Sujata Ashwarya Cheema

Sayyid Qutb’s Concept of Jahiliyya as Metaphor

for Modern Society
Sujata Ashwarya Cheema

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Abstract
The concept of jahiliyya is one of the most radical themes of Sayyid Qutb’s
revivalist Islamist thought and constitutes a critique of modern societies, especially his
country, Egypt. Qutb claims that contemporary societies, both Islamic and non-Islamic,
are in a state of jahiliyya resembling the ‘state of ignorance’ of Islam in pre-Islamic
Arab societies. By describing the modern western societies and contemporary Islamic
societies, jahili, Qutb transforms an early phase in the history of Islam into a metaphor.
Contemporary societies exhibit jahiliyya because they are organised on the basis of man-
made laws instead of the Shariah bequeathed by God to humanity through Prophet
Muhammad. Qutb’s critique of jahiliyya is rooted in his belief that Islam can become the
foundation for an all-embracing ideology of social and political organisation. To
implement the Islamic vision, Qutb offers a theology of liberation that would remove the
ambiguity about the supremacy of Islam and return the affairs of the Egyptians and
indeed all Muslims to the tenets of Islam and bring about hakimiyyat Allah, the rule of
God.
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Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966), an Egyptian activist and ideologue of Muslim

Brotherhood (Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun), is a prominent Islamist revivalist figure of the

twentieth century. He is credited with propounding the concept of ‘modern jahiliyya’.

Qutb claims that contemporary societies, both Islamic and non-Islamic, are in a state of

jahiliyya resembling the ‘state of ignorance’ of Islam in pre-Islamic Arab societies. As

these societies are based on the principle of domination of one man over another instead

of the belief in the sovereignty of God, Qutb considers modern jahiliyya pervasive and

complete. Jahiliyya forms the core of Qutb’s revivalist thought and Qutb has been called

“the exponent of jahiliyya par excellence.” (Kepel 1986:46; Choueiri 1990:123) In

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delineating his doctrine of jahiliyya, Qutb’s thoughts have been deeply influenced by

Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi (d. 1979). Mawdudi, an Islamic scholar from Pakistan and

founder of the Jamaat-i-Islami (The Islamic Party, 1941) in that country, denounced the

existing political order in Muslim societies as ‘partial jahiliyya’ and perceived the

Muslim world since the time of Rightly-Guided Caliphs as a mixture of jahiliyya and

Islam or the “getting together of Islam and un-Islam in the same body politic (Mawdudi

1972:27; Mawdudi 1975).” Qutb applies the term in a radical way to include the Islamic

world along with Western and the Communist worlds. He delineated his concept of

jahiliyya in his most popular work Milestones, (Maalim fi al-tariq 1964: alternate

translation of the title is Signposts), a work that has inspired some of the most extreme

expression of Islamic revivalism, such as al-Jihad (the Holy War Society), Jamaat al-

Takfir w-al-hijra (The Society of Excommunication and Emigration), the assassins of

Anwar al-Sadat in Egypt, and al-Qaida in recent times (Ibrahim 1980; Kepel 1986:

chaps. 3, 5, 7; Jansen 1986; Oxford Encyclopaedia 1995: 179-80; Marty and Appleby

1993)

Qutb’s concept of jahiliyya is inspired by his life experiences in his own country

and outside. Persecution at home, in which he suffered torture and incarceration in

Nasser’s jails, and ‘unpleasant’ experiences during his stay in United States from 1948

until 1950 combined to shape his thoughts on the nature and character of modern

societies. Before leaving for that portentous trip to the US, Qutb was an employee at the

time in the Egyptian Ministry of Education. He has been sent to the US to study

American educational institutions. There he witnessed the wide and unquestioning

support of the American press for Israel. This along with what he felt to be the

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denigration of the Arabs such as the ecstatic reception of Hassan al-Banna’s (the founder

of Muslim Brotherhood) (1) assassination left Qutb with a bitterness he was never able to

shed. Further he was to detest what he understood to be the materialistic attitude of the

Americans and their lack of spirituality. He came to hate everything American, described

churches as “entertainment centres and sexual playgrounds”, and was shocked by the

freedom allowed to women. His appreciation of Islamic thought began to be drawn

clearly as he rejected the American system of education and the American way of life.

This rejection corresponded to his complete conviction that the ‘Islamic way of life’ was

viable in the modern world. On his return to Egypt, he immediately became involved in

the Muslim Brotherhood, which since its foundation was aiming to establish the

hegemony of Islam in all areas of Egyptian life. Therefore, he supported the Egyptian

Revolution of 1952 and actively collaborated with the Free Officers trying to influence

their plans for the country.

Qutb had to leave disappointed because President Nasser refused to accept

Shariah as the law of the land and the proposal to assign positions of leadership to

members from the Muslim Brotherhood. Following an attempt on Nasser’s life in

October 1954, the Egyptian authorities rounded up a large number of Muslim Brothers

including Qutb, alleging their complicity, and put an official ban on the organisation.

Qutb remained in prison for ten years, during which he produced two of his most

influential tracts, the Quranic commentary, In the Shade of Quran (Fi Zilal al-Quran

1962), and Milestones, the latter being a culmination of the exegesis. These two writings

contain his “radical social criticism”, which are examinations of the “meaning and end of

religion in modern times… the legacy of westernisation in the Muslim world, and the

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necessity of establishing the Islamic state as stipulated by Quran and Sunnah.” (Abu-Rabi

1984:107; Carre 2003)

In Milestones, Qutb (1980 edn: 7-15, 286) argues:

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 that 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 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 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 is 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 way 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… .

Qutb begins with a critique of modern western countries, and then turns his

attention inwards – towards Islamic societies. He was distressed at the growing distance

between Islamic values, institutions, and practice and the emerging contours post-colonial

Muslim societies, especially of his own country. In Milestones, he revised Hassan al-

Banna’s dream of establishing an Islamic state in Egypt after the nation was thoroughly

Islamised, advocating that a revolutionary vanguard should first seize state power and

then impose Islamisation from above. It is here that many have read into his work the

elements of a revolutionary manifesto – calling for direct action – of a violent attack on

the structures and personnel of the existing state.

The Egyptian state had been responsible not only for his own sufferance, but also

for the entrenchment of alien practices, as he saw them, in society. It had deviated to

western, secular (Arab nationalistic) ideologies, thus incorporating institutions,

imperfections, and moral poverty of jahiliyya.

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Qutb (Maalim in Abu Rabi 1984: 118) says:

We are surrounded by jahiliyya today, which is of the same nature as it was during the
first period of Islam, perhaps a little deeper. Our whole environment, peoples, beliefs and
ideas, habits and arts, rules and laws – is jahiliyya, even to the extent that we consider to
be Islamic culture, Islamic sources, Islamic philosophy, and Islamic thought are also
constructs of jahiliyya .

By describing the modern western societies and contemporary Islamic societies,

jahili, Qutb transforms an early phase in the history of Islam into a metaphor. Jahiliyya in

Islamic history denotes pre-Islamic pagan beliefs and practices – ignorance of God’s

Word as revealed through Prophet Muhammad. Contemporary societies exhibit jahiliyya

because, as in pre-Islamic Arabia, they choose to subordinate two pre-eminent principles:

“The exclusiveness of divine commandment, and absolute obedience to His words.”

(Klien in Nettler 1993:50)

Qutb projects the goal for Islamic societies and indeed all societies back in time,

to the days of Prophet Muhammad and the first generation of Muslims. The Prophet with

his message from God had delivered the people of Arabia from pagan ignorance and had

led them from ‘darkness of ignorance’ to the ‘light of knowledge’. All revivalists hark

back to this high civilisation, this ‘beginning of history’– so perfect – that it can be

emulated anytime and anywhere in history. Thus a (re)turn to Islam is the only way for

all the societies to stem the decadent tide of modernity.

The Concept of Jahiliyya

The term jahiliyya is commonly translated as ‘The Age of Ignorance’, from

Arabic root j-h-l (Shepard 2001: 37-40) In classical Islam, the term denotes the pre-

Islamic situation in Arabia characterised by ignorance of the Word of God (Quran),

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polytheism, and idolatry (Goldziher 1967:219; Izutsu 1966). The Encyclopaedia of Islam

(1991:383) describes jahiliyya as:

The state of affairs in Arabia before the mission of the Prophet, to paganism, the pre-
Islamic period and the men of that time… Goldziher remarking that djahil is opposed to
halim ‘administered’ gives it the sense of ‘barbarous’, and renders djahiliyya as ‘the
time of barbarism’ but he has not been followed to the letter by translators of the Kur’an
who render jahil as ‘not knowing God, the Prophet and the Law’ or ‘lawless’, and
jahiliyya as ‘time of ignorance’, ‘heathendom’… In the feeling of Muslims and of the
commentators, djahil is opposed to ‘alim ‘one who knows God etc.’, and jahiliyya to
Islam taken not in the sense of ‘submission to God’ but rather that of knowledge of God
etc.’ … . The word jahiliyya as an abstract is thus applicable to the period during which
the Arabs did not yet know Islam and the Divine Law, as well as the beliefs current at
that time.

Qutb employs jahiliyya as a pejorative term, to signify what he considered alien to Islam.

For Qutb, “Jahiliyya is not a period in time. It is a condition that is repeated every time

society veers from the Islamic way whether in the past, the present or the future.”

(Maalim quoted by Haddad in Esposito 1983:85)

Qutb notes that contemporary Islamic societies and indeed all societies in the

world are in the grip of jahiliyya – a state of affairs in which the Will of God has been

subverted and supplanted by the wills and desires of human beings. All the contemporary

western societies have adopted man-man made laws to regulate their affairs, emphasised

the importance of individual over God, placed belief in science and rationality in contrast

to God’s Word and relegated spiritual affairs to the realm of the private. It is particularly

abhorrent, for Qutb, that the so-called Islamic societies are also in the grip of this frenzy

to ‘secularise’ and therefore could aptly be called jahili, like their western counterpart.

For Qutb, the pace of decline of Islam accentuated in the twentieth century, as a result of

the deepening separation between religion and politics.

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In his exegesis, In the Shadow of the Quran, the concept of modern jahiliyya

makes its first appearance. Qutb (in Sivan 1990:24) writes:

Jahiliyya (barbarity) signifies the domination (hakimiyya) of man over man, or rather the
subservience to man rather than to Allah, It denotes the rejection of divinity of God and
the adulation of mortals. In this sense jahiliyya is not just a specific historical period
(referring to the era preceding the advent of Islam), but a state of affairs. Such a state of
human affairs existed in the past, exists today, and may exist in the future taking the form
of jahiliyya, the mirror image and sworn enemy of Islam. In any time and place human
beings face that clear-cut choice: either to observe the Law of Allah in its entirety or to
apply laws laid down by man of one sort or another. In the latter case, they are in a state
of jahiliyya. Man is at the crossroads and that is the choice: Islam or jahiliyya. Modern
style jahiliyya in the industrialized societies of Europe and America is essentially similar
to the old-time jahiliyya in pagan and nomadic Arabia. For in both systems, man is under
the dominion of man rather than Allah.

Jahiliyya denotes for Qutb a social, political, and an economic order legitimated

by man-made criteria such as the popular sovereignty (in place of the sovereignty of God)

and bolstered by man-centered system of values and mores (such as individualism,

materialism, and hedonism). In his thought, jahiliyya also includes the main political,

social and scientific ideologies of the modern period: Darwinism, determinism, fascism,

nationalism, racism, communism, capitalism, colonialism, and patriotism. “The criticism

of jahiliyya does not, however, extend to the content of these ideologies; it attacks what is

lacking, namely, the fact that none of them deals exclusively with God.” (Klien in Nettler

1993:49) Rationalism based on scientific approach and thinking in which God is

relegated to the background is the peak of jahiliyya, according to Qutb. He is ready to

accept modern science and technology “provided it does not lead one to stray from the

path of religion.” Thus in Qutb’s argument:

The term does not represent a historical phenomenon related to a particular time and
place, designating the era of ignorance, barbarism and pre-Islamic paganism. Nor is the
term limited to tribal-social spheres that exist within the Arab peninsula; it is an
existential situation that accompanies human race throughout history, and its
characteristics revolve around one distinctive theological principle which is formulated in
a negative manner. In total contrast to Islamic monotheism, jahiliyya with its
sanctification of man as the replacement of God denies the exclusiveness of God. (Sivan
1990: 25)

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Qutb’s concept of jahiliyya has its origin in the theory of ‘modernity as Jahiliyya’

(that is modernity as new barbarity or new age of ignorance) articulated by Maulana

Mawdudi. Mawdudi is the first Muslim thinker to give a comprehensive critique of

modernity and its ‘baneful influence’ on Islamic societies. He affirms what Hassan al-

Banna and other revivalists had stated imperfectly – that conciliation between modernity

and Islam, loosely hoped in the revivalist thoughts of Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d.

1897) and Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) (2), was neither possible nor desirable (Choueiri

1990:95). Mawdudi went on to make a distinction between pure and mixed or partial

jahiliyya. “Pure jahiliyya, to al-Mawdudi, is one that rejects God completely; mixed

jahiliyyas associate religion with infidelity and do not rule by God’s order.” (Moussalli

1992:20)

For Qutb, there is nothing ‘partial’ about the jahiliyya of the existing order; there

is nothing that could be redeemed. He says, “... a society whose legislation does not rest

on divine law ... is not Muslim, however ardently its individuals may proclaim

themselves Muslim, even if they pray, fast and make the pilgrimage ... jahiliyya ... takes

the form of claiming the right to create values, to legislate rules of collective behavior

and to choose any way of life that rests with me, without regard to what God has

prescribed.” (Qutb in Marc Erikson Dec 4, 2002). He makes it clear that, “there is an

abyss (between jahiliyya and Islam) which is not spanned by a bridge to allow for a

meeting half-way between the two, but to allow for the people of jahiliyya to come over

to Islam.” (Maalim quoted by Tripp in Rahnema 1994:171)

Further, Mawdudi lays emphasis on the political characterisation of jahiliyya. All

political structures – liberal, socialist, fascist, and theocratic – are equivalent – jahili –

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because they are based on the rule of one man over another. They are bereft of the rule of

God’s Will and therefore the source of evil in our world, says Mawdudi. Qutb does not

distinguish between the political and religious character of jahiliyya. He declares that all

structures alien to the precepts of Islam is jahili, therefore, the whole world lives in one

pure jahiliyya. Jahiliyya, for Qutb, is an epistemological device that enabled him to reject

modern philosophy, thought, and institutions as modernity represents the negation of

God’s sovereignty (hakimiyyat Allah) in all fields of life.

According to Sylvia Haim (1982:155)

In short, he [Qutb] states that according to Islam, there are two societies: the Islamic
and the jahili. This jahiliyya was vicious in the past and is vicious today. Its viciousness
varies in appearance and form but is one in its origin and roots. Jahiliyya is not a fixed
period of time; it is a condition which recurs whenever society deviates from the way of
Islam. This was so in the past, it is so in the present, and will remain so in the future.

Qutb cautions that Islam must take the offensive before the forces of jahiliyya

consign it to the dustbins of history. His call for an offensive is not only directed against

the West but also against the westernised ideas and modes of behaviour spread by ‘native

converts’. From a generalised critique of modernity, Qutb turns to the internal challenges

facing his society – the social problems of growing westernisation and popularisation of

western ideologies. (Shepard 1996: xiv) The turn of events showed that the challenges to

Islam came not from “a corrupt monarchy and upper class with a history of collaboration

with imperialism and blatant infatuation with western culture, but from newly established

revolutionary republic, with its impeccable anti-imperialist credentials … a heavily

lower-middle-class origin and all that this intimated in terms of deep attachment to

Islam.” (Sivan 1990:27-8) Qutb concludes that this threat is more insidious as it came

from ostensibly faithful believers and from an Islamic society corrupted by the mixture of

modern ideas and Islamic outlooks – wrapped in the guise of tradition.

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Thus, according to Qutb, the military-dominated nation-state based on un-Islamic

ideas had dealt a near death blow to Islam in Egypt, already weakened by decades of

colonial rule and preceding centuries of gradual decline (3). Qutb inspired by Mawdudi

takes the ‘decadence theory’ of Islam even further: Islam under Nasser’s regime has

reverted to a state of jahiliyya. The military elite, its supporters and other “peddlers of

modernity” – who brought the great Islamic civilisation to that state of affairs, as well as

the people who tolerated and embraced jahili ideas, are guilty of apostasy (ridda), says

Qutb (Sivan 1990:64).

Qutb’s diagnosis of Egyptian society and indeed all the Islamic societies does not

stop at despair and fatalism. He believes that Islam is bound to overcome the onslaught of

modernity as the latter is ‘inherently’ incapable of providing spiritual satisfaction to

human beings. This requires that an effort be made in the right direction. Qutb believes

that there can be no blueprints for the future. He rejects the psychological pressure put by

jahiliyya upon the Defenders of the Faith to provide a detailed blueprint for the future in

conformity with modern principles. Qutb rejects these dictates of jahiliyya and calls for

‘authentic’ solutions. As the present danger to Islamic societies comes from within,

solution must be sought based on Islamic thought and drawn from historical experience,

and not geared to approximating standards alien to its civilisation.

Qutb not only calls for rejection of modernity but also of all the apologetics of

‘Modernist Islam’, who attempted to salvage Islam by arguing that major elements of

Islam were compatible with modernity (3) (Haddad 1983:16). The foremost fault of

modernists is their acceptance of the Western standard for comparison, a reflection of

‘moral defeatism’ on their part. It were the Islamic modernists who become the regimes’

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mainstay for justifying all policies in the name of Islam. The quest for identity and the

liberation from inferiority complex in relation to the West is, hence, the sine qua non in

the quest for an indigenous solution to the crisis which has beset Islamic societies.

Islamic Alternative

Qutb’s critique of jahiliyya is rooted in his belief that Islam can become the

foundation for an all-embracing ideology of social and political organisation. Charles

Tripp writes, “… in effect Qutb wishes to separate Islam from the jahiliyya, its methods

and influences, in the hope that unsullied, Islam will eventually banish it from the world

establishing an ideological hegemony which he obviously regards as only proper.” (In

Rahnema 1994: 171) Tripp quotes Qutb: “It [Islam] came to organize life once and for

all. To construct a life which will spring wholly from [Islam] and which will be firmly

united with the very core of Islam itself.” (Maalim quoted by Tripp in Rahnema

1994:172)

Qutb maintains that “this religion is a serious, dynamic, practical system” that

“came to govern life in its actuality [fi-waqi’iha] and to face this actuality in order to

make decisions regarding it – whether to keep, modify, or fundamentally change it.”

Therefore he declares that, Islam “is not a theory that deals with suppositions but is a

system that deals with actuality” (Akhavi 1997:381). In Milestones, Qutb says, the Quran,

not only provides guidelines for right conduct but also a programme for political action.

According to him, Quran has given mankind the means whereby it could reinvent itself in

the mould intended by the Prophet and, through him, by God.

Quran enjoins upon the people to carry out their knowledge of the faith, through

direct action into moulding their own lives and restructuring the social and political order

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i.e. creating an Islamic system. For Qutb, argues Tripp, Islam has to be apprehended by

faith and not by any rational exchange of arguments. Leonard Binder says that the

understanding of this truth can only come about through a subjective appreciation of the

beauty and inevitability of Islamic way (1988:194-5). Qutb considers Islam the only

foundation of truth in all aspects of life. He presents this concept as an alternative to

those systems competing for allegiance in Egyptian society, such as communism,

capitalism, nationalism, liberalism, and secularism. The implementation of Islamic

ideology would not only solve social and economic problems, it would also provide

Muslims with a sense of self-worth. Thus religion is not the “opiate of the masses”, but

potentially an actual force of liberation. To Qutb, “religion is not simply a philosophy or

metaphysic; it is also a concrete social force” (Abu Rabi 1984:108).

Qutb’s quest is, therefore, to return Islam to politics to provide a solution to all

moral and social problems. This requires firm guidelines to institute a future Islamic

society. This is to be achieved not by slavish imitation of the past which can only provide

for a set of core values and ground rules for action, given the complexity of modern

challenges. He argues for opening the gates of ijtihad (interpretation of jurisprudence)

based on norms and criteria derived from within. Through fiqh (law as developed from

man’s application of Shariah), Islamic system could become applicable to the necessities

of changing circumstances. Thus, Qutb claims that while the general truths of Islam are

eternal, the method of implementing the laws and regulations of Islam differ from one

historical period to another. However, maintaining the eternity of Islam, Qutb adds: “We

could never say that, like other civilizations, [Islam] is subject to the passage of time and

limited by organic laws of life” (Akhavi 1997:381). Islam is not subject to temporal

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processes, including entropy. It remains constant but preserves its vitality from within

through renewal (tajdid), application of Islamic law by a judge (istihsan), and ruling

based on public interest (maslaha mursala). The goal of each Muslim, he maintains,

should be to preach the renewal of Islamic life, “… a life governed by the spirit and law

of Islam which alone can produce the form of Islam that we need today” (Abu Rabi

1984:108).

Qutb’s rejection of the West and its philosophy of life presuppose a practical

alternative. This practical alternative can only take place through the fostering “of a new

mentality whose task will not simply be to evaluate the existing state of things, but rather

to produce a new state” (Abu Rabi: 109). According to Qutb, a society can avoid what he

perceives to be the decline of the West, by adopting the Islamic theory of life in which

God, man, and the universe are in perfect harmony.

The uniqueness of the Islamic vision rests on the fact that it is fashioned on the

basis of Shariah which is legislated by God and is eternal and unchanging. On the other

hand other legal and social systems are a response to local, temporary needs. The eternal

and unchanging nature of Shariah guarantees that the new fiqh relevant to the needs of

the day are genuine and authentic. “He warns against accepting modern culture and

Islamising it. Law must be a barrier to human indulgences and desires. The necessity of

keeping new interpretations in line with the Shari’ah is to keep excesses out.” (Haddad in

Esposito 1983:71)

Qutb’s Islamic alternative stems from an Islamic worldview, a vision that is

inspired by the belief in the supremacy of God in human life. The Islamic vision is “of

such comprehensiveness and breadth, of precision and depth, of authenticity and

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integratedness that it rejects every foreign element.” (Maalim quoted by Haddad in

Esposito 1983:74) Qutb identifies essential characteristics of this vision (Haddad in

Esposito: 74-77):

1) Lordship of God (rabbaniyyah): The Islamic vision has a divine origin that

distinguishes it from other ideologies conceived by human beings to devise a system so

as to fashion their socio-political and moral order. “It is a divine vision that proceeds

from God in all its peculiarities and its essentials. It is received by man in its perfect

condition. He is not to complement it from his own or delete any of it; rather he is to

appropriate it and implement all its essentials in his life.” (Sayyid Qutb’s Khasais al-

Tasawwar al-Islami wa Muqawamatuhu (The Characteristics and Values of Islamic

Conduct 1960) quoted by Haddad in Esposito: 74)

All ideological systems other than Islam are a product of human arrogance, whims

and desires and therefore inherently incapable of comprehending the Truth i.e. right

actions, conduct, and beliefs.

2) Constancy (thabat): For Qutb, Islamic vision is a “dynamic force that can be

implemented in a variety of social structures and that can manifest itself in different

forms of society” (Haddad in Esposito: 74). However there is constancy in its essential

core which does not change. This constant source is the Shariah that provides the guiding

principles for all laws, human behaviour, actions, conduct, and ideas that constitutes the

Islamic vision. Qutb’s proposed the doctrine of constancy as a barrier against

Westernization: appropriation of western values, ideas, customs and fashion (Haddad in

Esposito: 75). It also serves to refute Darwin’s theory of linear evolution as well as that

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of dialectical materialism. The doctrine of constancy brings human life within the realm

of the divine and gives it harmony.

3) Comprehensiveness (shumul): Another characteristic of Islamic vision is its

comprehensive nature. Man, due to his limitation in time and space, is inherently

incapable of instituting a comprehensive order for his existence that can stand the rigours

of changing circumstances. As God’s words are ‘final’ in the form revealed to the

Prophet, it cannot be faulted and it cannot be improved upon; by implication then it

covers commands for all human actions. Therefore, Shariah, which forms the basis of the

Islamic system, is applicable across time and space and for all human societies. This

comprehensiveness is manifested in the areas of “thought and behaviour, vision and

initiative, doctrine and system, source and reception, life and death, striving and

movement, life and means of livelihood, this world and the next. It does not divide into

sections, seeks various paths or horizons or march on different roads without agreement”

(Khasais quoted Haddad in Esposito: 76).

4) Balance (tawazun): “It is evidenced in the harmony that exists between that

which is revealed, which humans can grasp and apprehend, and that which is accepted by

faith since man has no capacity to comprehend it.” (Haddad in Esposito: 76-7) Human

beings are at peace with this vision because they place their total trust in God.

5) Positiveness (ijabiyyah): This is grounded in man’s unflinching obedience to

God’s will both in thought and practice.

6) Pragmatism (waqiiyyah): It is grounded in the realisation of the frailties of

human nature, yet it believes in establishing “the highest and most perfect system to

which humanity can ascend.” (Khasais quoted by Haddad in Esposito: 77)

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7) Unicity (tawhid): Islam affirms that there is only one God from whom flows all

laws, commands, dictates, and legislations. This implies that “there is no ruler save God,

no legislator, no organizer of human life and of human relationships to the world, to

living things or human beings save God. From Him alone is received all guidance and

legislation, all systems of life, norms governing human relationships and measure of

values.” (Haddad in Esposito: 77)

Qutb’s aspires to give his vision a concrete shape in the Islamic system which he

calls, “the Islamic Order” (nizam islami). He writes:

Islam is the general, world-wide nizam other than which God accepts no other nizam
from anyone because he does not accept from anyone any religion but Islam …
‘Religion in Islamic understanding is synonymous with the term nizam as found in
modern usage, with the complete meaning of a creed (‘aqidah), in the heart (damir),
ethics in behaviour, and law (shari‘ah) in society. (Shepard 1989:32)

Islamic Imperative: Manhaj and the Overthrow of Jahiliyya

To implement the Islamic vision, Qutb offers a theology of liberation that would

remove the ambiguity about the supremacy of Islam and return the affairs of the

Egyptians and indeed all Muslims to the tenets of Islam. Stressing the need for

intervention to destroy jahiliyya, which would alone ensure the supremacy of Islam, Qutb

talks about manhaj, a ‘method’ or ‘procedure’ by which an Islamic system could come

into being. According to Esposito, Qutb, “moved from an early phase which spoke of an

Islamic alternative to Western systems to latter phase in which an Islamic alternative

became the Islamic imperative that all the Muslims were obligated to implement, for

which the true believers should be willing to live and die.” (Esposito 1991:135)

The Islamic manhaj can be divided into four phases. The first phase is the

formation of jamaah, a community of committed individuals – the vanguard – who would

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become the leaven for instituting the Islamic state. To begin with it summons the jahili

system to turn to God but encounters opposition. This leads to a conscious separation

from the jahili system, or hijra, like the Prophet and his followers, when they

encountered opposition in Mecca to God’s words. The next stage is exertion for the sake

of Islam (jihad), when believers strive through several means, both violent and non-

violent, to bring about hakimiyyat Allah, the rule of God. Its precedent is the conquest

and restoration of Islam in Mecca. Thus “jahiliyya has a dual meaning: an active anti-

Islamic reality, the opposite of pure Islamic monotheism, and also a reality that represents

a goal for conquest, precisely due to the contrast and the struggle between the pure

Islamic view and its opposite.” (Klien in Nettler 1993:49)

Qutb’s Islamic Imperative or manhaj is imminently opposed to the existing infidel

order based on “unbelief”. “Whatever the obstacles in their way and however impressive

the edifice of the other jahili forms of power, the Muslim must work to ensure that God’s

law as revealed through the Quran, becomes the only law governing human conduct and

commanding obedience.” (Maalim quoted by Tripp in Rahnema 1994:173) The goal of

the revolt is to replace the fallible, unreliable, and blasphemous systems of law devised

by man with Shariah, the law given by God. Man-made laws, Qutb declares, are the

obstacles to the organisation of society based on the true practice of Islam. Muslims had a

duty to struggle against the forces of contemporary jahiliyya in order to elevate Islam to

its rightful position as the only ‘right’ universal creed.

Manhaj can be defined as “the divine imperative that must command the total

allegiance of the believers, summoning them to strive with all available means, not only

to implement Islam in their own lives but also to eradicate all other forms and systems”

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(Haddad in Esposito 1983: 78). This Divine Imperative for Qutb draws from the Quran

and the experiences of the first generation of Muslims, which provide the community

with guidelines for the present as well as for the future. Thus Islamic manhaj is

inextricably linked to faith and therefore ‘authentic’.

Milestones is a rousing call for action, explicitly written for the vanguard that is

resolute, and which must take the road through the vast extent of jahiliyya in this world.

It is a call to those who need no convincing, but who must now take on the world. He

urges them to discover the power of direct action and exhorts them to non- discursive

practices in their interaction with the degenerate jahili world: “Setting up the kingdom of

God on earth, and eliminating the kingdom of man, means taking power from the hands

of human usurpers and restoring it to God alone… and [establishing] the supremacy of

the Shari’ah alone and the repeal of all man-made laws. …This general call to liberate

mankind on earth from all power that is not the power of God … was not a theoretical,

philosophical or passive one … it was a dynamic, active, positive call.” (Maalim quoted

by Tripp in Rehnema 1994:171)

Qutb says that the Islamic system is “not a mere historical form that is hidden in

the memories of the past, it is a demand of the present and hope of the future”. Although

it is grounded in fixed values, it does not have a fixed nature. It can take a variety of

shapes, adopt different structures and format as long as it adheres to “the vice-regency of

man on earth according to God’s covenant and prescriptions” (Haddad in Esposito

1983:87). It is not the case of establishing one single individual Islamic state and thus

“the Islamic system is not restricted solely to a replica of the first Islamic society, but is

every social form governed by the total Islamic view of life … The Islamic system has

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room for scores of models which are compatible with the natural growth of a society and

the new needs of the contemporary age, as long as the total Islamic idea dominates these

models in its expansive external perimeter.” (O’Sulliva 1998:104)

Jamaah

Qutb conceived jamaah as “the coalition of individual who become a vital organ

cell of Muslims dedicated to the materialisation of a true Islamic society, one in which

the teachings of the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad impact upon all aspects of life:

political, economic, legal, as well as cultural” (Haddad in Esposito 1983:87). The jamaah

will only be generated by necessity, when a coalition of three believers gather and

remove themselves from the jahili society and its corrupting influence. This separation is

also inevitable in view of the struggle that ensues between them and the jahili system.

Qutb believes that “it is necessary that this group separate itself from the jahili society,

becoming independent and distinct from the active and organized jahili society whose

aim is to block Islam.” (Maalim in Abu Rabi 1984: 118)

The “Quranic message” had created “a generation of the companions of the

Prophet without comparison in the history of Islam, even in the entire history of man” (p.

118). The same message would be instrumental in the formation of the jamaah. The

jamaah would radically change or even destroy the bases of jahiliyya and establish an

Islamic rule. This unique generation understands Islam not simply as a theory but as “a

way of life working with actuality just like the companions of the Prophet who did not

approach the Quran only for the purpose of learning” (p. 118).

Thus, “The Islamization of ummah can only proceed from jamaah whose total

existence is focused on the mission it has assumed. Its members become the nucleus, the

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agents, the life, the organization, the action as well as the evidence of Islam itself.”

(Haddad in Esposito 1983: 88) For Qutb the emergence of jamaah is both a religious and

social necessity. It is a religious necessity because, according to Qutb, it is God’s order. It

is a social necessity because society is jahili.

Hijra

The true Muslims – the vanguard (taliah) – must be set apart within the ambient

infidel society as a sort of “counter society”, which forms a necessary phase in the

process of Islamisation. Kriegel defines a counter-society as a “micro society which

constitutes a closed society while maintaining some ties with society as a whole. The

counter-society must be capable of being self-enclosed in order to avoid fragmentation or

abdication. It must prevent alien influences from penetrating it, yet must remain

sufficiently open and aggressive to draw from the outside whatever it cannot itself

produce. It must pursue the dream of ultimately becoming a majority. It struggles to

demolish the old society while at the same time hoping to become heir to that society;

radical destruction on the one hand, preservation for the sake of new order on the other”

(Kriegel 1972:xxxi). Qutb and other radicals, in addition to these two major functions,

consider counter-society as a model for the society of the future. Elaborating on this

doctrine, Danawi explained that the exemplary “counter-society” was Muhammad’s

group of followers in pre-622 AD Mecca, “a militant micro-society operating in the heart

of jahili society … and engaged in battle against the latter, for the barbaric society tends

to react harshly using all the means in its disposal: murder an banishment , torture and

pressures, ridicule and seduction.” (Danawi’s Al-Tariq ila Hukm Islami in Sivan 1990:

86)

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Setting oneself apart or hijra (migration) was modelled on that of the Prophet in

622 and later enjoined upon all Muslims living in Dar al-Harb if they cannot practice

their religion. “From this vantage point, the goal of historical hijra was not the

establishment of the Islamic society in Medina; rather it was the eradication of jahili

system in Mecca” (Haddad in Esposito 1983: 88).

For the radicals including Qutb, the hijra is the one of the possible responses to

modern jahiliyya. Qutb imagined a counter-society of small self-contained groups of

militants encompassing all facets of life of their members that sets itself apart from the

jahili society to preserve its purity. Hijra is important for this ‘vanguard of believers’ as

the power of jahiliyya is so immense and pervasive that it causes spiritual extermination

and apostasy among the believers. This vanguard can then use this secure basis to embark

upon recruiting wayward Muslims and indoctrinate them i.e. carry jihad by word.

Hijra in this perspective is just an instrument not a goal, a stage not an end. An

example of a counter-society, influenced by Qutb’s writings, that committed hijra was

Takfir w-al-hijra group (in Egypt), which began by retreating to caves “so as to flee from

jahiliyya and preserve their heritage and tradition” (Sivan 1990: 88). They soon began

aggressive recruiting and education and ultimately took recourse to violence. The path of

the Takfir group illustrated the whole gamut of options available to the radicals: hijra,

education, and violence.

Jihad

Qutb says that the vanguard should wage jihad (holy war) on many fronts in order to

establish the final Islamic goal. This jihad is to be distinguished by a serious realism,

where the concrete foundations of jahiliyya are first understood and then combated.

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People must be understood as they are, and then appropriate methods should be used to

reform their ideas and establish Islamic rule. The goal of this phase is to control political

power and establish new political and economic relationships. Mawdudi makes this point

more explicitly: “Islam is a revolutionary ideology and programme which seeks to alter

the social order of the whole world … and jihad refers to that revolutionary struggle … to

achieve this objective (Mawdudi 1981:5)

He impressed upon the radical members of Muslim Brotherhood, the need for

long-term educational endeavour to form cadres and militants while waiting for an

opportune moment to strike. In the meantime some military training was acceptable in

anticipation of self-defence. Qutb did not reject jihad by arms, but he considered “jihad

by deed” (education and indoctrination) superior to it, perhaps out of the necessity to

avoid persecution by Nasser’s security services. His prison experience seems to have

generated the pragmatic assessment that the new military state was more ruthless and

more secular-minded than he had imagined and should therefore be countered

accordingly.

One interpretation is that when Sayyid Qutb wrote fervently about the need for

jihad to combat the forces of jahiliyya, what he was really attacking was a mentality, an

attitude. Thus the favoured strategy of the jihad was to be, first, an inner effort to build a

sound basis for the faith in the believer and, second, the communication of that faith to

the rest of society through preaching and persuasion. The distinction between jihad in

deed and jihad in action remained for him essentially pragmatic and not philosophical.

This is why most of his disciples believed in both, albeit with differing emphases. (4)

(Sivan 1990: 90)

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Inherent in manhaj is a call to revolt against the existing socio-political order.

The right to revolt is not an acceptable tradition in Sunni political theory. The spectre of

civil war that tore the Islamic community apart in the mid-seventh century and the

tendency of the ulama in Islamic history to be dependent upon the authorities for

sustenance, created a sort of pessimistic realism in Sunni political thought that even an

evil ruler was better than anarchy (Milton-Edwards 2004:69). The ulama accepted and

legitimated any political authority that did not openly renege on the Faith. They criticised

but never opposed the ruler (5) (Sivan 1985; Sivan 1990:91).

Sayyid Qutb set out to legitimise revolt in the mainstream Sunni thought. In other

words he sought to ban the spectre of fitna (strife). For him the cause of fitna was the

absence of an Islamic regime which administered justice. He realised that change by

peaceful means had become impossible, given the coercive and ideological apparatuses at

the disposal of the regime. The vanguard, which had arrogated to itself the right to

interpret the heritage, could no longer rely on counter-persuasion. Qutb realised that long-

term educational efforts, designed to convert society segment by segment to ‘true Islam’,

was unachievable in the prevailing circumstances. Thus the vanguard – the protectors of

Islam – would have to resort to violence.

Qutb relied on Sunni theorist Ibn-Tamiyya to justify his sanction for revolt. For

Tamiyya, “a Sunni ruler becomes illegitimate if he does not apply a substantial part of

Shari’ah. The illegitimacy is defined in ulama terms: the ruler who neglects or

transgresses Islamic law is ipso facto an infidel, or rather an apostate, hence the object of

jihad. How substantial a part of the Shari’ah must be transgressed in order for a ruler to

become a kafir is not specified” (Sivan 1990:99, Memon 1976). A similar ambiguity

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remains with Sayyid Qutb, who fails to specify the details and patterns of the revolt i.e.

when and how the revolt would occur.

For Qutb, jihad is crucial if the dawah (call to Islam) is to proceed unimpeded.

For this, he notes the precedent in the life of Prophet Muhammad, which he proposes as

the prototype of the means of operating the dawah in order to bring it to a fruitful end.

For, while the Muslims restricted their activities to preaching in Mecca, it became

necessary for them to fight once they established the community in Medina. Qutb defends

the concept of liberation as an imperative to set humans free, to bring about the kingdom

of God on earth. He sees jihad for the realisation of the righteous society ordained by

God as a liberating force, not as oppression. “Jihad works to realize the idea of a

universal revolution not aimed at rule, control or booty. In this revolution, peace in all its

aspects, is realized: the peace of conscience, peace in home and peace in society …

finally, the peace of humanity.” (O’Sulliva 1998: 103)

Hakimiyyah

Hakimiyyah (sovereignty, governance) is one of the key ideas concerning the

Islamic imperative elaborated by Sayyid Qutb. For the Qutb, the term is associated with

absolute sovereignty of God. “There is no governance except for God, no legislation but

from God, no sovereignty of one [person] over the other because all sovereignty belongs

to God.” In addition to God’s sovereignty, the concept of hakimiyyah also affirms man’s

“total bondage to God alone”. This implies that the Muslims must conduct their lives in

conformity with the Quranic revelation. A true Islamic society can only be established

according to the tenets of the Shariah which alone guarantees freedom and justice to all

believers. The Shariah is not only a set of legal principles related to governance; it is a

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decree from God to organise the totality of human life. “As long as there is a group of

people legislating for others, equality and absolute dignity cannot be realized (Haddad in

Esposito 1983:89).” Therefore, the Lordship must rest solely with God.

Nature of the Islamic Society rescued from Jahiliyya

The pervasiveness of the divine commandment and absolute obedience to His

words is what characterises a true Islamic society. Absolute sovereignty of God delivers

people from jahiliyya into the kingdom of the divine and brings about equilibrium in the

life of the community. The rule of God cannot be questioned for it is a state of perfect

harmony, it cannot be improved upon for it is the telos of all political development, and it

cannot be overturned for it would push the society into the chaos and ignorance of

jahiliyya – a state deplorable and accursed.

The aim of politics, for Qutb, is the creation of divine harmony in the world and

the conduct of politics is to consist in the understanding of this absolute truth and radical

reshaping of human society to accord with its rhythms. Stable, reassuring and morally

fulfilling community based on communitarian ethics would then be restored. Politics of

individual choice with its implied egoism and conflict of interest would be eradicated.

Re-founding the community on a divinely sanctioned basis, even if it means radically

restructuring the existing society, is the task of the vanguard. Maintenance of community

requires unanimity among men in conformity with the will of God. Political activity must

be directed towards ascertaining the will of God, putting it into practice, and ensuring that

dissensions do not rupture the harmony thereby established.

In Milestones, Qutb says that obedience to Shariah is the requirement for

complete harmony between human life and life of the universe. The good comes from the

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return of humanity to its creator. The interests of the individuals are included in the law

of God as the God handed it down and the Prophet announced it. When all mankind

follows the laws laid down by God, there is no need for a ruler. In Milestones, Qutb

repeatedly asserts that there can be only one ruler, one judge, one sovereign in a

believer’s community: God. For Qutb, Islam reconciles the dichotomy between faith and

reason, and individual and communal values into a divine harmony. In Islamic world the

opposites are reconciled. In Hegelian terms it is the final ‘synthesis’ that does not give

rise to ‘thesis’ or ‘anti-thesis’.

Sayyid Qutb’s vision for the establishment of an Islamic system inspired a

number of former members and sympathisers of Muslim Brotherhood to see themselves

as vanguard of an ‘Islamic revolution’. For some, the freedom of interpretation, the

rejection of many of the traditionally accepted Islamic authorities, and the dogmatism of

Qutb’s assertions were all reminiscent of the spirit of kharijism (Binder 1988:174; Kepel

1985:58-61). They emphasise the intellectual and moral aspect of Sayyid Qutb’s call to

make Islam a dynamic practice for political reconstruction.

Conclusion

Qutb’s conception of jahiliyya is embedded in his quest to order a ‘good and just

society in his country’. He begins his diagnosis of the ‘ills’ prevalent in Egyptian society

by analysing the impact of the West on Muslim community. According to Qutb, the

material success of the West has caused the moral corruption of their societies making

them disharmonious, soulless, and rootless. The West had introduced these ideas and

values in Muslim societies creating disharmony there, which could only be remedied by a

return to the faith.

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Qutb’s revivalism is also a response to his perceived dissociation of Islam with

the prevalent ideologies of the time, especially the Pan-Arabism of Nasser. Qutb

perceives Pan-Arabism as a part of jahiliyya and its secular contents as totally abhorrent

to the Islamic way of life. He believes that the upholding of this alien ideology by

Muslim leaders made jahiliyya legitimate and deep-rooted. Milestones can be seen as a

critique of Nasserism which captured the imagination of Egyptians (and other Arabs) at a

time when the institutional Islam of the alim of Al-Azhar held sway. Qutb’s rousing call

for struggle inspired many despondent adherents of the disbanded Muslim Brotherhood,

giving them hope that they could successfully challenge and replace Nasserism, to lay

foundations of an Islamic state in Egypt.

Jahiliyya, for Qutb, is both a present reality and a future danger. It appears in

every epoch when God’s commandment is subordinated to human social engineering. He

calls for the removal of all obstacles to institute God’s sovereignty in contemporaneous

Muslim societies. He calls upon Muslims to wage jihad to exterminate the ‘rule’ of

jahiliyya and affect a total revolution in the life of the Muslims. Qutb broadens the

meaning of jihad beyond the commonly understood meaning of struggle against external

enemy and identified it with every effort to establish an Islamic way of life. The central

thrust of his reflections is dedicated to expose the pervasiveness and dangers of jahiliyya

and the necessity of destroying it.

Notes

1. Hasan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood or Society of the Muslim Brothers, the 20 th
century’s most influential Sunni revivalist movement for reorienting Muslim societies to a pure
Islamic order. Created in Egypt in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood became the first mass-based,
overtly political movement to oppose the ascendancy of secular and Western ideas in the Arab
world. The Brotherhood saw in these ideas the root of the decay of Islamic societies in the modern
world, and advocated a return to Islam as a solution to the ills that had befallen Muslim societies.
Al-Banna’s basic message was that Egypt had lost its soul; it had become politically subservient

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and economically dependent because it had strayed from the path that had been laid down by God.
The only remedy for the decadence of Egyptian and indeed all Muslim states and societies was to
reassert Islamic values and ways of life. In order to revive their societies, Muslims had to
recommit themselves to understanding and living according to Islam as defined by its scripture,
the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and as exemplified by the first generation of Muslims, the salaf. The
seventh century Islamic state under Prophet Muhammad and the early Caliphs represented the
concrete historical manifestation of a comprehensive Islamic order. Al-Banna criticised western
culture for atheism, immorality, individual and class selfishness, and usury. He believed that to
compound the harmful effects of European culture, most Muslims misunderstood their own
religion and thought it consisted only of rituals of worship and the moral and spiritual aspects of
life. The solution to Egypt’s political, economic and cultural problems lay in a return to Islam as a
model of a comprehensive order for all aspects of human existence. See David Commins, “Hassan
al-Banna (1906-1949) in Ali Rahnema, 1994, Pioneers of Islamic Revival, London, Zed Books,
pp. 125-153; Brynjar Lia, 1998, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an
Islamic Mass Movement 1928-1942, Reading, UK, Garnet; Richard P. Mitchell, 1969, The Society
of the Muslim Brothers, London, Oxford University Press; Zohurul Bari, 1995, Re-Emergence of
the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, New Delhi, Lancers Books; Trevor Stanley, Hassan al-Banna:
Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood; Ikhwan al-Muslimun, Perspectives on World History and
Current Events, 2005. URL: http://www.pwhce.org/banna.html Downloaded: 13 July 2006

2. The 19th and 20th century reformist-modernist strand of the Islamic revivalist movement was
represented by Islamic thinker and activist such as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh,
and Muhammad Iqbal (d.1938). They recognised that Islam has a universal potential, was vital in
any revival programme of the Muslim nations, and that European science and modernity need not
contradict Islam. By advocating the compatibility between reason and faith, they emphasised
interpretation of texts through ijtihad (logic and interpretation) to deal with the changing
circumstances. Essentially intellectual and modernist in nature, they sought to assert the validity
of Islam in modern times. See John Obert Voll, “Foundations for Renewal and Reform: Islamic
Movements in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries”, in John L. Esposito, The Oxford History
of Islam, New York, OUP, pp. 509-548; John L. Esposito, 2003, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam,
New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 7, 265-66; Nikki Keddie, 1983, An Islamic Response to
Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Berkeley,
University of California Press, pp. 183, 187; Albert Hourani, 1982, Arabic Thought in the Liberal
Age: 1789-1939, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; M.A. Zaki Badawi, 1976, The
Reformers of Egypt, London, Croom Helm, Chapter 2 and pp. 35-95 is devoted to Abduh and his
work and Elie Kedourie, 1966, Afghani and Abduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political
Activism in Modern Islam, London, Frank Cass. Also see URL:
www.islam21.net/pages/keyissues/key1-6.htm for an exposition on Islamic reform and revival.
3. Preoccupation with decadence and decline of Islam has been a characteristic of this civilisation
right from the very beginning owing to the fact that Muhammad, the founder of the faith, is
considered as an article of faith, to be the seal of all Prophets and Islam as the seal of all
Revelations. This trend harks back to the Kharjites, the Mawalis and even Shi’is. It was greatly
reinforced by the disintegration of Islamic empires into smaller states (9-11 th centuries), the
Crusades, Mongol aggression, and the demise of the Abbasid Caliphate (1258). Ibn Khaldun’s (d.
1406) inquiry into the causes and the decline of Islam written more than a century later represents
a manifestation of this cultural trait. See John L. Esposito, 2003, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam,
New York, Oxford University Press, p. 292; John L. Esposito, 2002, What Everyone Needs to
Know About Islam, New York, Oxford University Press downloaded from URL:
arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?module_ id=2&reading_id=62&print=1 19 August 2005; William
Montgomery Watt, 1998, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought, Oxford, Oneworld
Publications (New edition), chapter 1; Bernard Lewis (ed.), 1987, Islam, from the Prophet
Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, vol. II, Religion and Society, New York, Oxford
University Press, p. 224; Ira M. Lapidus, 1988, A History of Islamic Societies, Cambridge
University Press, p. 98; J.R. Cole and N.R. Keddie, (eds.), 1986, Shi’ism and Social Protest, New
Haven, Yale University Press.

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4. An emphasis on violence was evident, for example, in the northern (Allepo-Hama) branch of
Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Liberation Party (1974), and the Jihad Organisation
(1981) in Egypt. The southern (Damascus) Syrian branch and the exiled faction of the Syrian
Muslim Brotherhood put their faith (before the savage repression of 1980 convinced them
otherwise) in the long term educational means, and as the Takfir group did almost until 1977,
when it changed course under the threat of persecutions and out of despair at the success of the
Sadat regime to emphasise complete break from all of Muslim society, which were deemed kafir.
Members were therefore to live in an alternative community, or even in caves in upper Egypt.
Muslims who felt alienated or marginalised in modern Egypt joined this group for a sense of
community. The underlying themes for this plethora of groups were the same: the jahiliyya and
counter-society concepts and, above all, the belief in the right to revolt against evil Muslim rulers.
See Saad Eddin Ibrahim, “Anatomy of Egypt’s Militant Groups: Methodological Notes and
Preliminary Findings,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 12, 1980, pp. 423-53;
idem, “Egypt’s Islamic Militants”, MERIP Reports, no. 103, 1982, pp 5-14; Also see URL:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takfir_wal-Hijra Downloaded: 13 January 2006.
5. “An early version of this attitude can be seen in the writings of Qadi Amir ibn Shurhabil al-Sha’bi
al-Kufi (d. 721) under the Umayyads. He wrote: Love for family of the Prophet without being
Shi’ite … and believe that what is good derives from God and what is evil is of your own making
… and obey the Caliph even if he is a black slave.” The chief Qadi (judge) of Harun al-Rashid’s
ninth century Caliphate, and one of the most eminent jurists, Abu Yusuf writes on the same topic
in a book (kitab al-Kharaj) where he compares the responsibility of the caliph before God to that
of the shepherd to the owner of the flock. Like other jurists before him, Abu Yusuf perceives a
wicked ruler as God’s punishment to the community. “Rulers are a scourge through whom God
punishes those He decides to punish. So do not meet God’s scourge with hot temper and anger but
with humility and submission.” Even Ibn Hanbal (d. 855), founder of a most rigorous school of
Islamic law, had this to say about resistance: “You should obey the government and not rebel
against it. If the ruler orders something that implies sin against God (ma’siya), you should neither
obey nor rebel. Do not support fitna (strife), neither by your hand nor by your tongue.” Emmanuel
Sivan, 1990 Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics, New Haven, Connecticut,
Yale University Press; Emmanuel Sivan, 1985, “Ulama and Power”, Interpretation of Islam: past
and present, Princeton, N.J., Darwin Press.

References

1. Abu-Rabi, Ibrahim, “Sayyid Qutb: From Religious Realism to Radical Social Criticism”,

Islamic Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 2, 1984, pp. 103-126.

2. Abu-Rabi, Ibrahim M., 1996, Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab

World, State University of New York Press, pp. 1-2.

3. Akhavi, Sharough, “The Dialectic in Contemporary Egyptian Political Thought: The

Scriptualist and Modern Discourses of Sayyid Qutb and Hasan Hanafi”, International Journal

of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 29, no. 3, August 1997, pp. 377-401.

4. Ali, Abdullah Yusuf, The Holy Quran: Text, Translation, Commentary, 3rd ed., (United States:

McGregor and Werner, n.d.).

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5. Binder, Leonard, 1988, Islamic Liberalism, Chicago, Chicago University Press.

6. Carre, Olivier, 2003, Mysticism and Politics: A Critical Reading of “Fi Zilal al-Qur’an” by

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