Future Khilafah

Summary

A Hizb ut-Tahrir policy document, examined in a Coherence Academy video, sets out how a future caliphate would govern technology, from a centralized ICT authority to privacy rules and limits on AI in courts.

What it argues

1. Centralized ICT authorityPolitics

   A Department of Information and Communication Technology reports directly to the Khalifa. It oversees everything from military cyber operations to civilian apps, the video says. Tech policy is concentrated under the head of state rather than spread across agencies.

2. Tech dominance as religious dutyPolitics

   Citing Surah An-Nisa, the document treats total tech independence as a religious obligation. Coders and firewall monitors are cast as religious soldiers under Ar-Rabat, per the video. Cybersecurity and offensive hacking are framed as sanctioned religious duty, not just policy.

3. Digital borders enforcedPolitics

   Radio waves, airspace, telecom lines and satellite orbits are classified as public property, the video says. Citizens would connect abroad only through state-monitored portals, not an open internet. The framework replaces the borderless internet with a state-filtered gateway.

4. Debating Islam's basis for rulePolitics

   At a Siyar Institute book launch, Reza Pankhurst addressed the foundations of ruling in Islam. He framed his talk against Ali Abd al-Raziq's 1925 argument that Islam has no required political system. A separate, older debate over whether Islam mandates any specific form of governance is revisited.

5. Sovereign infrastructure demandedEconomics

   The document calls for domestic microchip manufacturing and proprietary operating systems built from scratch. It also demands independent programming languages and data centers kept within state borders. The policy seeks to cut reliance on foreign tech producers entirely.

6. Citizen privacy protectionsLaw & rulings

   Apps could access cameras or microphones only when explicitly activated, with no background collection. The state may surveil foreign enemies, spies and suspected hypocrites, but not ordinary citizens without judicial cause. Surveillance power is framed as targeted at threats, not the general public.

7. AI barred from judgingLaw & rulings

   AI may analyze crime data but cannot serve as judge, since rulings require human legal capacity and moral responsibility, the video says. Remote hearings must occur in a court-supervised space that extends judicial authority. Technology assists courts but cannot hold binding legal authority.

8. E-voting barred for KhalifaLaw & rulings

   Remote e-voting is allowed for local matters. Electing the Khalifa requires an in-person paper ballot to eliminate doubt about digital tampering, per the video. The highest political office is kept outside any digital voting system.

Open questions

• The Coherence Academy video closes by asking how strict, sovereign jurisprudence could govern a technology built to defy borders, without resolving it.
• Whether or how the tech policy document is formally adopted or enforced by Hizb ut-Tahrir beyond serving as a blueprint is not addressed.
• What Pankhurst's own position is on Abd al-Raziq's 1925 argument, and how it bears on the caliphate's technology framework, is not given in the available material.