that the US is actively affecting the politics of the
Muslim world, unlike Negus of Abyssynia who was a friend to
Islam. Muslims in, say,
South Africa could treat that place like Abyssinia, not the muslims of the US. The Muslims of the US should actively challenge the foreign policies of the US in a way that helps the
Muslim lands to unite politically and can counter the invasions, propped up dictators, looting, plundering and conspiracies of the US.