Press Release
Miliband says: Sharia is OK but no to Khilafah! We say: Stop redefining Islam and interfering in Muslim lands

London UK, 27th January 2010 - British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said that Britain would do a deal in Afghanistan to salvage the disastrous occupation and can accept an Islamic "Shariah" Republic but never a Caliphate (Khilafah "Caliphate"). 

Interviewed on the BBC Sunday AM programme with Andrew Marr on 24^th January 2010, Mr Miliband was asked "...if all this ended with a Taliban government in Kabul committed to a Sharia caliphate state in Afghanistan, but without any al-Qaeda involvement ... that would be acceptable?" Miliband replied "No, but once you say 'caliphate' you're into al-Qaeda. Sharia is a different matter. It's the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. It will remain as such." 

Regarding his comments, Taji Mustafa, media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain said: "Miliband has highlighted the confusion in the West's foreign policy circles as well as more attempts to redefine Islam to conform to British colonial interests."
 
"The war on terror started with their confidence that they could bomb people into accepting liberal democracy. The British government had labelled belief in Shariah law or Khilafah "Caliphate" anywhere in the world as ‘extremism'."

"Now Miliband says Sharia within a republican system is okay, but Khilafah "Caliphate" is not!"
 
"When will they realise that it is no business of theirs to decide the system of government for the Muslim world? When will they realise that try as they might to divorce politics from Islam, Islam from governance, Shariah from Khilafah "Caliphate" - they will fail?

"When will they realise that Muslims can fully see that their main aims are simply to do anything to maintain some control and influence in Muslim lands?"
 
"In truth, the Shariah includes a ruling system, which is called the Khilafah "Caliphate". The Shariah demands that this Khilafah "Caliphate" would break out of the colonial hold that the West currently imposes on the Muslim world. There is no Shariah that is divorced from Islam's ruling, judicial, economic and social systems."

"Moreover, the Khilafah "Caliphate" is the only chance to bring stabilty and security to Afghanistan and Pakistan, a region plunged into chaos and bloodshed by Western intervention."
 
"Miliband is following Brown, Blair and Bush in the demonisation of Khilafah "Caliphate" in order to push more war propaganda, blaming Islam for problems that Britain and America have created and perpetuated."

"He has been forced to backtrack on the demands for a liberal secular Muslim world, but still tries to insist on a diluted Islam that will allow the Muslim world to remain under Western backed despots."
 
"But the Muslim world knows Islam, knows the Quran, knows the Sunnah and has had enough of Western interference - and the time has come for the West to not only get troops out, but to stop backing the tyrants in the region, and take their corrupt systems out of our countries; so Muslims replace them with the Khilafah "Caliphate", so badly needed."

 [Ends]

Hizb ut Tahrir Britain