Taqiuddin al-Nabhani

Imam Taqiuddin al-Nabhani (Full transliterated name: Sheikh Muhammad Taqi al-Din bin Ibrahim bin Mustafah bin Ismail bin Yusuf al-Nabhani; Arabic: تقي الدين النبهاني‎; born in 1909 in Ijzim, Haifa and died December 20, 1977 in Beirut) was the founder of the Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir. He died aged 68 in 1977.

Taqiuddin al-Nabhani

Thought

Philosophy and Theology

Imam Nabhani in his books 'Thought' and 'System of Islam' placed heavy emphasis on discussing modes and models of the psychology behind human thought, and co brithis w it reaches the status of conviction or concepts. He discussed the internal working of thoughts, convictions, and concepts in shaping the Nafs or emotions and sentiments. Delving into the internal workings of how people reach conclusions and the psychology behind the process derives itself from Taqiuddin al-Nabhani's roots in Sufism from his first teacher and maternal grandfather Yusuf al-Nabhani.

Al-Nabhani's definitions of thought have been used in the study of Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, and information processing research discussed in the Addison-Wesley published book "Conceptual Structures: Information Processing in Mind and Machine (Systems Programming Series)" and used in London South Bank University's information systems department.

After many philosophical discussions on the nature of thoughts and emotions, Imam Nabhani concludes that the only way to bring about change is via discussion, refutation, and revival of the relevant thoughts and emotions. It is from this philosophical basis that he argued that force does not work to change people's ideas. He also argued that a decline in Muslim thought, emotions and concepts led to their decline and the eventual destruction of the Khilafah. He believed the first major step towards decline in the Muslims was confusion about, and dealing with new foreign ideas, mainly Greek, Persian and Eastern philosophy.

He argued the Islamic world did not know how to tackle and contextualise these ideas because they became insular, and complacent of preserving and keeping relevant their own Islamic thoughts or philosophy to a world in flux. The heavy emphasis on pinpointing, defining and changing peoples thoughts, convictions, or emotions, via stronger thoughts, diagnosis, and refutation of the process an individual uses to reach their particular 'incorrect' view, is the method of Hizb ut-Tahrir's argumentation on almost every issue.

Faith versus rational belief

Nabhani claimed that Islam is founded on rational belief and not blind faith, being very similar to Ghazali's Kalam Argument. However, both Nabhani and Ghazali argued that after belief (Aqeeda) is established, divine laws in the Quran are beyond question due to the 'essence' of God being beyond human comprehension. Nabhani loosely affirmed rationalism (not that of the Mu'tazili) but argued that it can establish belief in a God just like Ghazali and Ghazali's teacher al-Juwayni in his book, contrary to the common western notion of rationalism. He tried to outline materialist arguments and axioms to prove that one unlimited creator of the universe, God (Allah) can be proven by rational deduction. He believed that the dependency of, and limited physical nature of every tangible thing within human perception point ultimately to an unlimited creator that is beyond need and dependency, an Absolute Infinite.

Books

• Saving Palestine - 1950
• The Message of the Arabs - 1950
• The System for Society - 1950
• The Ruling System in Islam - 1953
• The Economic System In Islam - 1953
• The Social System in Islam -1953
• The Party Structure -1953
• The Concepts of Hizb ut-Tahrir - 1953
• The Islamic State - 1953
• The Islamic Personality (in three volumes) - 1960
• Political Concepts of Hizb ut-Tahrir - 1969
• Political View of Hizb ut-Tahrir - 1972
• Introduction to the Constitution or the Reasons That Make it Obligatory - 1963
• The Khilafah - 1967
• Presence of Mind - 1976
• A Burning Call to the Muslims from Hizb ut-Tahrir - 1965
• Thinking - 1973
• The Jurisprudence of Prayer

References

• Al-Waie magazine, issues 234-235, August/September 2006 (Arabic) [1]
• Biography [2]

• Watt, Montgomery (2004), The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazali (Translation of al-Munqid min al-Dalal), Oxford: OneWorld Publications 
• Nabhani, Taqi al-Din (2002), The System of Islam Nidham al-Islam, London: al-Khilafah Publications 
• Nabhani, Taqi al-Din (2004), Thought al-Tafkeer, London: al-Khilafah Publications 
• Nabhani, Taqi al-Din (2005), Islamic Personality al-Shaksiyyah al-Islamiyyah, London: al-Khilafah Publications