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Sayyid Qutb (photo: al-Majalla) |
Sayyid Qutb, 1906-1966, an Egyptian and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, was a prominent Islamist (revivalist) figure whose career spanned the middle decades of the twentieth century. His thought, deeply influenced by Mawdudi's revolutionary radicalism, falls into two distinct periods: before 1954, and from 1954 on during which he suffered imprisonment and torture in Nasser's jails. Following the attempt on Nasser's life in October, 1954, Nasser rounded up large numbers of the Muslim Brothers, including Qutb, and put an official ban on the organization.
The first excerpt comes from an early work, Social Justice in Islam, which he wrote in 1949. (Social Justice in Islam, trans. by John B. Hardie (New York: Octagon Books, 1970), pp. 19,49, 66). Note how Qutb builds on the Islamic idea of tawhid (the singularity of God and, therefore, of the universe):
So all creation issuing as it does from one absolute, universal, and active Will, forms an all-embracing unity in which each individual part is in harmonious order with the remainder...Thus, then, all creation is a unity comprising different parts; it has a common origin, a common providence and purpose, because it was produced by a single, absolute, and comprehensive Will...So the universe cannot be hostile to life, or to man; nor can 'Nature' in our modern phrase be held to be antagonistic to man, opposed to him, or striving against him. Rather she is a friend whose purposes are one with those of life and of mankind. And the task of living beings is not to contend with Nature, for they have grown up in her bosom, and she and they together form a part of the single universe which proceeds from the single will.
In 1964, Qutb, having suffered torture and ten years of incarceration in Nasser's prisons, published his best known work, Milestones, (Ma'alim fi'l Tariq: alternate translation of the title is Signposts) a work that has inspired some of the most extreme expressions of Islamic revivalism, such as Islamic Jihad and Takfir wa-l Hijra. One of the central concepts of the book, jahiliyya ("pagan ignorance and rebellion against God"), was molded at least in part by Qutb's unpleasant sojourn in the United States from 1948 until 1950, an experience in cross-cultural living that did not go well. Qutb was an employee at the time in the Egyptian Ministry of Education. He had been sent to the U.S. to study American educational institutions. Qutb was deeply offended by the racism he observed (and experienced first-hand) and was scandalized by the openness between the sexes in American society. (see his comments on women) Even a Sunday night "sock hop" to which he had been invited, put on by a youth group in a church in Colorado, was too much for this lifelong bachelor. Following his return to Egypt, Qutb's increasing radicalization led him to join the Muslim Brotherhood in 1952. In Milestones he wrote (Beirut: The Holy Koran Publishing House, 1980), pp. 7-15, 286):
Mankind today is on the brink of a precipice, not because of the danger of complete annihilation which is hanging over its head - this being just a symptom and not the real disease - but because humanity is devoid of those vital values which are necessary not only for its healthy development but also for its real progress. Even the Western world realizes that Western civilization is unable to present any healthy values for the guidance of mankind. It knows that it does not possess anything which will satisfy its own conscience and justify its existence...
It is essential for mankind to have a new leadership...
It is necessary for the new leadership to preserve and develop the material fruits of the creative genius of Europe, and also to provide mankind with such high ideals and values as have so far remained undiscovered by mankind, and which will also acquaint humanity with a way of life which is harmonious with human nature, which positive and constructive, and which is practicable.
Islam is the only system which possesses these values and this way of life.
If we look at the sources and foundations of modern ways of living, it becomes clear that the whole world is steeped in Jahiliyya (pagan ignorance of divine guidance), and all the marvelous material comforts and high-level inventions do not diminish this Ignorance. This Jahiliyya is based on rebellion against God's sovereignty on earth: It transfers to man one of the greatest attributes of God, namely sovereignty, and makes some men lords over others. It is now not in that simple and primitive form of the ancient Jahiliyya, but takes the form of claiming that the right to create values, to legislate rules of collective behavior, and to choose any way of life rests with men, without regard to what God has prescribed. The result of this rebellion against the authority of God is the oppression of His creatures...
The Islamic civilization can take various forms in its material and organizational structure, but the principles and values on which it is based are eternal and unchangeable. These are: the worship of God alone, the foundation of human relationships on the belief in the Unity of God, the supremacy of the humanity of man over material things, the development of human values and the control of animalistic desires, respect for the family, the assumption of the vice-regency of God on earth according to His guidance and instruction, and in all affairs of this vice-regency, the rule of God's law [al-Shari'a] and the way of life prescribed by Him...
In the scale of God, the true weight is the weight of faith; in God's market the only commodity in demand is the commodity of faith. The highest form of triumph is the victory of soul over matter, the victory of belief over pain, and the victory of faith over persecution.
Qutb, sounding to some like Lenin, urged the creation of a "vanguard" (tali' ah) of believers who would lead the way in the war on jahiliyya, a clear call for Islamic militancy. His thought played a key role in the emergence of the sahwa ("awakening") movement, a blend of Qutbist ideas and radical Wahhabist thinking that grew out of the work of exiled Muslim Brothers from Egypt and elsewhere beginning in the 1960s and that achieved prominence in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s (see also the Buraydah Uprising of 1994). Qutb's influence over radical Muslim movements did not go unchallenged in the Muslim world, even in places like Saudi Arabia (see for example).
Further Reading:
Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), Chapter One, "The Martyr."