Oriental Rugs the O'Connell Notes

Notes on Sayyid Qutb

Sayyid Qutb

Sayyid Qutb was an Egyptian Islamic fundamentalist theorist and terrorist. Executed in 1966 after an assignation attempt on President Jamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt. Perhaps most important in his influence on subverting the Moslem Brotherhood and in his followers. They included: Osama Bin Laden, Sheikh Abu Hamza,

"Qutb was the most influential advocate in modern times of jihad, or Islamic holy war, and the chief developer of doctrines that legitimize violent Muslim resistance to regimes that claim to be Muslim, but whose implementation of Islamic precepts is judged to be imperfect. Although Qutb is particularly popular in Saudi Arabia, his copious writings have been translated into most of the languages of the Islamic world. In the 1960s and 70s, when many Afghan religious scholars came under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood". JBOC: Robert Irwin on Sayyid Qutb, the father of modern Islamist fundamentalism

Bin Ladin and Sayyid Qutb

Bin Ladin also relies heavily on the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb.A member of the Muslim Brotherhood11 executed in 1966 on charges of attempting to overthrow the government, Qutb mixed Islamic scholarship with a very superficial acquaintance with Western history and thought. Sent by the Egyptian government to study in the United States in the late 1940s, Qutb returned with an enormous loathing of Western society and history. He dismissed Western achievements as entirely material, arguing that Western society possesses "nothing that will satisfy its own conscience and justify its existence."12 Three basic themes emerge from Qutb’s writings. First, he claimed that the world was beset with barbarism, licentiousness, and unbelief (a condition he called jahiliyya, the religious term for the period of ignorance prior to the revelations given to the Prophet Mohammed). Qutb argued that humans can choose only between Islam and jahiliyya. Second, he warned that more people, including Muslims, were attracted to jahiliyya and its material comforts than to his view of Islam; jahiliyya could therefore triumph over Islam.Third, no middle ground exists in what Qutb conceived as a struggle between God and Satan.All Muslims—as he defined them—therefore must take up arms in this fight.Any Muslim who rejects his ideas is just one more nonbeliever worthy of destruction.13

Bin Ladin shares Qutb’s stark view, permitting him and his followers to rationalize even unprovoked mass murder as righteous defense of an embattled faith.Many Americans have wondered,"Why do ‘they’ hate us?" Some also ask, "What can we do to stop these attacks?"

Bin Ladin and al Qaeda have given answers to both these questions.To the first, they say that America had attacked Islam; America is responsible for all conflicts involving Muslims. Thus Americans are blamed when Israelis fight with Palestinians, when Russians fight with Chechens, when Indians fight with Kashmiri Muslims, and when the Philippine government fights ethnic Muslims in its southern islands.America is also held responsible for the governments of Muslim countries, derided by al Qaeda as "your agents."Bin Ladin has stated flatly,"Our fight against these governments is not separate from our fight against you."14 These charges found a ready audience among millions of Arabs and Muslims angry at the United States because of issues ranging from Iraq to Palestine to America’s support for their countries’ repressive rulers. 9-11 Commission Report Chapter 2 THE FOUNDATION OF THE NEW TERRORISM Page 51