Earlier this year, Maajid Nawaz left Hizb ut-Tahrir, standing down as a senior member of its national executive committee. After years of involvement with the group including four years in an Egyptian jail for his membership of the Party, Maajid had come to reconsider his membership. He has started to publish online his ideological and theological objections in some detail, hoping that some within the Party will reconsider their positions and, perhaps more importantly, young Muslims are not recruited to this ideology in the first place. He has rejected the idea of banning the group but believes instead that their ideas, and more broadly those of Islamism, should be publicly challenged and refuted. As such this is less about Hizb ut-Tahrir and more about the kind of politics that British Muslims believe has faith-centred justification. 

Is it obligatory for Muslims to reestablish an Islamic state or caliphate? Indeed, is the whole notion of an 'Islamic state' a 20th century innovation? Where does the notion of 'sovereignty of God' come from (where God legislates, not man) and has it simply been created to justify dictatorship where self-appointed men rule on 'God's behalf'? Why has Islamism become the default Muslim political view on the world? What should Muslim politics really look like? How do we disentangle Islamism from Islam? Shouldn't our political attention be more focused on developing our communities, contributing to wider society, engaging in party politics, as well as using all the democratic means at our disposal to inform, campaign and lobby on the great issues affecting the Muslim world? How can our politics find the right balance between being British citizens and members of the umma? How can we move away from models of civilisational clashes where conflict and violence seem inevitable to articulating visions for a shared future, one in which global jihad and superpower unilateralism become irrelevant? Can we imagine a world without empire, real or wished for? 

Come and hear Maajid's story, and hear his reflections on Muslim politics, the first time it will be told in detail in front of a Muslim audience. 

Free entrance. All welcome.