Press Release
Egypt Has Red Lines That Require Its Return to Islam, Its Law, and Its State; Which Protects It, Its People, and Their Wealth
(Translated)

Al-Quds Al-Arabi said on Saturday, 9 November 2024 that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) can be lenient with the Egyptian government in everything except increasing taxes, raising fuel prices, and reducing food subsidies for the poor. These are the three taboos, or red lines, that are not allowed to be crossed, in the so-called "economic reform program" that the IMF has set for the government's economic policy in Egypt to follow and adhere to in order to achieve the required accounting balance for the government's financial statements. On the basis of these three taboos, the IMF's $8 billion loan is being reviewed, after it was increased last March from only $3 billion, which had been agreed upon at the end of 2022.

These red lines set by the IMFfor the regime, are part of a project that aims to perpetuate Egypt’s dependence on the West and distance it from implementing Islam from the onset. Increasing taxes, raising fuel prices, and reducing support for basic commodities, particularly affects the poor and those with limited incomes, and exacerbates classism and widens the gap between the poor and the rich, in whose hands money is concentrated under capitalism and the monopoly of wealth. These policies, which impose the liberalization of the exchange rate, force the state to sell its companies and resources, and privatize the so-called public sector, originally aim to open the Egyptian markets to foreign capital at the expense of Egypt and its people after plundering its raw materials. These capitalist conditions and others, in their entirety, are contrary to Islam, which forbids collecting taxes from people and considers them to be levies that will lead to Hell for their perpetrators. This is according to the saying of the Prophet (saw): «صَاحِبُ الْمَكْسِ فِي النَّارِ»“One who wrongfully takes an extra tax (sahib maks) will enter Hellfire”. Islam also protects the citizens of its state, preserves their rights and properties. It guarantees their rights to public property by preventing its ownership or disposal in any way that does not guarantee its access to the people. The state’s duty is to produce wealth from its resources and redistribute it to all people equally, with no difference between rich and poor, Muslim and non-Muslim. This is in addition to the prohibition of usury, which involves the plundering of people’s money and the exploitation of their needs, hardships, and crises. On top of this, is the worthless paper currency that must be replaced by gold and silver or be a substitute for them, so that money has value in itself and is not a tool for stealing people’s efforts, wealth, and savings.

The solutions proposed by the IMFaim to deepen financial and economic dependence on the West and keep Egypt under the burden of debts that are impossible to repay and hinder any work to revive it. There is no solution for Egypt and no end to its crises as long as capitalism remains in power and as long as solutions are expected from it. Capitalism has no solutions in the first place, but rather all its solutions are deadly poison that people swallow against their will, and they are forced to taste its bitterness under the heavy stick of the regime. By Allah, if people had not had written provisions, they would have died of hunger under these policies and the poverty, starvation, ignorance and disease they bring upon them. Knowing the disease is the source of the cure, and Egypt’s disease is capitalism and its tools. The cure for it lies in uprooting it from its roots with all its tools, symbols and implementers, and distancing oneself from those international colonial institutions and their disastrous policies, and implementing Islam as Allah (swt) desires, under its state that implements it on the people and carries it to the world as a message of guidance and light. The state of the Khilafah Rashidah (Rightly-Guided Caliphate) on the method of the Prophethood. O Allah, hasten it and make Egypt its center and starting point and O Allah, make Egypt’s soldiers its supporters, Ameen.

[وَلَوْ أَنَّ أَهْلَ الْقُرَى آمَنُوا وَاتَّقَوْا لَفَتَحْنَا عَلَيْهِم بَرَكَاتٍ مِّنَ السَّمَاءِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَلَكِن كَذَّبُوا فَأَخَذْنَاهُم بِمَا كَانُوا يَكْسِبُونَ]

“Had the people of those societies been faithful and mindful ˹of Allah˺, We would have overwhelmed them with blessings from heaven and earth. But they disbelieved, so We seized them for what they used to commit” [Al-A’raf: 96].

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Egypt