Hizb ut tahrir days
OP - October 12, 2017, 10:53 PM
So on request by QSE i am going to give a lillte more detailed version of my HT days. I may not guve some details if i feel it may give too much info on my identy but here goes. P.S fake names used
So when I was a practicing muslim i hung out with some guys at my local mosque that went school with me who where kinda salafies at around 13, thats when i started practicing cause at first i just wanted spirtual help with my psychological/life issues, and one saturday one of them called Mo asked to come with him to saturday talks by the local Salafist group AB (fake name) which where mainly focused on private matters, they where non political relative to others.
At first these talks where good but down the line the hardline spritual ideas where too unrealistic and some points like ps4 being a sign of the antichrist or that i should not consider my nonmuslim friends to be real friends where getting stupid for me so I stoped going but met Mo and others outside of this anyway.
One day when i was coming back form a school trip i got a message from Mo saying he meet these two brothers at the mosque and they where givine out of this world speeches to them, Mo and the others around then stopped going AB as it was getting a little boring and they had venue issues ect. He said to come along the next time........so i did.
The first time I met these two brothers Ahmed and Atif (both late 20s at time) they seamed kinda kl and more human in their interactions with us, the AB guys and especially their main brother was very strict,,,no smile,,,no talk outside of islam (in hyne sight he seamed more open to guys he knew and prob had social issues just like me that where made worse by his strict adherance to a salafist lifestyle) and liked things liked things like ps4 and music.
They talked more about poltical and relatable topics like how we could islamicly get a gf if we followed courtship rules or about how praying all day did not win the islamic world for us ect. After our first two meets with them it was ramadan so we taged along with these two to a Resturant where we met some other brothers who where HT members as well (fyi i was unaware this bros where HT and due to me living under a rock, due to my parents, i had no idea they where islamists but Mo and his mates new as they restared going AB at the same time as with HT) and it felt I was making friends with a real group of people that seemed all right.
After that less of Mos friends stared to turn up to the talks when Ahmed and Atiff started asking us hard questions about world and UK poltics and islam/god and due to AB influeansse and a lack of challenging dogma already in Mo and his mates they started to stop coming and I was the only one hocked that was left.
So I began talking to Ahmed alot more via messages/calls and meet ups and he invited me along to his house along with friday talks held by HT. At his house we got to know each other better and due to our shared history with abusive partents and asshole human beings we started to turst each other and open up to each other. He was the first person in a long time that I had a two way relationship that even now I miss, and may have helped me open up to more people now.
He seamed to also talk to me in a way when I did something wrong that did not feel judgmental, like when i told him a hit my father in the face and black eyed him trying to defend my self when he tryed to hit me. He still told be of for it but in a way that is kinda like a therapist. He also had a bad dad so hes been there.
At that time I found out the group was called HT and did my home work on it which Ahmed liked as he said it showed I was a "Thinker" but said to come to them if I had any worries. After then I stared the process of indoctrination and at first it seamed all fine but the moral issues I had with thing that where immoral kept buging me and only Ahmed seamed to get me to belive it. I remember once a guy who said some mysoganistic part of islam and Ahmed said the same thing but made it sound moral and made me feel better about it and said the other guy was an idiot.
Around this time I was getting to Know more about Ahmed and his relationship/engadgement to a bride he met in abroad and the issues it came with such as her being non-bengali his parents exsepting and getting her over here to the UK and him falling in love with her. I also then started to see the more partisan aspect of the HT as i also started talking to a brother named Sam who was a 40ish man with kids he brought to the HT and he was a very sharp guy that i could not get a point past. He used to be a uni interviewer and higly educated and would allways show the flaw not only in the west/atheism/other religions but my devils advocated questions too, which where half tuths as always with these types. Only managed to stuff him once when I used philosophy rather than poltics or history and he could not answer.
Anyway he and Ahmed (who i agreed with more) had many diffenerent views like Ahmed said to just do the minimum when it came to my parents, where as Sam said to do the Maximum. Ahmed kept his relationship a secret from the HT from what he told me (only i knew) and when i mentioned it to Sam he was in shock as he used to have back and forths with Ahmed and said there where "Issues" with Ahmed that i never found out ( belive Ahmed was like me and questioned too much but unlike me was open about it and they may have sinced he was gona leave at some point, especially after his relationship which made him care about the duna the first time. One thing about Ahmed i liked was that he really belived his arguments and the after life but I think the last time I saw him his relationship and his years of being his own person even within the HT may mean he becomes a exmuslim one day) and said critasims of his relationship which i told Ahmed and he counter-pointed.
By this time I had for the last two years of A levels slowly lost faith which I told ahmed (tokd him i stopped praying) and he was kind kl with it then I expected and I started to see the HT and Islam for what it is. Man made bullshit with Half-truths here and there and people defending it for their own psychological reasons and physical benifits.
When I got to uni I finally desided that I was an Atheist and even if there was a God he ment nothing to me. I didnt confonfront Ahmed about this just kinda stopped talking to him and anyone else from the HT.
I walked right behind him last time I was in London and felt a little sad. I wanted to know what is happning in his life...hows his relationship going.does he really care for me or is it just for HT, does it hurt/miss him the way it hurts/miss me sometimes when I think about him. Can him or anyone form HT deal with the questiones I have for them and could I since iam not that good yet with debate.
Theres alot more in between that happned that a may talk about if people ask.
Topic: Hizb ut tahrir days