Reza Pankhurst
Paperback, 360 pages
9781787389694

The inside history of a durable pan-Islamist movement focussing on those who built the organisation.

Although Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an international pan-Islamic political party, regularly holds conferences from Jakarta to Ramallah attended by tens of thousands of people, little is known about the organisation, which was founded in 1953, beyond generalities and conjecture. Its members are repeatedly arrested in Russia, Central Asia, Turkey and across the Middle East, and since the Arab uprisings it has emerged as an influential political actor in Tunisia, has a growing profile in Egypt, and is making a visible impact in the Syrian revolution. It is also paradoxically often dismissed as inconsequential despite its call for the implementation of Islam and the establishment of a universal caliphate across the Muslim world. Hizb-ut-Tahrir: The Untold History of the Liberation Party uncovers the history of the global Islamic political party, based upon a diverse array of archival research, internal documents, multiple interviews and other sources to build an authoritative account of the party as told from inside and out. From coup attempts in Jordan, sending delegations to meet Sadat, al-Gaddafi and Khomeini, and the execution of hundreds of its members in Libya and Iraq, Pankhurst’s book blends political, intellectual and personal history, moving from global, regional and local perspectives.