On the 90th anniversary of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the vast Islamic Caliphate regime which fell in 1921 after WWI, thousands of members of the Radical Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir rallied on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. They called for Muslims to unite and embrace the Caliphate rulership once more.
The rally took place in early July. Demonstrators flew banners bearing inscriptions such as “The Ummah (Muslims) Want Muslim Caliphates.” A giant banner was put up in the Al Aksa mosque courtyard on the Temple Mount. Other banners said “No to Democracy, Yes to Caliphates". The crowd controller, using a microphone, soon had the crowd chanting over and over, “O Muslim armies, awaken to help Muslims.”
The Hizb ut-Tahrir (‘Party of Liberation’) website calls for the Muslim armies to forcefully lift the Gaza IDF naval blockade with military action, making it serve “as a tight noose” around Israel.
Caliphates were a totalitarian system of Muslim government established by Mohammed, who made himself the first Caliph, reigning until 632 C.E. The Caliph was a religious and political leader, who made the Koran's prescriptions, now developed into the legal body known as Sharia law, the law of the land. The Ottoman Empire embraced the idea of a caliphate, and was governed this way until its dissolution.
The Islamic Party of Liberation is a radical Islamic group founded in 1953 in East Jerusalem under Jordanian rule. They are active in Judea and Samaria and in Jordan, with most of their power in the southern Hebron mountain region and in East Jerusalem, where the hard core activists pray in the Temple Mount mosques.
The organization has branches spread across the Arab and Islamic world (primarily Central and South-East Asia), with activity in Islamic communities in Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia.
The ‘Arab Spring’ upheavals seem to have put fresh wind in the sails of Hizb ut-Tahrir, now rallying and openly demanding Muslim unity under one caliphate government. A similar demonstration was held in Gaza, with more activity in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The leaders of Hizb ut-Tahrir see the new reality in the Middle East as the right time for the caliphate – as well as for the end of the State of Israel.
