Sayyid Qutb Influence

Sayyid Qutb is a very prominent Islamist. He grew up in Egypt, and from a very young age was taught about Islam and the Qur’an. By the age of ten he had memorized the entire book. His views about the world radically changed after he was sent to the United States to study educational administration. For two years, he worked in several different institutions, including the prestigious Stanford University. He also travelled extensively, visiting major cities in the United States, and even spent some time in Europe when he was going back to Egypt. His reaction to what he saw in the West was certainly negative; he found Western society desperately materialistic, corrupt, morally loose, and often unjust. He was especially troubled by the disrespect
shown to Arabs in the United States. His views of the Western world, as well as ideas have often been criticized for being radical. As a prominent thinker, Sayyid Qutb is seen as a Muslim fundamentalist.
His beliefs helped spread the idea that the Qur’an should be used as a guide to take over the world in the name of Islam, even though I do not believe that was his primary intention. Qutb’s idea of Jahiliyyah is prevalent in his writings, and he points out that today is the second time of ignorance, Muslims are behaving like they have forgotten the one true God. Thus leading to instability around the world. His radical views have been associated with Osama Bin Laden and other terrorists’ groups who justify their actions using some of Qutb’s thinking. However, when Qutb is put in comparison with other secular thinker such as Hobbes, Locke or Rousseau, I found that his thinking is remarkably similar those of the Social
Theorists. The reason why I believe Qutb’s ideas are in fact comparable to other secular theorists is that they essentially all claim the same truth about the role of individuals in the society. Both Hobbes and Qutb occupy the ground of people who are both radical and conservatives. They believed that people were subject to their own nature and that if any society wanted to survive, it had to give absolute authority to the “Sovereign” in the case of Hobbes, and to God in the case of Qutb. Another interesting comparison is the fact that Qutb is talking about Fitrah in his books and that notion seems pretty similar to Locke’s State of Nature, or the nature of humanity. Where the individual is in a state of perfect and complete liberty are able to conduct themselves as they best see fit, free from the interference of others. Both Locke and Qutb argue that this “nature” is given to us by God or the relationship we, humans, have with him. The pair of thinkers, both believed that humans were born innocent but perverted by a society that always pushes them to want more. Qutb will go even further and claim that this society of consumptions and excess is in a time of Jahiliyyah and they are not listening to their true Fitrah.
My overall goal in this essay is to argue that even though Qutb’s ideas can be seen as radical and have been used, and interpreted by terrorists. The true meaning, or at least the interpretation of his ideas can and should be compared to some more traditional thinkers. Remarkably, they seem rather similar to those of the most prominent Social Contract Theorists, which have created some of the most dominant theories within moral and political theory throughout the Western History. This analysis could show that in fact, the West has moved away from Christianity and religion, and doing so, it became closer to Islam. Using Qutb’s thinking as a key to understand why, most of the tensions between the Islamic World and the West do not come from how different their culture and ideologies are, but surprisingly from how comparable the two cultures might be. First, let us start with Hobbes’s and his theory of the Social Contract.
I would argue that the hypothetical State of Nature directly relates to some of Qutb’s views. By example, Andrew March argues that “Qutb’s project is an account of exactly why and how Islam requires politics, and how modern humans can be both free and governed.” (March) It is quite amazing to see how Qutb talks about the idea of having a society that is relying upon every one of its individual and their Fitrah, as well as accepting the fact that those people should be ruled by something else or someone else. The State of Nature, that Hobbes is talking about can be explained as the human natural state, or how people are, on an individual level, before being influenced by anything or anyone, and especially the society. Furthermore, the general society is always catching up with its individuals’ progress, and on top of that lies religion. Hobbes, as we know, was influenced by the progress made in the Scientific fields. The Scientific Revolution, with its important new discoveries such as that the universe could be both described and predicted in accordance with universal laws of nature, greatly influenced him. He sought to provide a theory of human nature that would parallel the discoveries being made by scientists. To understand how that concept relates to Qutb, we first must take a step backward. The meaning of shari’ah for Qutb is very different than what non-Muslim people think it means. The shari’ah
governs as a totality and mix what modern Western political theory divides into “public” and “private” (Euben) . Basically everything is governed by the belief in the unity of God. In her article, Euben goes even further and says that one of Qutb main focus is that Muslims must first change themselves and become as good as possible in order to be free and change the world. In doing so, Qutb also argues that there is no reward as to doing the right thing, whether it is in this life or the next one. His goal, as I understand it is quite paradoxical, he argues that Muslim should use Jihad to become free, but this freedom really means to obey to Allah’s sovereignty. Qutb believes in the idea that everything is ruled or at least comes from God in a certain way. He is arguing that the ultimate danger to people’s moral existence starts when people believe that all can be explained through science. He goes even further and says that:” Denial of divine sovereignty is the source of moral corruption” (Euben) . Giving more importance to individuals and their knowledge from the use of science is the root to some atrocious events that are happening around the world. Finally, Euben points out that Qutb’s political thoughts might be frightening, but they could also be one of the keys to understanding the challenges that the non-Western world is facing with modernity. Qutb’s complexity exists from the way modern people live, and especially without having any God figure in their life. This is one explanation to why liberalism, democracy as well as rationalism are still such challenges in most parts of the world and those challenges do not seem to decrease.