منذ أواسط القرن الثاني عشر الهجري (الثامن عشر الميلادي) والعالم الإسلامي ينحدر عن المستوى اللائق به انحداراً سريعاً، ويهبط إلى هوة الانحطاط هبوطاً فظيعاً. وبالرغم من قيام محاولات عديدة لإنهاضه، أو الحيلولة دون استمرار انحداره، لم تنجح ولا محاولة واحدة من هذه المحاولات، وظل العالم الإسلامي يبخبط في دياجير الفوضى والانحطاط، ولا يزال يعاني آلام هذا التأخر والاضطراب.
أما سبب انحطاطه فيرجع إلى شيء واحد، هو الضعف الشديد الذي طرأ على الأذهان في فهم الإسلام.
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 1914 in Ijzim, Haifa and died December 20, 1977 in Beirut) was the founder of the Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir. He died aged 63 in 1977.
Nabhani in his books 'Thought' and 'System of Islam' placed heavy emphasis on discussing modes and models of the psychology behind human thought, and concepts. He defined the thought process, and how 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 & 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, 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 peoples' ideas. He also argued that a decline in the Muslims' thought, emotions and concepts led to their decline & 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 & eastern philosophy.
He argued the Islamic World didn't know how to tackle & contextualise these ideas because they became insular, and complacent of preserving & 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.