Islamic Revival

The following is a translation from Arabic. بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ Protection of intellectual property: Its reality and its Shar'i rule The idea of protecting intellectual property arose in the shade of the capitalist ideology. The industrialist capitalist nations concluded the Paris agreement for the protection of intellectual property in 1883, and the Bern agreement of 1886. Following them were no less than twenty other agreements. Then the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) was founded to oversee these agreements and guard them. In 1995 the World Trade Organisation adopted the idea of protecting intellectual property and so WIPO became part of the WTO. Thus, the WTO stipulated to the states that wished to join it that they must comply with the protection of intellectual property and pass laws binding on their citizens so as to protect the intellectual property in their lands. The laws of protecting the intellectual property, which the states have passe

The following Q&A is based on a translation of an Arabic article taken from the website of the Ameer of Hizb ut-Tahrir, Sheikh Ata Ibn Khaleel Abu Al-Rishta. The original Arabic article can be viewed here. Background An Ethiopian official has announced that Ethiopia has decided to withdraw their armed forces from Somalia by the end of this year. This statement comes in the wake of substantially increased piracy activities in the Gulf of Aden along the Somali coastline during recent months, which has increased dramatically in the past few days with the hijacking of a Saudi tanker containing some two million barrels of crude oil onboard. At the same time, the media carried a statement by Abdullah Yousuf, the transitional President of Somalia wherein he said that Al-Shabaab - Mujahideen Youth Movement of Somalia controls most of the country and that they are on the verge of taking over the capital Mogadishu. Ethiopia, having suffered huge losses in Somalia is only grudgingly staying p

In the aftermath of Mumbai attacks, Pakistan has emerged as the new Bogeyman for the people living in the West. While Delhi has been blaming Pakistan for sponsoring a mass murder, a vicious campaign has been launched by the Western media against Pakistan. Accusations are also made by the US and her allies by condemning Pakistan in the context of the Mumbai attacks. And once again Pakistan is in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. And while this melodrama of Indian and western media continues, a very basic and simple question that a reasonable man would think of has never been answered: Why ISI or Pakistan based militant organisation would be interested in face saving of Indian army by murdering ATS chief Hemant Karkare, who had already exposed links between right wing Hindu groups and the Malegaon and Samjhuta express incidents, and was in middle of the investigation that was set to expose the secret links between the Hindu terrorists and Indian Army? A sinister game is being play

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم An open invitation to… The International Economic Conference organized by Hizb ut-Tahrir entitled: ‘Towards a safer and more peaceful world under the shade of the Islamic economic system’ Venue: Convention Center, Hall No 1, Burri, Khartoum, Sudan. Date: Saturday, Seventh of Muharram 1430 Al-Hijri ( 3rd January, 2009 CE) Time: 10am Khartoum time Conference topics include: • Capitalism is intrinsically flawed and crises are inevitable. • The emergence of the current economic crisis…its causes and effects. • The impact of the current crisis on the different regions of the world. • The inevitable failure of the current solutions for the global financial crisis. • Only the Islamic economic system of the Khilafah state is capable of establishing a just economic situation free from crises The conference will have presentations in multiple languages including Arabic, English, Urdu and French. Arabic Source

Britain throws more money at fighting Islam in the communities On 10/12/2008 Britain’s Home Secretary; Jacqui Smith said that the government's counter-terrorism strategy had to extend to challenging non-violent extremist groups that "skirt the fringes of the law ... to promote hate-filled ideologies". She urged local authorities and the police to tackle extremist groups that were targeting mosques and community centres to create the idea that being Muslim and being British were incompatible. She also announced that a further £13.8m would be made available to disrupt radicalisers, challenge the rhetoric of extremists and support vulnerable individuals locally. The failure of Britain and other western countries to prevent Muslims from turning to Islam comes as no surprise. The failure stems from the inability western liberalism to convince young Muslim minds that it has the capacity to provide cogent solutions for mankind. The spectacular collapse of the free market will on

One 2nd December 2008, Nazeer Naji wrote a column in Urdu, published in Jang which can be accessed at http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/dec2008-daily/02-12-2008/col3.htm . Though the article omits the mention of the very recent Mumbai attacks, it can’t go unnoticed that it has been written in the very backdrop of it. Not only is the context in which it is written around ‘terrorism’, but its title, body and the final conclusive remarks are all unambiguously about terrorism and that’s why I wonder whether this omission was deliberate or unintentional. The article first takes us back in history and while depicting what role institutional influences played in alienating the Bangladeshi people before 1971, the author equates the actions taken by the then Pakistani regime and Army to terrorism like we see it in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq today by the so-called Islamists. He goes even further and claims that the partition of East Pakistan was justified and done in the name of Islam and patrioti

I am writing this post in response to the scores of columns, editorials and op-eds which appeared in dailies across Pakistan regarding the recent attacks in Mumbai. While there were very few which tried to analyze the events and go beyond the Indian account of things, most of our writers were quick to pass judgments on supposed Pakistani involvement and sentence the perpetrators of those attacks. Frankly, while reading through all those articles, I too started feeling as if this is a closed chapter and the only thing left was to handcuff Pakistan, accept responsibility and hand out punishments to those Pakistanis who were involved and/or instigated the attacks. Externally, it was logical for countries to discuss whether the punishment should be in form of a fully fledged war or a surgical strike on Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities. In all this jingoistic mantra spelled out by the Indian media and embraced by their Pakistani counterparts, it was difficult to hold on for a second and thin