Can doctrinal Islam not always seek to "Conquer the world"??

Here is a story on captured Jihadists in Syria being interviewed.  ( I saw this from Dr. White's tweet and link to it, "Hard times ahead for our brothers and sisters in Syria".)  You should read the article and watch the video.  The beginning of the video was confusing to me without context, but the article makes it more organized.

Not all Muslims believe this application of Islam, but this does seem to be the expression of real doctrinal and consistent Islam from Muhammad and the early centuries of Islamic history.  The news reporter seemed like he did not know what with do with the Muslims who were kind of friendly and smiling and open and yet expressed that to follow real Islam, they will make war with Christians and give them the choice of surrendering and paying the Jiziye or the Muslims will fight you to the death, after they take back Israel and Spain and Portugal.

We hope not, but it does honestly seem that the "Arab Spring" and the take-down of dictators like Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Muammar Qaddafi of Libya - could eventually result in some kind of Islamist State that seeks to get back to the way Muhammad and the Caliphate carried out aggressive war after 621/622 AD and applied Islamic Law in their lands for centuries.

Caliph is translated from the Arabic word khalifa (خليفة - khalīfah) meaning "successor" (of Muhammad), "viceroy", "substitute", "lieutenant-leader". 

The periods of the Islamic Caliphate - 632 AD - 1924 (after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and World War 1)

1.  Rashidun Caliphate  - The first four "rightly guided" Caliphs - Abu Bakr, Omar (or Umar), Uthman, and Ali - 632-661 AD)  All Salafi and Wahabi (movement named after the basic philosophy behind the state of Saudi Arabia) and Jihadist movements seek to return the Muslim world to the period of Muhammad after the Hegira (622-632 AD) and the Rashidun Caliphate.   "Salaf" means the "pioneer - leaders of old"; it means Muhammad and his companions and successors and the third generation of successors.  It usually does not include the Ummayid Caliphate, as far as I can tell.

2.   the Ummayid Caliphate (661-750 AD).  (headquartered in Damascus, Syria)

3.  the Abbasid Caliphate, (750 - 1258 AD)  Based in Baghdad.  Within the Abbasid period, the Fatimids gained power in North Africa and Egypt and the Hijaz (Mecca and Medina).  (see below)

4.  The Fatimid Caliphate.  (909 - 1171 AD) was an Ismaili Shiite movement that covered mostly N. Africa and Egypt, until the defeat of the Crusaders by Saladin.

5.  The Mamluk period.   They fought the Mongols and drove the Crusaders out of the land of Israel/Palestine.  They are not technically a "Caliphate" period.  (1250-1517)

6.  The Ottoman Empire Caliphate.  (1517-1924)

The Muslims interviewed in the video were very candid and seemed relaxed in saying that a non-Muslim must convert to Islam, or if they are a Christian (or Jew), they must pay the Jiziye tax with willing submission, being humiliated.  This is clear in the Qur'an Surah 9:29 and many Hadith - see one classic Hadith below, and one on the law of apostasy.

Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.  Surah 9:29 

Hadith - Sahih Al Bukhari Volume 9, Book 84, Number 59:  Narrated Abu Huraira:
When the Prophet died and Abu Bakr became his successor and some of the Arabs reverted to disbelief, 'Umar said, "O Abu Bakr! How can you fight these people although Allah's Apostle said, 'I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah, 'and whoever said, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah', Allah will save his property and his life from me, unless (he does something for which he receives legal punishment) justly, and his account will be with Allah?' "Abu Bakr said, "By Allah! I will fight whoever differentiates between prayers and Zakat as Zakat is the right to be taken from property (according to Allah's Orders). By Allah! If they refused to pay me even a kid they used to pay to Allah's Apostle, I would fight with them for withholding it." 'Umar said, "By Allah: It was nothing, but I noticed that Allah opened Abu Bakr's chest towards the decision to fight, therefore I realized that his decision was right." 

The Law of Apostasy in Islam - death - based on this Hadith

Sahih Al Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57:  Narrated 'Ikrima:
Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to 'Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn 'Abbas who said, "If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah's Apostle forbade it, saying, 'Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire).' I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Apostle, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'"

The historical reality seems to be, that there has never been much of any other kind of political Islam except either the Caliphate Empires or Dictatorships.  (except for modern Turkey and some other farther east countries like Indonesia) There does not seem to be a "middle ground" of a secular/democratic Muslim country that is not a dictatorship.  (What western liberals seem to think is possible.)   What is there by example between the Islamic Caliphate/Sharia Law/no freedom of religion or speech vs. the secular/Arab nationalists Dictators like Saddam Hussein, Moammar Qaddafi, Gamel Abdul Nasser/Anwar Sedat/Hosni Mubarak or authoritarian monarchies like Saudi Arabia in the Muslim world, except maybe secular Turkey since Mustapha Kemal Ataturk and far Asian countries like Indonesia?

Paul Bilal Williams, the British convert to Islam who looks down his nose in arrogance at all Christians who believe the Bible is true; at his own blog, states that the restoration of the Caliphate is obligatory for true Muslims and he gives a whole page on why he supports the Hizb ut Tahrir in England.  (no longer there, Williams has changed his blog twice (?) in 2014-2015. )

"The Khilafah (or ‘Caliphate’) is an obligation for Muslims and something we took for granted for well over a thousand years, much like the obligation of Salah (prayer) and fasting today which, al-hamdulillah, are not open to discussion and debate."  Paul Bilal Williams

Most of my last comments were banned from commenting on his blog, so I have given up trying to comment or reason with him there.  He couldn't handle me calling him out as inconsistent for not debating Dr. White and saying the reason is because he is a "fundamentalist"; but at the same time, he was debating Chris Green who believes pretty much the same things that I and Dr. White believe on issues of the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, and the inerrancy of Scripture.   Paul Williams thinks I am a "Fundamentalist Christian" like James White and Chris Green.  I asked him a while back, before being banned, if he wants the Caliphate to be brought to England, he said no, that the purpose of Hizb e Tahrir is to restore the Caliphate in Muslim lands.

I guess my question is, then why does Paul and the Hizb e Tahrir operate in England?  Why don't they go to a Muslim country and work to restore the Caliphate there? 

After quoting a Hadith(you can look it up there at his site), Williams writes:

"This hadith holds a meaning that is especially reflective of our times, for in the last hundred years this noble Ummah has witnessed the destruction of her State and with that, due to the colonization of her lands by the colonialists, the crushing tidal wave of Western culture. Western culture completely engulfed her to the point of suffocation. It turned black into white and white into black. Never did the Ummah encounter such cultural strangulation, which left her bewildered and confused about the most basic and rudimentary tenets of her Deen."

Williams and Hizb-ut-Tahrir blame the downfall of the Khalifate on colonialism, but it was Mustapha Kemal Ataturk of Turkey who abolished the Khalifate in 1924.  Ataturk was a secularist but from a Muslim culture.  And the Ottoman Empire was justly punished for siding with Kaiser Wilhelm and Germany in World War I (1914-1917).  The breakup of the Ottoman Empire and Khalifate was the Muslims doing, not the west.  The west just came in and filled the vacuum left by the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the desire for the Arabs to be free from their Turkish masters.

 He gives a link to Hizb-Ut-Tahrir and says it does not work to re-establish the Khalifah here in the west.  But it honestly does seem to be part of the agenda, if one reads the articles and subjects that Paul writes on and emphasizes.  It honestly seems that they want the west to fall from within because of secular liberalism/socialism/homosexual/abortion/pornographic/materialistic culture, and then the Muslims will be happy to fill the vacuum that left-wing liberalism/secular anti-Christian and pro-homosexual culture is creating.

"Hizb-Ut-Tahrir is a global Islamic political party working to re-establish the Khilafah in the Muslim world. It does this by a political and intellectual method, following the example of the prophet Muhammad (upon whom be peace). Hizb-Ut-Tahrir does not work to re-establish the Khilafah here in the West. It also works to preserve and protect the values of Muslims in the West, and carry a correct understanding of Islam to non-Muslim society."

I am glad they state that they are not working to re-establish the Khalifah in the west, but the statement "It also works to preserve and protect the values of Muslims in the West" is by nature contradictory to that; because in order to have all of consistent and doctrinal and Sharia law Islam all the way in the west would be to seek to destroy western freedom of speech(insults to Islam and Muhammad are forbidden), freedom of religion (apostasy from Islam is punishable by death); and separation of church/ religion/Mosque and state are contradictions in Islam, and free market capitalism (Zakat and Islamic finance law are by nature contradictory to free market capitalism and banking systems in the west.)  Some Muslim articles and speeches offer Islamic law as a moral alternative to the homosexual agenda in the west that the church is failing to fight; and offering Islamic "justice and equality" by the Zakat and Islamic finance instead of, what Islam sees western capitalism is - a kind of greedy, self-interest, Ayn Rand-type capitalism, materialism, and secularism.

If you want to understand the hizb-ut-Tahrir's agenda for seeking to re-establish the Khalifate, see here, where they answer some questions.  It seems clear that if the Khalifate is re-established, they will eventually attack Israel(see the question on how they will deal with Israel.)   Not all questions that westerners have are asked there, and some of the answers need a lot more details, but if someone understands doctrinal Islam from all the Islamic sources - Qur'an, Hadith, Tafsirs, Sira literature, Tarikh (history of Islam by Al Tabari) and the subsequent history of how Islam actually carried out it's agenda of spreading Islam, it seems obvious that if they establish the Khalifate in a part of the Muslim world and then work out from it by Da'awa and then Jihad, they will seek to take back all lands that used to be Islamic - especially Spain and Portugal (Al Andalous) and Israel, and then declare Jihads against the west, atheist Russia, pagan Hindus and pagan Buddhists.