Hizb ut-Tahrir Debuts in Canada

Counterterrorismblog:

Hizb ut-Tahrir Debuts in Canada
By Madeleine Gruen

Later this month, the members of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Canada will host a conference in Mississauga to discuss the establishment of a Caliphate. The conference announcement acknowledges the presence of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Canada for the first time publicly; indicating that, like Hizb ut-Tahrir America (HTA), it may have recently transitioned into the second stage of its three-stage strategy. (For more on the method of Hizb ut-Tahrir, please see my previous article, linked here).

Branches of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) worldwide are hosting Khilafah conferences this month as part its "Rajab Campaign." Rajab, on the Islamic calendar, is the month of the fall of the Ottoman Empire; or, as HT views it, the anniversary month of the destruction of the Khilafah.

The announcement for the Mississauga conference refers to the hosts as "the members of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Canada" rather than as "Hizb ut-Tahrir Canada," a moniker that would be consistent with the names of the other HT branches around the world. Also, the venue for the conference is smaller than HTA's Chicago-area conference. HTA conference-goers filled the Grand Ballroom at the Oak Lawn Hilton for the full-day affair. The Canadian conference is booked in a lounge at the Mississauga Community Center for only two hours in the evening of July 31st. According to the center's web site, the Frank Bean Lounge (the room booked for the meeting) seats only 40 people. The HT conference organizers have described the meeting as an "open question session on issues of importance to the Ummah, including the re-establishment of Islam as a way of life, the role of the Khilafah Rashida, and the role of the Muslim community in Canada."

That the Canadian branch refers to itself as "Hizb ut-Tahrir in Canada" may signify that there are too few adherents to warrant the official title "Hizb ut-Tahrir Canada." Certainly, the scale of the Canada event shows that the group is far smaller and perhaps more loosely organized than the US-based branch. It may also mean that the Canadian branch may fall under the authority of a larger branch elsewhere; possibly even HTA.

Mohammad Malkawi, a resident of the US who acted as HTA's spokesperson to the media at Sunday's conference in Oak Lawn, and who delivered the keynote address, has traveled to Canada to deliver speeches at universities and at mosques in the province of Ontario. For example, in March 2007, Malkawi gave a speech titled "Islam & Contemporary World Affairs" at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo. Also in 2007, Malkawi delivered a lecture at a mosque in Hamilton. The content of these lectures were based entirely on the ideology of HT, although Malkawi did not openly acknowledge his affiliation with HTA at that time. These events, and others, likely indicate that Malkawi has an established relationship with the members of HT in Canada.

For more information about HTA, please see my article from the Jamestown Foundation.

For further background on HT, please see Zeyno Baran's research, linked here.