Sayyid Qutb is easily one of the major architects and "strategists"
of contemporary
Islamic revival. Along with Maulana Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami,
the
revivalist movement in South Asia, and Imam Khomeini, the leader
of Iran's Islamic
revolution, he gave shape to the ideas and the worldview that
has mobilized and
motivated millions of Muslims from Malaysia to Michigan to strive
to reintroduce
Islamic practices in their lives and alter social and political
institutions so that they
reflect Islamic principles. Milestones was written to educate
and motivate the potential
vanguard of the re-Islamization movement.
Qutb, like most contemporary mujaddids, Islamic revivalists, was
distressed with the
growing distance between Islamic values, institutions and practices
and the emerging
postcolonial Muslim societies, specially in his native Egypt.
In Milestones, he sought
to answer some of the fundamental questions such as why Islam
needs to be revived?
why no other way of life is adequate? What is the true essence
of an Islamic identity
and an Islamic existence (he uses the term "concept" to signify
these two elements)?
How was Islam established by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and
his companions?
Can the same method, which was undoubtedly divine in its conception
be replicated
again? Qutb is particularly concerned with this issue of "Islamic
methodology". He
believes that Islamic values and the manner in which they are
to be realized (read as
were realized by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and his glorious companions)
both
together constitute the faith of Islam.
Relying entirely on the Quran, Qutb uses the concepts of jahiliyya,
Islamic concept,
Islamic methodology, jihad and Allah's sovereignty, to dilineate
the strategy by which
Muslims would:
1. realize the true significance and implications of La-ilaha-illallah,
having faith in the
exclusive unity of Allah (tawhid).
2. understand the imperfections, injustices and moral poverty of jahiliyya.
3. empower themselves by realising the meaning of
ashhadu-anna-muhammadur-rasoolullah (bearing witness that Muhammad
is Allah's
messenger) -- internalizing his method of dawah and submitting
to the will and laws of
Allah.
4. through this Islamic methodology, as articulated in the Quran
and manifested in the
practices of Prophet Muhammad, which does not separate theory
from practice, and
discourse from action, establish an Islamic order. The Islamic
order, which is Allah's
most significant gift to the entire humanity.
5. The most remarkable aspect of Qutb's book is his insistance
on an approach in
"stages" and the repeated assertion that the need for implementing
Islamic law would
not arise until every member of the community had completely
submitted to the
sovereignty of Allah and by that agreed to live under Allah's
laws. Laws would then be
framed merely to serve the needs of this "living community of
Islam". A far cry from the
perception that a handful of Islamists are out to impose an essentialized
shariah on all
Muslims and non-Muslims living in Muslim lands.
Jahiliyya, as used in the traditional Islamic sense suggests ignorence
in the ways of
God. However, Qutb gives an interesting twist to the idea of
jahiliyya. Jahiliyya for Qutb
is the sovereignty of man over man. Socio-political orders where
men have power over
other men, to institute legislation and determine principles
of right and wrong conduct.
The Quran is explicit in postulating Islam as the antithesis
of jahiliyya. Qutb, by
redefining jahiliyya to encompass modern secular systems of political
organization, is
basically decreeing that all existing systems are unacceptable
and even antithetical to
the spirit of Islam. Thus the dichotomy, Islam and jahiliyya
includes both the Islamic
and the anthropocentric way of doing things, and Islamic regimes
and the existing
unIslamic regimes in Muslim lands. A clever ploy that uses Islamic
reasoning to
indirectly condemn contemporary political organizations as antithetical
to Islam.
His notion of the sovereignty of Allah as opposed to the sovereignty
of man is basically
a restating of the meaning of Islamic faith -- submission to
the will of God. It clearly
suggests, that any principle of organization that is not premised
on God's supreme and
sole prerogative as a legislative source, is shirk. Shirk, in
Islam is the only unforgivable
sin. It means to associate other Gods with Allah thereby denying
the fundamental
article of faith, lailaha illalah, there is no deity but Allah.
He also uses it to declare the
"universal declaration of the freedom of man on earth from a
every authority except
Allah" (p. 48). I have already discussed his idea of the Islamic
concept which basically
emphasizes the inseparability of knowledge and practice. It is
an important insight
which means that one cannot really understand Islam fully unless
one is also
practicing it. Islamic methodology is his interpretation of how
Prophet Muhammad
realized the Islamic ideal. He believes that any other way of
approaching Islamization
is destined to fail.
His understanding of the obligation of jihad -- struggle in the
path of Allah -- is also a
significant departure from traditional understanding. He understands
jihad as taking
many different forms depending upon the stage of development
of the Muslim
community. Thus at the earliest stage it implies struggling to
assert the principle of
tawhid against all odds. Further along the journey of Islamization
it means defending
the communities right to "freely practice Islamic beliefs" even
if it entails the use of
arms. He challenges the "defensive" constitution of the duty
of jihad and argues that
jihad is a mandatory proactive activity that seeks to establish
Allah's sovereignty on
earth. He is however careful to emphasize that it does not necessarily
mean the use of
violence, it includes preaching use of service and wealth in
the way of Allah. He is also
careful to remind his readers that there is no compulsion in
Islam. But if someone has
chosen to live by it then no one has the right to prevent him
from doing so. Jihad, for
Qutb is both, the defense of the right to believe and live by
Islam and also the struggle
to establish Allah's sovereignty. Qutb, true to his preachings
died for the values he
espoused. He was sentenced to death and hanged by a military
court established by
Nasser. I think, and Qutb would agree, writing Milestones was
his jihad against the
jahiliyya that he saw all around him.
(This review is based on the ATP edition, Indianapolis, 1990.)
editor :