Throughout August, the Islamic conference season in the UK, many Muslims attended conferences on a variety of subjects. Hizb ut-Tahrir’s (HT) Khilafah conference at Alexandra Palace, London was part of a global campaign to raise awareness for an Islamic state or Khilafah. Other conferences and gatherings were held in Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, Pakistan, Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Indonesia and Malaysia. These were part of a global call addressing the need for Khilafah in the Muslim world as a much needed alternative to the chaos, instability, political repression and economic exploitation that currently exists.

Speeches at the London conference explored the challenges faced by the Muslim Ummah in the pursuit of unity, and discussed how Islam through the restoration of the Khilafah in the Muslim world, far from being a cause of world chaos, today stands as the one solution that can bring stability and justice to the world.

Speakers addressed the high status of Khilafah in Islamic thought over fourteen centuries, Dr Nazreen Nawaz looked at the role of women in the Khilafah and Abu Shaker from Lebanon brought first hand experience of the growing strength of feeling for Shariah and Khilafah in the Islamic world, a belief that true change can only come from rebuilding the Islamic civilization, and not from narrow tradition or western liberalism. One session examined the details of some of Islam’s specific solutions to the problems of poverty, governance, sectarianism, minorities and international relations and Dr Abdul Wahid, Chairman of Hizb ut- Tahrir Britain, outlined how the Muslim community in Britain can move forward to meet the many challenges that face the muslim community and how they can contribute to the global call for Khilafah. The packed out conference hall gave some idea as to how high the level of interest in political issues currently in the Muslim community in Britain.

But if conferences are a measure of interest in a subject, then Hizb ut- Tahrir’s London conference was dwarfed by its sister conference in the Gelora Bung Karno stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia one week later on the 12th August.

This drew an audience of 100,000 people to the 10th largest football stadium in the world. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, is often portrayed in the western media as a more secular, and less Islamic country. Yet such a huge gathering shows that the calls for Shariah and Khilafah are enjoying huge popular support across the Islamic world, alhumdulillah.

In recent years, Khilafah is an issue that has been attacked by western politicians including George Bush, Tony Blair and Charles Clarke who famously said the return of Shariah and the re-establishment of the caliphate in the Muslim world is “non-negotiable”.

These politicians also tried to link this Islamic obligation with violence and ‘terrorism’. Yet opinion polls in recent years have shown very high levels of support for the Shariah and Khilafah in Muslim countries – unsurprising given the trust in Islam and the failure of alternative systems to take hold over the past 80 years since abolition of the last Khilafah.

The period of Arab nationalism, socialism, secular democracy and monarchies has been synonymous with an unprecedented period of degradation. Now, Islam has returned to the centre of the political debate after an absence of eight decades, it seems set to form the focus of a battle of ideas about the future governance of the Muslim world – the alternative to the tyranny and corruption that causes so much heartache for Muslims the world over.