With his death in 1966 Sayyid Qutb was viewed as a martyr by his admirers, yet to the Egyptian regime and traditional Ulama he was a traitor. The Ulama viewed him as the modern day equivalent of a kharijite :
“Like the Kharijites, Qutb employs the concept of al-hakimiyya li-illah to call upon Muslims to oppose any earthly sovereignty.”
Qutb was thus placed on the list of heretical genealogy along with groups such as the Kharijites. What Qutb did was to create a new Islamic political ideology, reinforcing the notion of timeless universalism within Islam and bought the Qur'an firmly into the political sphere, debunking the old interpretations and reinstituting Ijtihad back into the public and personal realms.
So who was Sayyid Qutb and what were his theories and ideologies?
The life and times of Sayyid Qutb:
Sayyid Qutb was born in the Egyptian town of Musha in 1906 , to a poor yet respectable family of rural notables. His early education was a mix of traditional schooling in the local Khuttab , and in a more modern oriented state school. This early education was for Qutb rooted much in the Qur'an, which by the age of ten he had memorized. The Egyptian revolts of 1919 forced Sayyid Qutb to go to Cairo to seek an education, moving into the home of an uncle. By 1933 he had graduated from a teachers college, and was offered a position by the Ministry of Public Education, this was to be his nominal employment for the next sixteen years.
During these years, literature dominated his life and work, with the influence of al-Aqqad particularly strong. The Tenor of his books at this time was generally non-religious, as can be seen in his major work of this time, Ashwak – Thorns. Qutb increased his political activity at this juncture in his life, though this activism was based more on Egyptian and Arab Nationalism than on any Islamic precepts, with him being closely associated to the Wafd and Sa’adist political Parties, until his conversion to the al-Ikhwan al-Muslimum (the Muslim Brotherhood).
There was an increasing Islamic content to his work, as can be viewed in the various articles, journals and books that he was disseminating in the 1940s. This was due to the internal and external situation of the Egyptian and wider Arab world of the time. In the 1930s there was a widespread reaction against Westernization and Western suppression of the Nationalist groups and parties. World War II and the Palestine conflict further alienated the local populations from the West and its ideologies and philosophies. This led to a polarization of the population into two socio-political groups, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Marxists.
Qutb’s increasing radicalism, annoyed many in the government, and making them push for his de-facto exile, this was done by posting him to the United States. This Visit to the United States was to be of seminal importance to his later work. The society and politics Qutb found in the United States was anathema to him, he viewed the country as materialistic, racist and full of sexual permissiveness. Thus:
‘...in a letter to Tawfiq Al-hakim, written from Washington in May 1949, he describes America as a huge, ridiculous “workshop” which they call “the New World”. Americans lack one thing, he says which is of no value to them: the spirit (al-Ruh).’
Upon his return to Egypt in 1951, he resigned from his position at the Ministry of Public Education, after denouncing the United States too harshly for the governments liking. Then later in 1951 joined the Muslim brotherhood, a move that made him later say:
“I was born in 1951.”
In 1953 he was made editor in charge of the journal, Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimin and was welcomed into the working Committee of the guidance council of the Muslim Brotherhood, this made Qutb the center of Muslim Brotherhood ideology. This role lasted until 1954 when an attempted Assassination of President Nasser was indicted upon the Muslim Brotherhood, leading to the jailing of their leaders, including Qutb and the dissolving of the whole Muslim Brotherhood as a social organ.
For Qutb, the years from 1954 until his death in 1966 were years where his utopian ideals were formed, radicalized and systematized. His writings from prison brought his previous feelings to fruition. The increasing violence of the regime, as could be seen in the torture and massacres of prisoners, was the catalyst for Qutb’s belief in the need for the use of force to usurp the regime and institute an Islamic state. His most famous work, Ma’alim Fi al-Tariq (Signposts) was the consummation of his political theories of Jahiliyya, Jihad and social justice. He was sentenced to death and hanged on the 29th of August 1966, leaving behind a large corpus of work and a radical ideology.
The Ideological and Political Discourse of Sayyid Qutb:
Jahiliyya :
The works of Sayyid Qutb are dominated by the concept of Jahiliyya, Qutb managed to change the traditional concept of Jahiliyya – one of a historical age of ignorance in pre-Islamic times – to a more pejorative term that transcended time and thus could be applied to contemporary society. Therefore according to Qutb:
“Any society that is not Muslim is Jahiliyya…as is any society in which something other than God alone is worshiped… thus, we must include in this category all societies that now exist on earth.”
Though the concept of Jahiliyya as a term being transcendent of the grasp of Chronos, and was taken to its logical conclusion it was not an original idea of Qutb’s, here he was heavily influenced by the ideas of Mawdudi (1903-80). Thus Qutb saw Jahiliyya as the rejection of divine authority for its replacement by human authority. In his theory an essential characteristic of God was his sovereignty (Hakimiyya ), thus ascribing sovereignty to anyone else was seen as giving them divinity, this proof was gleaned from a Hadith of Adi ibn Hatim. Qutb’s was therefore very Manichean in his weltanschauung, enjoining a constant struggle of two positions:
Faith against disbelief.
Tawhid against Shirk.
Thus there was an ideological conflict, with no middle ground.
Qutb uses odd foundations upon which to build his ideological view of Islam, its core is the Tasawwur (concept) of life and the universe, which is seen as an infrastructure for all aspects of Islam to be built upon. This allows man to define and know his role in society and also defining the political approach and method to be taken. This means that the political is dependent upon the interpretation of Islamic concepts and values, all of which are composed from seven core characteristics, all interconnected and springing from the concepts of Tawhid and Al-uluhiyya (divinity).
Tawhid in its positive form is man’s submission to God in all affairs of life, obeying his methods of law and order and worshiping him alone. From this all other rules follow, such as man’s organization of life and society according to the divine will and revelation of Allah. Thus allowing society to be harmonious:
“Divinity is one, not multiple; it is the divinity of the almighty God. Anything besides him belongs to [the realm of] the created…
The truth of this belief constitutes the basis of the creed of the Muslims and leads to a concept.”
Therefore religion is to be seen as a system of life which includes a metaphysical universal concept (tasawwur), accompanied by a specific social order. Thus to Qutb a nation or society that professes its belief in Islam, yet has its behavior predicated upon partial or total adherence to other non-Islamic systems of government and life, is to be seen leading it into Jahiliyya.
This allowed Qutb to renounce and reject all non-Islamic systems. Qutb held the Qur'an as a complete book containing all metaphysical, moral-ethical and political doctrines.
Divinity, within Qutb’s thought indicates that the source of the Islamic concept is Allah and not Muhammad. Humankind is unable to interpret the Qur'an, which allows the Qur’an to speak for itself. Muhammad was only a transmitter (rasul), meaning that no human could have any real understanding of the truth. All this meant that divine knowledge ruled over human knowledge and reasoning. This stopped any other group having a more ‘authentic’ view of Islam, thus allowing individuals to rule an Islamic state. This was Qutb’s rejection of any intellectual elitism and ruled out any role for the Ulama within his concept of an Islamic State, allowing a theocracy or an eschatological inclination towards a mystical redeemer to be ruled out a-priori.
Qutb insisted that the Islamic system was derived from the Qur'an, and was not a historical system from any particular epoch or even being local to just one generation. To Qutb it was:
“…a universal reality co-existing with unfolding [generations of] mankind as the permanent law of universe [nomos] or the world….”
Thus man could not know what was right, only the Qur'an and therefore the Islamic system held the truth, leaving man unable to obtain true knowledge or understanding of nature and religion.
Thus a Jahiliyya society was one that rejected divine sovereignty and its incumbent universality, and was therefore out of harmony with the world. Thus to Qutb to see if a society was Jahiliyya, he had to view what sort of Udubiyya (worship) was involved and also what hakimiyya (sovereignty) existed within. Thus, a Muslim society:
“…is that in which Islam is applied. Islam means faith, worship [of God], legislation, social organization, [theory of] creation, mode of behavior….
Thus, a society whose legislation does not rest on divine law (Shari’at Allah) is not Muslim, however ardently its individuals may proclaim themselves Muslim, even if they pray, fast and make the pilgrimage.”
The West and especially the United States was seen by Qutb as the main driving force of Jahiliyya in his contemporary era. He even declared Islam as not existing anymore:
‘We know that Islamic life…stopped a long time ago in all parts of the world and that the “existence” (wajud) of Islam itself has therefore stopped.”
Islamic society (umma) and the shar’ia:
In the political discourse of Qutb the three most important doctrines were seen as; the need to implement the Shar’ia which would be based on his theory of social justice and to instigate a revolution against Jahiliyya. To justify this theory of rule within an Islamic state Qutb played with the semantics of Qur'anic verse 5:44:
‘And those who do not judge according to what Allah has revealed are unbelievers.’
Here Qutb changed the word “judge” for the term “rule” or “govern”. Therefore Muslims have to believe in and govern themselves with the tenets of Islam to be a true Muslim. To Qutb the State is an entity that has a structure to protect and encourage morality, so therefore the main need of an Islamic state was the establishment of a moral society based on the teachings of Allah.
Legislation was seen as a divine matter to Qutb, Islamic law was the eternal manifestation of God’s will. What was needed was the codification of these strictures in accord with the needs of everyday society. By applying the concept of Tawhid it is therefore a Muslim’s duty to implement the Shar’ia, allowing the realization of the Islamic system. Thus for Qutb, political rule was no different to legal rule. And from his concept of Hakimiyya it could be seen that:
• The system of government within Islam was unlike any other system
• Islamic government was to be constitutional.
• It was not to be theocratic, and
• The Islamic Shar’ia was constant and unchangeable even when changes in leadership occurred.
Shura also plays an important role here:
“Shura is a fundamental principle of Shar’ia, and essential to the various organs and to the identity of the Islamic state.”
The role of the Historical “golden age” of Islam was important in Qutb’s theory of Shura, yet the “golden age” was not to be taken as the only example available. Qutb saw that the:
“Muslim community must devise its own methods to facilitate shura according to the environment, social circumstances, and requirements.”
Here Qutb was going against the commonly held notion of ijtihad as closed to any fresh reinterpretation. Islamic society was to adhere to the principles, values and ethics of Islam, yet never meaning to exclude new formulations to any new or old problems.
Rulers were seen as servants of the Shar’ia, the ruler having in Qutb’s view no real authority, authority belonging to Allah alone. The authority of the ruler came from the people, and his rule was legitimized by the population too. This was Qutb’s “Government of the Umma”, which was a compromise between popular sovereignty and absolutism. This allowed Qutb to reject medieval notions of Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), fiqh was now to be divided from the Shar’ia, which was hypothesized by Qutb to be eternal and unchangeable, whereas Fiqh was the human understanding of the Shar’ia from within the umma.
Da’wa and Jihad:
Revolution played an important role within Qutb’s thoughts, especially in his erecting the theory of the Islamic state. Again the theory came from the basis of tawhid within his theory of Jahiliyya, therefore a revolution or Jihad was to be against Jahiliyya:
“Is a revolution against the worldly authority that usurps the first characteristics of divinity, and a revolution against situations based on this usurpation and against the authorities that rule by their own laws that are not given by God.”
Revolution held an important role as it was seen as the only way to gain Social justice and subsequently have the Shar’ia implemented. Jihad was crucial to Qutb’s view of da’wa, in its removal of obstructions to da’wa. Jihad therefore liberated hearts and minds from the chains of vulgar society, allowing the instituting of da’wa.
It was of vital importance that there was to be no patching up of the existing Jahili society, it being a must for any new Islamic society to start fresh and anew:
“There is a difference between having a plan to construct gradually and patching up a construction based on another plan. In the end, this patching up does not establish a new building for you. Thus, it is necessary to destroy the old system and to build a new one.”
To Qutb Jihad to be was total, universal and perpetual. Islam placed certain responsibilities upon the Muslim, for example:
• The duty to protect Muslims so they do not stray
• To ensure the freedom of prostylization.
• To ensure that Muslims live under Shar’ia law.
• The duty to fight oppression and injustice wherever.
These views of jihad were seen as important for the upholding and eventual accomplishment of the Islamic goal, to Qutb Jihad was a sixth pillar of Islam . These views on Islam were antithetical to traditional views and were seen as incredibly dangerous, as they threw takfir into the public realm.
Social Justice:
Qutb saw in his time two major ideologies for Islam to compete against, Communism and Capitalism. To Qutb Islam was in neither of these camps but was in the middle, rejecting both of these alien ideologies, and again based his theory on the concept of tawhid. Social Justice is seen as enshrined in the Qur'an with the references to inheritance, waqf , jihad, and strictures against usury.
Qutb gives two guidelines for the attainment of Social justice:
1. The need for a harmonious balance and a unity between individuals and groups.
2. A mutual responsibility between individuals and groups.
The ethical concept comes via the individual’s and group’s obedience to the Shar’ia. Justice for Qutb came from three main principles; (i) liberation of conscience, (ii) human equality and (iii) mutual social responsibility. Liberation of conscience is seen as eliminating fear of enslavement to social values, this is done through an increased piety of the Muslim. Human equality comes from equality in conscience in the soul, leading to the equality of institutions. Thus when:
“…the human conscience has got a taste of all this [liberation], it finds legal and practical guarantees that assure this feeling [of liberation]. And there will be no need for someone to advocate equality in words, for it [the conscience] has tasted its meaning in its depths and has found it a reality in its life.”
Qutb sees the need for equality at birth and in childhood or else it will lead to inequality later on in life. The Islamic distribution of wealth was too cover all aspects of life. The prevention of concentrated wealth is pushed as a primary concern of Islam. Yet the equality is not one of economic status but of opportunity. To gather wealth is seen as the duty of the individual, yet wealth according to Qutb is the fundamental right of the umma, therefore individual wealth is part of a community’s wealth. The umma holds absolute right of ownership. So therefore in an Islamic system:
“The guarantees that are provided any [rich] parents should be given to the other [poor] parents. Health care should be provided to children before they are born or else there is no real equal opportunity [between those who can afford medical care and those who cannot].”
Mutual responsibility (takaful) is encoded by Qutb as not just charity, but a system of preparation to work, produce and guarantee. This being an individual and public duty. Thus Zakat is not a charitable fund given voluntarily, but a tax used to redistribute wealth. This is justified by the role of public interest, an important doctrine within Islam and thus a social and devotional duty.
It can be said that Sayyid Qutb was the product of a society that was going through major political, social and cultural dislocations, this can be seen in the plethora of forces impacting on his weltanschauung. This went from a near secular outlook in the 1930s to become increasingly Islamic until he joined the Muslim Brethren. The experiences he went through were vitally important in the radicalizing of his views, therefore the visit to America and his experience of incarceration within Egyptian prisons were seminal.
He bought with him an uncompromising attitude to the Qur'an, if it was seen to have a message it was the duty of humans to discover and implement it. He pushed the conception of din wa-da’wla, jahiliyya, takfir, shar’ia, jihad and social justice into mainstream politics. Though much of his thinking was taken from others it was Qutb who took these theories through to their logical conclusion
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