Sayyid Ibrahim Husayn Shadhili Qutb (9 October 190629 August 1966) was an Egyptian political theorist and revolutionary who was a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
As the author of 24 published books,John L. Esposito, Islam and Politics, Syracuse University Press (1998), p. 139 with around 30 unpublished for different reasons (mainly due to destruction by the state),Badmas 'Lanre Yusuf, Sayyid Quṭb: A Study of His Tafsīr, The Other Press (2009), p. 89 and at least 581 articles,Badmas 'Lanre Yusuf, Sayyid Quṭb: A Study of His Tafsīr, The Other Press (2009), p. 85 including novels, literary arts critique and works on education, Qutb is best known in the Muslim world for his work on what he believed to be the social and political role of Islam, particularly in his books Social Justice and (Milestones). His magnum opus, (In the Shade of the Qur'an), is a 30-volume commentary on the Quran.Sayed Khatab, The Political Thought of Sayyid Qutb: The Theory of Jahiliyyah, Routledge (2006), p. 161 Even though most of his observations and criticism were leveled at the Muslim world, Qutb also intensely disapproved of the society and culture of the United States,David Von Drehle, A Lesson In Hate Smithsonian Magazine which he saw as materialistic, and obsessed with violence and sexual pleasures. quoting Hourani, A. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939. Cambridge University Press, 1962. and Mitchell, Richard S. The Society of The Muslim Brotherhood. Oxford University Press, 1969. He advocated offensive jihad.Stahl, A.E. "'Offensive Jihad' in Sayyid Qutb's Ideology." International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.Qutb, Milestones, (2003) pp. 63, 69
During most of his life, Qutb's inner circle mainly consisted of influential politicians, intellectuals, poets and literary figures, both of his age and of the preceding generation. By the mid-1940s, many of his writings were included in the curricula of schools, colleges and universities.The Political Thoughts of Sayyed Qutb, Ch. 3, p. 56 In 1966, he was convicted of plotting the assassination of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and was executed by hanging.
Qutb has been described by followers as a great thinker and martyr for Islam,Interview with Dr Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh – Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader 8 May 2008 while Western observers and some Muslims see him as a key originator of Islamist ideology,The Osama Bin Laden I Know, Peter L. Bergen] pp. 18–20 and an inspiration for militant Islamist groups, such as al-Qaeda. Strengthened by his status as a martyr, Qutb's ideas on Jahiliyya (Age of Ignorance) and his close linking of implementation of sharia (Islamic Law) with Tawhid (Islamic monotheism) has highly influenced contemporary Islamist and Jihadist movements. His supporters are often identified as QutbistsQutbism: An Ideology of Islamic-Fascism by Dale C. Eikmeier. From Parameters, Spring 2007, pp. 85–98. or Qutbi.Pioneers of Islamic revival By ʻAlī Rāhnamā, p. 175
Life and public career
Early life Sayyid Ibrahim Husayn Shadhili Qutb was born on 9 October 1906.James Toth, Sayyid Qutb : The Life and Legacy of a Radical Islamic Intellectual, OUP USA (2013), p. 12 He was raised in the Egyptian village of Musha, located in Upper Egypt's Asyut Province. His father, whose sixth great-grandfather was an Indian Muslim, was an Upper Egyptian landowner and the administrator of the family estate, but he was also well known for his political activism, holding weekly meetings to discuss the political events and Quranic recitation.Adnan Musallam, From Secularism to Jihad : Sayyid Qutb and the Foundations of Radical Islamism, Greenwood Publishing Group (2005), p. 30Badmas 'Lanre Yusuf' Sayyid Quṭb : A Study of His Tafsīr, The Other Press (2009), p. 58 At this young age, Sayyid Qutb first learned about melodic recitations of the Quran, which would fuel the artistic side of his personality. He eventually memorized the whole Quran at 10.Sayed Khatab, The Political Thought of Sayyid Qutb : The Theory of Jahiliyyah, Routledge (2006), p. 45
A precocious child, during these years, he began collecting different types of books, including Sherlock Holmes stories, A Thousand and One Nights, and texts on astrology and magic that he would use to help local people with exorcisms (ruqya.)John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism, Oxford University Press (2009), pp. 40–43 In his teens, Qutb was critical of the religious institutions with which he came into contact, holding in contempt the way in which those institutions were used to form public opinion and thoughts. He had a special disdain, however, for schools that specialized in religious studies only, and sought to demonstrate that local schools that held regular academic classes as well as classes in religion were more beneficial to their pupils than religious schools with lopsided curricula. At this time, Qutb developed his bent against the imams and their traditional approach to education. This confrontation would persist throughout his life.Khalidy, Saleh. Sayyid Qutb: From Birth to Martydom. Dar Al-Qalam 3rd ed., 1999.
Qutb moved to Cairo, where between 1929 and 1933 he received an education based on the British style of schooling before starting his career as a teacher in the Ministry of Public Instruction. During his early career, Qutb devoted himself to literature as an author and critic, writing such novels as Ashwak (Thorns) and even helped to elevate Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz from obscurity. He wrote his very first article in the literary magazine al-Balagh in 1922, while still a teenager, and his first book, Muhimmat al-Sha’ir fi al-Haya wa Shi’r al-Jil al-Hadir (The Mission of the Poet in Life and the Poetry of the Present Generation), in 1932, when he was 25, in his last year at Dar al-Ulum.John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism, Oxford University Press (2009), p. 67 As a literary critic, he was particularly influenced by ‘Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani (d. 1078), "in his view one of the few mediaeval philologists to have concentrated on meaning and aesthetic value at the expense of form and rhetoric."John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism, Oxford University Press (2009), pp. 106–107 In 1939, he became a functionary in Egypt's Ministry of Education (wizarat al-ma'arif).
In the early 1940s, he encountered the work of Nobel Prize-winner French eugenicist Alexis Carrel, who would have a seminal and lasting influence on his criticism of Western civilization, as "instead of liberating man, as the post-Enlightenment narrative claimed, he believed that Western modernity enmeshed people in spiritually numbing networks of control and discipline, and that rather than building caring communities, it cultivated attitudes of selfish individualism. Qutb regarded Carrel as a rare sort of Western thinker, one who understood that his civilization "depreciated humanity" by honouring the "machine" over the "spirit and soul" (al-nafs wa al-ruh). He saw Carrel's critique, coming as it did from within the enemy camp, as providing his discourse with an added measure of legitimacy."John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism, Oxford University Press (2009), pp. 91–92
From 1948 to 1950, he went to the United States on a scholarship to study its educational system, spending several months at Colorado State College of Education (now the University of Northern Colorado) in Greeley, Colorado. Qutb's first major theoretical work of religious social criticism, Al-'adala al-Ijtima'iyya fi-l-Islam (Social Justice in Islam), was published in 1949, during his time in the West.
Though Islam gave him much peace and contentment,Sayyed said about the Qur'an: "Allah has bestowed upon me with the life in the shades of the Qur'an for a period of time, I have tasted, during it, of his grace and beneficence, what I have never tasted at all in my life." Fi Zilal al-Qur'an, Introduction, 1st Chapter. he suffered from respiratory and other health problems throughout his life and was known for "his introvertedness, isolation, depression and concern." In appearance, he was "pale with sleepy eyes."Hamudah, Adil, Sayyid Qutb: min al-qarya ila al-mashnaqa (Cairo, Ruz al-Yusuf, 1987), pp. 60–61, quoted in Moussalli (1992), p. 35 Qutb never married, in part because of his steadfast religious convictions. While the urban Egyptian society he lived in was becoming more Westernized, Qutb believed the Quran taught women that 'Men are the managers of women's affairs ...'Shepard, William, Sayyid Qutb and Islamic Activism: a translation and critical analysis of Social Justice in Islam Leiden, EJ. Brill, 1996, p. 62 Qutb lamented to his readers that he was never able to find a woman of sufficient "moral purity and discretion" and had to reconcile himself to bachelorhood.Qutb, Sayyid, Dan-bat al-tatawwur, Majallat al-Shu'un al-Ijtima'iyya fi al-Islam, 1940, pp. 6, 43–46, quoted in Calvert (2000)
It was clear from his childhood that Qutb valued education, playing the part of a teacher to the women in his village:
"Syed Qutb from a young age would save up his money for a man called Amsaalih, who used to sell books around the local villages. He would have a big collection of books, and another small collection specifically for Syed Qutb. If Syed never had the money, he would tell him that I don't have the money now, so let me borrow it and I'll give it you next time you come around. And Amsaalih would let him do that. At the age of 12, he had his own library collection of 25 books, even though books were really expensive during that time. He would imitate the scholars by reading the books, and then give lectures to the rest of the village. If any women needed any information, they would wait till Syed Qutb came back from school, and ask him to share the knowledge he had to them. In many occasions he would be shy because he was a young man, but in some occasions he would go and teach the knowledge he had to the people who asked him."The Lives of Hassan elBanna & Syed Qutb, p. 15
Two years in the United States Time in the United States, pursuing further studies in educational administration, cemented some of Qutb's views. Over two years, he worked and studied at Wilson Teachers' College in Washington, D.C. (one of the precursors to today's University of the District of Columbia), Colorado State College for Education (now the University of Northern Colorado) in Greeley, and Stanford University. He visited the major cities of the United States and spent time in Europe on his journey home.
Before his departure from the United States, even though more and more conservative, he still was "Western in so many wayshis dress, his love of classical music and Hollywood movies. He had read, in translation, the works of Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and had immersed himself in French literature, especially Victor Hugo".Wright, Looming Tower, 2006, p. 8
Criticisms of American culture and society: "The America that I Have Seen" On his return to Egypt, Qutb in 1951 published "The America that I Have Seen", where he became explicitly critical of things he had observed in the United States, eventually encapsulating the West more generally: its materialism, individual freedoms, economic system, "poor" haircuts, superficiality in conversations and friendships,Excerpt from Qutb's article "Amrika allati Ra'aytu" (The America That I Have Seen) restrictions on divorce, enthusiasm for sports, lack of artistic feeling, "animal-like" mixing of the genders (which "went on even in churches"),Qutb, Milestones, p. 139 and strong support for the new Israeli state.Calvert, John (2000), "'The World is an Undutiful Boy!': Sayyid Qutb's American Experience," Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Vol. II, No. 1, pp. 87–103:98. Qutb noted with disapproval the openly displayed sexuality of American women: