Name : MOAMAR M. H.

MOHAMMAD
Subject : ML 295 (Seminar on Islamic Reform Movement)
Submitted to : Dr. Jawad Salic
Topic : Autobiography

4. Sayyid Qutb was one of the leading Islamist ideological thinkers of the twentieth
century. Living and working in Egypt, he turned to Islamism in his early forties after
about two decades as a secular educator and literary writer. As an Islamist, he held
that all aspects of society should be conducted according to the Shari’a, that is, laws
of God as derived from the Qur’an and the practice (sunna) of the Prophet
Muhammad. Probably his best known and most distinctive doctrine is his
interpretation of jahiliyya (pre-Islamic ignorance) as characterizing all of the societies
of his time, including the Muslim ones. Another doctrine was his interpretation of
faith in one God only (tawhid) as entailing the absolute sovereignty of God
(hakimiyyat Allah) and the liberation of humans from service to other humans instead
of God. He was executed by the Egyptian government for his Islamist activities and is
thus considered a martyr, something that has added immeasurably to the impact of his
ideas.

Although he did not consider himself a philosopher, he had opinions on a number of

topics that interest philosophers, and he commented on the ideas of philosophers. He
had a grand vision of the universe as a harmonious whole under God’s rule and of
humans as called upon to be God’s deputies in managing the Earth. Humans, however,
were given a measure of freedom that other beings do not have. Rightly used, this
freedom would allow humans to fit in harmoniously with the rest of creation and have
the highest status under God. Misused, it would introduce discord into the world and
misery into human life. Jahiliyya equates to misuse of this freedom, and Qutb calls for
jihad, conceived along the lines of revolution, as the response. In discussing these
things, he touches on a range of topics, including the nature of God and the universe,
human nature, knowledge and revelation, ethics, society, human history, death, and
judgment. This article presents only the latest and most radical phase of his thought.

Sayyid Qutb (1906—1966) was and is one of the most important ideologues of the
Islamist movement, which seeks to re-establish truly Islamic values and practices in
Muslim societies that have become more or less Westernized. He was born and raised
in an Egyptian village, attended the state primary school there, and in 1920 moved to
Cairo to attend secondary school and then Dar al-‘Ulum, a teacher training institute
that sought to balance traditional and modern ways. From 1933 to 1952 he worked in
the Ministry of Education, first as a teacher and later as an inspector and administrator.
He also became one of the secular literary elite prominent at the time, publishing
more than 100 poems as well as articles and books on literary and social topics. In
1948, he rather abruptly began to publish Islamist articles and the next year published
a major Islamist book, Social Justice in Islam, which was to go through a total of six
editions. The reasons for this shift are not totally clear, but the chaos of Egyptian
politics, the efforts of imperialist powers to reassert their position, and the
establishment of the state of Israel presumably played a role. His Islamism was
confirmed during a two-year (1948-1950) study tour of the United States, which he
found to be technologically impressive but hopelessly corrupt morally.

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After his return to Egypt he joined the Muslim Brothers, the leading Islamist
organization, founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, and soon became one of its leading
spokespersons. The Brothers supported the Free Officers’ revolution in 1952 at first
but soon withdrew support. After an attempt on the life of Abdel Nasser in 1954, the
leading Brothers were imprisoned, Sayyid Qutb among them. In prison, they suffered
very harsh treatment, though poor health spared Qutb the worst of it. This led to a
radicalization of his ideas, including the claim that the whole world, including the
“Muslim” world, is in a state of jahiliyya, that is, un-Islamic ignorance and barbarism.
This radicalization was assisted by the ideas of the extremely influential Indo-
Pakistani Islamist Abu’l ‘Ala’ Mawdudi (1903-1979), whose writings became known
to Qutb and other Arab thinkers from about 1951. Mawdudi’s ideas about divine
sovereignty, the Islamic state, jahiliyya, and other things spoke very much to Qutb’s
condition and helped him to crystalize and articulate his views.

In 1964, Qutb was released from prison and published his best-known book,
Milestones, effectively calling for an Islamic revolution. He also became mentor to a
group of young Brothers and was soon arrested for conspiring to overthrow the
government. In 1966, he was convicted of this charge and executed. He thus became a
martyr to his cause, considerably multiplying his influence.

Qutb wrote a number of books during his Islamist period in addition to those
mentioned, especially a multi-volume commentary on the Qur’an, In the Shadow of
the Qur’an, which he began in 1952 and was still revising at the time of his death.

Qutb’s radical ideas divided the Muslim Brothers after his death. The main line group
rejected them and sought to work within the existing political system, briefly
achieving the presidency in 2012-2013. Smaller groups, such as the so-called Takfir
wa-Hijra group, Jama‘at al-Islamiyya (Islamic group), and Tanzim al-Jihad (Jihad
organization), adopted and modified Qutb’s ideas and were responsible for
considerable terrorism through the 1990s (see below). His influence spread far beyond
Egypt, indeed throughout the whole of the Islamic world and its diaspora. This
included extreme groups such al-Qaeda, whose second leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
was very much influenced by Qutb’s main ideas and his example as a martyr, and
who first joined an Islamist group the year that Qutb was executed. In fact, Qutb has
come to be seen by many as the spiritual “godfather” of such groups. On the other
hand, it is possible to read him selectively, and so he has influenced many who do not
fully accept his extreme views. There is a considerable literature on him both in
Islamic and Western languages.

Qutb was not a philosopher by most definitions of the term, and he consciously
rejected philosophy as he understood it, both Western philosophy and classical
Islamic philosophy. He considered the discipline to be an effort to accomplish with
human reason what can only be accomplished on the basis of divine revelation and
also as a foreign intrusion on pure Islamic thought. Nevertheless, his thinking was
quite systematic and did have a place for reason; moreover, he used rational
arguments in criticizing philosophy and made reference to Western philosophers
(mostly known to him through Arabic translations) in the process. He also deals with
many topics that are of interest to philosophers. He is a good example of Weber’s
Wertrationalität (rationality in accordance with moral demands).

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The following article is based entirely on the last phase of his writing, from about
1958, during which he rejected many of his earlier ideas. This phase was the most
radical, most systematic, and most influential.

Qutb saw his ideas as a necessary interpretation and corollary of the basic Muslim
creed: “There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” His views
fall within the wide spectrum of Sunni Islamic thinking but particularly within the
forms of it commonly labelled “Islamist” (stressing the application of Islamic norms
to society) and “Salafi” (broadly, those who emphasize the authority of the Qur’an,
Sunna, and the earliest generations of successors, the salaf, over against later
“innovations”). Like many popular writers on religious topics in modern times, he did
not have the traditional education given to the ‘ulama’ (religious scholars) and was to
some extent self-taught in this area.

The article focuses primarily on the more basic and theoretical aspects of Qutb’s
writing (what we might call his philosophy or theology), which he calls the Islamic
tasawwur, a word usually translated “concept” or “conception,” but which here could
also be translated “worldview” or “vision.” Qutb, in the manner of fundamentalists
and also scientists, does not consider this his conception but the true conception. He
characterizes this conception as divinely sourced, and following from that: fixed in its
basics, comprehensive, balanced, dynamically positive, realistic, and unified.

The tasawwur grows out of its divine source and does not need or accept significant
influence from the outside. Therefore, Qutb criticizes not only contemporary
modernists, who wish to “reform” Islam in terms of modern, that is, Western ideas
and ideologies, but also the earlier Muslim philosophers and theologians, who made
use of Greek philosophical ideas. We may note that Qutb is firmly of the view that
ideas are prior to actions, which flow from them. The ideas are not ends in themselves,
however, but are meant to undergird actions and activities. In fact, all of human life
and activity flows from a creedal tasawwur of some kind. Qutb often describes Islam
(and religion more generally) in terms of three stages: tasawwur, manhaj (method,
program), nizam (social and political order). Each stage proceeds from the former one
with almost logical necessity. All three are necessary for Islam to exist. Since Qutb
believed that there was no Islamic nizam in his time, he often said that Islam has no
“existence.” We may note that Qutb’s Islam is a highly reified concept, not just a
label applied variously to diverse human ideas and practices.