Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
Before moving on to Qutb, let me make one last key point about Hassan al Banna. This is his vision for women:
... a campaign against ostentation in dress and loose behaviour; the instruction of women in what is proper, with particular strictness as regards female instructors, pupils, physicians, and students, and all those in similar categories... a review of the curricula offered to girls and the necessity of making them distinct from the boys' curricula in many stages of education ... segregation of male and female students; private meetings between men and women, unless within the permitted degrees of relationship, to be counted as a crime for which both will be censured ... the encouragement of marriage and procreation, by all possible means; promulgation of legislation to protect and give moral support to the family, and to solve the problems of marriage ... the closure of morally undesirable ballrooms and dance-halls, and the prohibition of dancing and other such pastimes ..."
What he is describing is gender apartheid, and by the way, AJK, something very similar to this is taking place now in Gülen schools in Turkey, with the consequence that girls educated in such schools are meek and silent and subordinated by the age of eight. Would you like to see this for yourself? Get in touch; I'll tell you where to go. If you cannot see that this is a worrying development in a secular country that has until now guaranteed women equality under the law, I'm forced unhappily to conclude that you think the dignity and equality of women are a detail. We can of course discuss this civilly, but when it comes down to it, this makes our perspectives irreconcilable.
Now to Qutb, one of the leading intellectuals of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. His views on women are also of special note; he believed the Koran instructed men to be "managers of women's affairs," and himself never married because he was unable to find a woman of sufficient moral purity. Famously, Qutb's views were shaped by a sojourn in America from 1948 to 1950; he found himself aghast by the "animal-like mixing of the sexes." Americans, he concluded, were "numb to faith in religion, faith in art, and faith in spiritual values altogether."
Upon returning to Egypt, Qutb joined the Muslim Brotherhood and became head of its propaganda section and a high member of its guidance council. In 1952, Nassar overthrew the Egyptian government. The Brotherhood welcomed the coup, expecting Nasser to establish an Islamic state, but when Nasser declined to implement Islamic law, the warm relationship between the Free Officers and the Brotherhood soured. (This is to put it blandly; in 1954 they attempted to assassinate him.) Qutb was imprisoned in the ensuing crackdown. He wrote In the Shade of the Qur'an and Milestones from his prison cell.
In Milestones, he advanced the case that nominally Islamic states such as Egypt's were in fact pagan, and therefore the proper target of jihad--the violent kind, not the "conquest of ego" kind. His works are radically anti-secular and anti-Western and raveningly anti-Semitic, and if you don't trust me on this, just read them. The hallmark of his thought is the emphasis on Islam as a complete system of justice and governance--every aspect of human society, law, and governance, he held, should be based entirely and only on Sharia. Everything that is not Islamic should be eliminated. Penalty for fornication? Stoning. That kind of Islamic law, not the "This must be reinterpreted to adapt to modernity" kind. This is not some phobic caricature of Qutb; it's Qutb.
I would like all of you now to pause and read the whole book. It will take you a half an hour. Focus on passages such as these, of which there are many worth considering:
Those who say that Islamic Jihad was merely for the defense of the 'homeland of Islam' diminish the greatness of the Islamic way of life and consider it less important than their 'homeland'. This is not the Islamic point of view, and their view is a creation of the modern age and is completely alien to Islamic consciousness. What is acceptable to Islamic consciousness is its belief, the way of life which this belief prescribes, and the society which lives according to this way of life. The soil of the homeland has in itself no value or weight. From the Islamic point of view, the only value which the soil can achieve is because on that soil God's authority is established and God's guidance is followed; and thus it becomes a fortress for the belief, a place for its way of life to be entitled the 'homeland of Islam', a center for the movement for the total freedom of man. Of course, in that case the defense of the 'homeland of Islam' is the defense of the Islamic beliefs, the Islamic way of life, and the Islamic community. However, its defense is not the ultimate objective of the Islamic movement of Jihad but is a means of establishing the divine authority within it so that it becomes the headquarters for the movement of Islam, which is then to be carried throughout the earth to the whole of mankind, as the object of this religion is all humanity and its sphere of action is the whole earth.
The implications are quite clear. This is one of the most radical philosophies ever exposited in the history of human thought, and this is one of the leading intellectuals in the history of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Do note, again, that Qutb himself acknowledges with regret that there are Muslims who disagree. He believes they are bad and mistaken. He laments their error (and makes the case for declaring them apostates). I am quite happy to take their side in the debate, not his.
In 1966, Qutb was executed. The ties from Qutb to al Qaeda are direct: His student Ayman Zawahiri was Osama bin Laden's mentor. Anwar al-Awlaki read Qutb while imprisoned in Yemen and described himself as "so immersed with the author I would feel Sayyid was with me in my cell speaking to me directly."
The links between Qutb and terrorism are not hard to establish. But this is not the crucial point. The crucial point is the nature of the society he envisions as the ideal. You can get to such a society by means of war or you can get there by means of elections; the fact that the latter isn't the former hardly means that it is desirable.
The next question to ask--the next question that is being asked, in our policy-making establishment--is to what extent the mainstream in various contemporary Muslim Brotherhood movements have renounced Qutb or his ideals. It hardly seems an access of paranoia to ask anyone who is in the organization to which he devoted his life and which descends from it directly where, exactly, they stand on Qutb, does it?
What about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: Has it renounced Qutb? No, it has not. He is in the pantheon, on the reading list. There is a tendency to minimize his ideas, yes, or to claim they have been misunderstood as a call for violence when in fact that's not what he meant. But they all read him. He remains a central influence.
If you want to know how influential he remains, study his relationship to the new, the current Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide, Mohammed Badie--“considered to be one of the most loyal leaders to the organization of Sayyid Qutb.”
I leave looking up Muhammed Badie--and figuring out exactly where he stands on Qutb--to you as a homework exercise. You may also wish to examine his position on other significant political issues. The comment thread is open for you to report your findings.
His views are not a secret. But for some reason few wish to think about what they might mean.
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Dec '10
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
This illustrates perfectly the innate conflict built into the left's advocacy for all things Islamic, while simultaneously supposing to also be the paragons of feminism.
Islam is what it is, and leftist Feminism is what it is, and nary shall the two meet, yet somehow leftists are "for" them both at once. It is akin to being "for" rabbit rights and hossenfeffer at the same time. The two just don't jive.
This is also one of those instances in life when there just isn't any middle ground to be had.
Either you side with Islam or you side with the modern world.
In the middle, you're not quite up to modern human rights standards, but you're also an apostate to Islam, so both sides don't like you very much (and at least one will, you know, try to kill you a little).
Once you've had a look at both sides, you've just got to pick your horse and back it. Conflict is (IMO at least) inevitable if we wish to maintain our way of life.
We have to decide where our lines the sand are going to be, and then defend them.
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
No, CoolHand, you misunderstand me. This is the Muslim Brotherhood. It is not Islam, at least not as Muslims who do not embrace Qutb's views see it. Many Muslims do not endorse these views. Are you prepared to say to them they are not Muslims? Congratulations; you and Qutb are in perfect agreement.
Aug '10
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
Do you have any thoughts as to the qualifications of this Islam to be a religion as opposed to a cult ? Or has the concept of religion widened enough to allow it ? So could you please define religion ?
Dec '10
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
Organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood openly act in the name of Islam alone, while those who are more moderate tend to view it as one cause among many, so it's natural to let groups like the MB define the religion.
Now: "I would like all of you now to pause and read the whole book." I didn't, and I ain't gonna.
May '10
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
Man, this book is about as convincing as a Socratic dialogue. You know, where Socrates is saying "so, it naturally follows that..." and then the suck-up student says "it cannot be otherwise." And you just want to smack the student upside the head and say "he just skipped a whole bunch of steps, you dope! Challenge him!"
Halfway through the Jihad chapter. I particularly enjoyed his "if we must call jihad defensive, it is for the defense of mankind." (and the dopey student dutifully responds "it cannot be otherwise...")
So far: sharia law automatically follows from the belief in one God (it cannot be otherwise), and in order to fight the enslaving influences of nonbelieving systems, we must set up a state of our own (it cannot be otherwise), so that we may free their people to serve God by bringing them into the power of our godly state (it cannot be otherwise) and therefore all states not based upon Islam must be destroyed. For it cannot be otherwise.
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
This is exactly right.
Jan '11
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
Claire,
This is unrelated to the main Qutb topic, but a couple of quick Turkey-related comments picking up on one of your early paragraphs.
There's a risk when you refer to Turkey as "a secular country that has until now guaranteed women equality under the law" that people not entirely familiar with the country will think that equality has, until now, prevailed courtesy of the secular legal framework. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's important to be clear that gender inequality here is far from being a recent development and is far from being solely driven by religious considerations.
In terms of educational inequality in Turkey, it comes in many varieties. The 'teach them meekness' strand you highlight is one. But there are others. For instance, the 'don't teach them beyond the bare minimum' strand has its adherents in the poorer regions, largely for socioeconomic rather than religious reasons. The impression shouldn't be created that absent Gülen and/or AKP, all would be straightforwardly well for girls and women in Turkey.
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
Istanbul--
I agree with you both that gender inequality is far from a recent development and far from uniquely attributable to religion. I completely agree that things would not straightforwardly well for girls and women in Turkey absent Gülen and the AKP. But they would be better. It is critical to ask which direction things are going in--looking at many key indicators--and it is really beyond dispute that the secular legal framework has been critical for the advancement of women's rights here to the extent that they've advanced.
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
There is another question that needs to be posed and properly answered if we are to understand the drift of things in the Islamic world and the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and its admirers. What I have in mind is the question whether Hassan al Banna and Sayyed Qutb are closer to being right about the basic thrust of Islam than are those who call themselves Muslims but stand firmly opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood. The fact that most Muslims are not militant is no more revealing than the fact that most Christians are lukewarm. The question that needs answering is whether there are resources within the Sunni tradition for a depoliticization of Islam -- i.e., for the position that shar'ia binds the conscience only and should not be enforced by the polity. My suspicion -- which makes me a pessimist regarding the relatively near-term prospects for the Islamic world -- is that the only real obstacle to a political takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood is laxness on the part of the faithful. Is there a substantial opposition to the great Islamic revival underway that is devoutly (not tepidly) Muslim?
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
How would you measure devotion? Would you do it by opinion poll? What would you ask? "How deeply do you identify as a Muslim?" "How deeply do you believe in God?" "How close is your relationship to God?"
What would these answers really tell us? Are you asking, in a sense, whether in fact there are only two real categories of Muslims--militant lunatics, and atheists who for cultural reasons cling to the label of "Muslim?" On the face of it, that's unlikely, and contradicted by my experience.
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
How would you measure devotion? Would you do it by opinion poll? What would you ask? "How deeply do you identify as a Muslim?" "How deeply do you believe in God?" "How close is your relationship to God?"
What would these answers really tell us? Are you asking, in a sense, whether in fact there are only two real categories of Muslims--militant lunatics, and atheists who for cultural reasons cling to the label of "Muslim?" On the face of it, that's unlikely, and contradicted by my experience. · Jan 7 at 8:06am
No. The two kinds are the devout and the lukewarm. There is no doubt another group and there always has been -- discreet unbelievers such as Alfarabi and Averroes who take one stand in public and another in private, but they have always been comparatively few in number.
My question is whether there is among the devout a strong tradition of political secularism and of the treatment of religion as a private matter.
Edited on Jan 7, 2011 at 9:31amOct '10
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
I think Professor Rahe's question relates to what Cornelius Van Til terms "epistemological self-consciousness". That is, to what degree are we aware of how our belief system determines our thoughts and our actions. This self-awareness of ideology tends to create a self reinforcing cycle of ideological reformation with the result that those who are epistemologicly self conscious tend to appear more "radical" than those who are not. This process is part and parcel of what Christians refer to as "revival". If such a revival is occuring in Islam, than the Brotherhood, through it's "fundamentalist" intrepretation of the Qur'an, is behaving in an epistemologicly self conscious manner.
Dec '10
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
Not me, but the folks we have to worry about are. Muslims who do not endorse the MB view point will be declared apostates and persecuted until they either fall in line, or die, just like the rest of us. In this sort of conflict, the neutrals are of little consequence, because they refuse to engage.
Moderate Islam will be taken seriously by me when they begin to actively fight the horror within the ranks of their religion in the same way that most other major religions in the world do.
I read the other day that moderate Muslims in Egypt are going to surround and intermingle with Coptic Christians during their masses, to become human shields for them. Color me surprised at this turn of events, and pleasantly so. There may yet be hope on this front.
Jan '11
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
Unnng, long night, I'll get to the rebuttal when I have sleep.
That said, Istanbulnotes had a point on women and the Gulen movement, a point you recognized. His article here, with accompanying awesome graph, is illuminating. In the AKP years, women are slightly more employed in cities and much less employed in rurality. They are become a more skilled, modernized, workforce. Of course there is much work to be done. There is also a good look at Gulen schools as respective to the status quo here (but focusing on Central Asia). Gender Apartheid only as much as a St. Ignatius or similar. Education in Turkey is likely in need of a change, its much rote learning. Which has as much to do with Islam as balkava.
As to MB, gentlemen like Coolhand would be served to cite a) a definition of "the MB view point" and b) "Moderate Islam" before they make claims. Otherwise, its just an assertion masked with proper nouns.
Before I hit the hay, I'd say that there was some history skipped over. Namely, Nasser. And I'll lean heavily on Nathan Brown when I write tomorrow.
Iyi geceler, dostlarim.
Edited on Jan 7, 2011 at 1:39pmOct '10
Re: Sayyed Qutb and Milestones
As far as a concern with "ostentation and loose behavior," you may underestimate the appeal of Islam to western women. Tony Blair's sister-in-law recently followed a growing Euro-British trend of westerners, especially women, conversion to Islam. This Islamic strictness may be appealing to many women as a reaction to the West's 'Girls Gone Wild' porno-culture. There is a pendulum swing to these things, and since our universities have effectively innoculated many against taking Christianity seriously, (while failing to critique or disparage Islam), Islam may then fill a spiritual void for all too many.