Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb (*Born October 9, 1906 in Musha Egypt; Died August 29, 1966 in Cairo Egypt) grew up in British Occupied Egypt and was an influential Egyptian writer, educator and religious leader who was closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Qutb was imprisoned and executed by Abd al-Nasser's regime after a trial charged him of planning a revolt, conspiring to kill public figures and plotting to blow up the Aswan Dam. According to Gilles Kepel, Qutb was ‘the greatest ideological influence on the contemporary Islamist movement. Qutb’s influence over the Sunni Muslim world is undeniable; through his written works he was able to reach many young minded Muslims. His famous books include Social Justice and Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq (Milestones) and another which is considered his masterpiece Fi Zilal al-Qur’an (In the shade of the Qur’an) is a 30 volume commentary on the Qur’an. His writing about Islam, especially his call for a revolution to establish an Islamic state and society, greatly influenced the Islamic resurgence of the Islamic movement in the 20th century. He is no doubt the father of Islamic fundamentalism.
Early Life
Sayyid Qutb was raised in the Egyptian village of Musha, located in Upper Egypt's Asyut Province, by devoted Muslim parents. His father was well known for his political activism holding weekly meetings to discuss the political events and Qur'anic recitation. His mother showed particular love for the Qur’an, which she inculcated in her offspring. At a young age, Sayyid Qutb learned about the melodic illustrations of the Qur'an, which would fuel the artistic side of his personality all the way to his last book. From 1929-1933 he lived in Cairo where he received an education based on the British style of schooling, before starting his career as a teacher in the Ministry of Public Instruction. In 1939 he became a functionary in Egypt's Ministry of Education (wizarat al-ma'arif).
America
From 1948 to 1950, Qutb travelled to the United States on a scholarship, spending several months at Colorado State College of Education as well as Stanford University. Qutb distinguished Islamic values from what he perceived as American materialism and atheism. He was very critical of the American society and his reaction was mainly negative, he found western society not just hopelessly materialistic but corrupt, morally loose and ridden with injustice. Qutb's first major theoretical work of religious social criticism, Social Justice in Islam Al-'adala al-Ijtima'iyya fi-l-Islam , was published in 1949, during his time in the West.
Return to Egypt
On his return to Egypt, Qutb published an article entitled The America that I Have Seen. He was critical of many things he had observed in the United States: its materialism, individual freedoms, economic system, racism, brutal boxing matches, poor haircuts, superficiality in conversations and friendships,restrictions on divorce, enthusiasm for sports, lack of artistic feeling, animal-like mixing of the sexes (which went on even in churches), and strong support for the new Israeli state. His experience in America and his rejection to western values is believed to be the accelerating force behind his move towards an Islamist sentiment. In 1953, after the Free Officers’ coup d’etat in Egypt, Qutb joined the Muslim Brotherhood; he felt the necessity of channelling all his energies into the one organisation capable of realising the creation of an Islamic state. The official slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood was 'The Quran is our constitution'. The Brotherhood's religious political system would eventually clash with Nasser's secular ideology, leading to several Brother's being killed and tortured under Nasser's rule. Later he became editor in chief of the Brother’s weekly magazine Al-Ikhwan al Muslmin and eventually head of its propaganda section as well as an appointed member of the working committee and of its guidance council, which is the highest branch in the organisation.
Gamal abd al-Nasser and imprisonment
In July 1952 the Free Officers Movement, headed by Abd al- Nasser, overthrew the pro-western Egyptian government. Both Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood welcomed the coup against the monarchist government, which they perceived as un-Islamic and subservient to British imperialism. When it became clear that the Free Officers had no intention to fully implement the Shari’a and the Free Officers realised the Muslim Brotherhood would not bring them the masses they were hoping for, the relationship between the two sides quickly deteriorated. Abd al-Nasser resented the interefence of the Muslim Brotherhood when it became clear that he could not turn them into key constituents. Tensions rose in 1954 when a young Brother tried to assassinate Nasser during a speech in Alexandria. Nasser saw the Brotherhood as dangerous rivals, he had the society banned and hundreds of its members imprisoned, including Sayyid Qutb. Qutb was kept in the Egyptian concentration camp for several years where he suffered a decade of torture, malnourishment and isolation. This period saw the composition of his two most important works: a commentary of the Qur'an, 'In the Shade of the Qur'an', Fi Zilal al-Qur'an and a manifesto of political Islam called 'Milestones' Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq. These works represent the final form of Qutb's thought, encompassing his radically anti-secular and anti-Western claims based on his interpretations of the Qur'an, Islamic history, and the social and political problems of Egypt. The school of thought he inspired has become known as Qutbism.
It was during this time that Qutb went through a period of intense reflection and developed a style of Islamic militant writing. He reacted in his written works to the Free Officers ‘betrayal’ and the Islamist cause. He equated the Free Officers’ rule to the global secular culture that they imitated. He associated their disbelief to Jahiliyya (the state of ignorance in which the Arabs are supposed to have lived before the revelation of Islam to the Prophet Muhammed at the beginning of the 7th century A.D.). Instead of implementing the shari'a, Nasser implemented man made laws into Egyptian society. Even though Nasser maintained certain Islamic traditions, he was by all means a secular nationalist who aimed to spread an un-Islamic ideology.
In 1964 Qutb was released from prison after an appeal from Iraqi president Abdul Salam Areb to Nasser. However, he remained under strict surveillance by the regime but still continued to write and work for the Islamic cause. A year later Nasser’s regime arrested him again. The charge against him was based on his now celebrated book Milestones, which became an internationally influential mainfesto of the Islamic revolution. The book condemns the existing order in Muslim societies and provides guidelines for Muslim activists to establish an islamic revolution. Two years after Milestones was published, Qutb was arrested and hanged for treason on the 29th of August 1966 in Cairo, Egypt.
Beliefs
During the first part of his Islamist career he was moderate in his beliefs and considered that through politics one could acquire the appropriate means for Islamists to attain power. Sayyid Qutb's mature political views centered on Islam — Islam as a complete system of morality, justice and governance, whose Sharia laws and principles should be the sole basis of governance and everything else in life. In an earlier work Qutb described military jihad as defensive, Islam's campaign to protect itself, while later he believed jihad must be offensive.
He turned to radicalism mainly as a response to the Egyptian state’s determination to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood. A decade after his death, the Islamist movement had become a potent mobilizing force in Egypt. Qutb illustrated in his book Milestones that, 'Islam knows only two kinds of societies, the Islamic and the Jahili'. An Islamic society is that which has correctly applied Islam by implemeting Islamic law, ethics and morals. A Jahili society is that which does not enforce Islamic law, such as democracy, socialism and secular Muslim governance, all of which are 'ignorant of the divine guidance'. According to Qutb, if a society is fully aware of the existence of God yet still chooses to rule without Islamic law, the society is branded ignorant and must be converted and reformed. He further explains that 'jahiliyya is not a period in time, but a state that repeats itself everytime society deviates from the path of Islam, be it in the past, in the present or in the future.' For Qutb, jahiliyya was not just a state of living in ignorance, as Arabs had done before the revelation of Islam, but worse, as it encompassed the creation of man made laws and values after Allah had presented the world with the holy Quran and Shari'a. Qutb claimed that sovereignty (hakimiyya) belonged to Allah a divine attribute which had been purloined by by man. He believed that man was not permitted to take hakimiyya from God, therefore the only ruler should be Allah and the shari'a. Finally, Qutb offered his own explanation in Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq, arguing that anything non-Islamic was evil and corrupt, while following Sharia as a complete system extending into all aspects of life, would bring every kind of benefit to humanity, from personal and social peace, to the "treasures" of the universe.[44]
In general, Qutb's experiences as an Egyptian Muslim; his village childhood, professional career, and activism in the Muslim Brotherhood; left an unmistakable mark on his theoretical and religious works.
Legacy
After Sayyid Qutb's execution, his younger brother Muhammed Qutb escaped to Saudi Arabia where he became a professor in Islamic Studies and published and promoted his brother's written works. One of his students was Ayman Zawahiri who became a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and later a mentor of Osama bin Laden and a leading member of Al-Qaeda. According to a close college friend of bin Laden's, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, Osama bin Laden regularly attended weekly public lectures by Muhammad Qutb at King Abdulaziz University. In Khalifa's opinion, Sayyid Qutb's works were among those that most affected their generation.
During the 1980’s and 1990’s Qutb’s ideological heirs attempted to topple state regimes in Egypt, Syria, Algeria and elsewhere. These failures prompted Ayman al-Zawahiri to conceive the idea of striking the ‘puppet master’, none other than the United States. He believed that such an attack would inspire Muslims around the world and put the Jihad on a new footing. Al-Zawahiri’s bloody war against the ‘Far enemy’ took radical Islamism to a place that Qutb had never imagined.
Qutb's ideological impact was not just felt in his native Egypt, but have spread far and wide. Qutb's theoretical work on Islamic advocacy, social justice and education, has left a significant mark on the Muslim Brotherhood. His books Milestones and In the shade of the Qura'an have been translated into virtually every language.
Literature
By Sayyid Qutb
- A Child From The Village (autobiographic novel, published originally in 1946). Syracuse University Press, 2004 (in German: Kindheit auf dem Lande, 1997)
- Al 'adalah al ijtimâ'iah fil Islam (Social Justice in Islam)
- Fi Zilal al Qur'an (Qur'an commentary written in prison)
- Ma'alim fi tarîq (first volume of an unfinished series due to the author's execution)
- Haza dîne (This Religion).
- Mouchkilâte Al-hadhâra (The Problems of Civilization).
- Plus some 20 more works
About Sayyid Qutb
- Kepel Gilles: Jihad-The Trail of Political Islam, 4th Edition, London 2006
- Calvert John: Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism, New York 2010
- Rahnema Ali: Studies in Islamic Society-Pioneers of Islamic revival, London 1994
- Belén Soage Ana: Islam and Modernity: The Political Thought of Sayyid Qutb, Spain, 2009
- Stahl Adam E.: Offensive Jihad in Sayyid Qutb's Ideology, Israel, 2011
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