The Political Thought of Sayyid Qutb

The Theory of Jahiliyyah

Sayed Khatab

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134185184
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

This new book takes a literary approach in its study of Sayyid Qutb, one of the most significant political thinkers for contemporary Islamists and who has greatly influenced the likes of Osama Bin Laden. Executed by the Egyptian state in 1966, his books continue to be read and his theory of jahiliyya 'ignorance' is still of prime importance for radical Islamic groups.

Through an examination of his thoughts and theories, the book explores the main concepts that are used by today's radical fundamentalist movements, tracing the intellectual origins, as well as the conceptual and methodological thinking of radical Islamist movements in the modern world. The book sheds light on Islamic radicalism and its origins by presenting new analysis on the intellectual legacy of one of the most important thinkers of the modern Islamic revival. This is an invaluable new book for our time.

1 Prologue

For over a century, Islamic society has felt the impact of various sociopolitical, cultural and philosophical ideas, the bulk of which are Western in origin. Muslim thinkers claim that the constructs of nationalism, secularism, socialism, secular democracy and modernism, together with the sociopolitical movements they spawned, have taken hold in Islamic society at the expense of Islamic values.¹ This has led to debates as to the cultural and sociopolitical role that Islam should play in dealing with the challenges implicit in these Western ideologies.

Sayyid Qutb was a prolific writer. His literary and ideological legacy was firmly established by his death in August 1966. Qutb advocated a strong sociopolitical role for Islam in the Muslim world. He claimed that the Islamic system was superior to all systems known before and after Islam. His claim was based on an understanding of the centrality to the notion of governance of hakimiyyah (sovereignty), which is practically the rule by Islamic law (shari‘ah). In this context, Qutb published a large number of books and articles in scholarly journals.² Haddad (1983) divides Qutb’s writings into two phases; the first comprises novels and poems, and the second represents Qutb’s commentaries on the Qur’an.³ The latter are regarded by Haddad as a response to the British policies towards Arab Muslims in the region, the independence movement in Egypt after the Second World War and the creation of Israel.⁴ Nettler (1987) concurs with Haddad’s chronological schema that regards the period 1949–1956 as Qutb’s formative stage. Nettler considers Qutb’s imprisonment in the 1950s as critical to the final articulation of his concept of jahiliyyah.⁵

A number of scholars suggest that Qutb borrowed jahiliyyah from Mawdudi’s Mabadi’ al-Islam.⁶ However, William Shepard (2003) pointed out that the term jahiliyyah is not a new term as it was there in Arabic literature. To him, hakimiyyah (sovereignty) is a ‘neologism’ and it perhaps was ‘coined by Mawdudi’s Arabic translator’.⁷ In this context, Choueiri (1990) considers that the Indian Muslim thinkers were the first to use the concept of jahiliyyah to describe the paganism of Hinduism, but Qutb used it with reference to ‘religious ignorance’.⁸ In his What Has the World Lost as a Result of the Decline of Muslims (1950), Abu al-Hasan al-Nadawi, as asserted by Choueiri, describes European civilization as ‘pagan’ and ‘materialistic’. In the introduction to the second edition of the same book, published a year later, Qutb specifies jahiliyyah as ‘religious ignorance’ in reference to European civilization: ‘Sayyid Qutb’s diagnosis was overwhelmingly uncompromising in its condemnation of the new aspects of religious ignorance . . .’⁹ According to Choueiri, Qutb pointed out that jahiliyyah is prevalent now that Islam has lost its leadership role.¹⁰

Leonard Binder (1988) noted that ‘the word jahiliyyah, often translated as “ignorance”, is the specialized term used to refer to the cultural and intellectual state of the Arabs before the Islamic revelation’.¹¹ In Haddad’s view, however, Qutb’s concept of jahiliyyah does not simply denote ignorance and it ‘is not a period in time, but a condition that is repeated every time society veers from the Islamic way whether in the past, the present or the future’.¹² The jahiliyyah of the pre-Islamic period can prevail again in a different form and shape. Haddad cites Qutb as saying that ‘the older jahiliyyah was based on “ignorance, naivete, and youth. As for contemporary jahiliyyah it is grounded in knowledge, complexity and scorn”. It is established on the principle of “aggression against God’s governance on the earth” under the rubric of the right to create visions and values and to legislate laws disregarding God’s Path’.¹³

Concerning the historical and contemporary jahiliyyah, Choueiri’s analysis of Qutb’s view argues that, before the birth of Islam, jahiliyyah was based on ignorance due to lack of knowledge of the world. In today’s world, human beings cannot claim lack of knowledge. Therefore, contemporary jahiliyyah cannot be based on lack of knowledge, but rather on ‘aggression against God’s governance on the earth’.¹⁴ Choueiri notes that the historical jahiliyyah was respectful of its deities and, in the case of the Arabian Peninsula, offered them gifts and sacrifices to intercede on its behalf with Allah. In the contemporary period, however, humankind elevates deities above Allah, obeying them and rejecting the commandments of Allah.¹⁵ Choueiri states that ‘Qutb readily acknowledges that the Muslim communities still believe in one God and worship Him in their devotional acts. But they relegate the most essential attributes of God – His legislative authority – to others who determine almost all the fundamental issues of their lives’.¹⁶

Choueiri emphasizes that the present knowledge, in Qutb’s view, would be of no value unless ‘faith in the unknown becomes an integral part of human life and thought’.¹⁷ Choueiri stresses the Islamic mentality in Qutb’s conclusion as both ‘metaphysical’ and ‘scientific’. It is metaphysical in the sense conveyed by the Qur’anic verses concerning God’s knowledge. For example, ‘He has the keys of all that is hidden: none knows them but He. He has knowledge of all that land and seas contain: every leaf that falls is known to Him’ (6:59). Islamic mentality is also scientific, Choueiri continues, because ‘it believes in the natural law, only the knowledge of some of their aspects is necessary for human life on earth. Moreover, scientific theories are relative, and liable to transformations. They could not, therefore, form a reliable basis of a comprehensive doctrine’.¹⁸

Commenting on Qutb’s book Milestones, Binder (1988) emphasizes that Qutb ‘contrasts abstract or speculative theory with practical wisdom, or practical experience (but not with pragmatism which he actually condemns in the Social Justice volume). In several places he describes Islam as practical, realistic, concerned with life, down to earth. The rhetoric which he employs in these passages seems heavily influenced by existentialism’.¹⁹

In Binder’s view, Qutb links the concept of hakimiyyah (sovereignty) to ‘human freedom’. Binder emphasis that ‘for Qutb divine sovereignty is so comprehensive that it precludes all human sovereignty and authority. Any non-divine authority is taghut, that is, illegitimate, irreligious and tyrannical. The purpose of Islam is to remove taghut and replace it with Islamic or divine authority. Human beings are totally bereft of any liberty vis-à-vis Allah and therefore, since all are equally slaves of God, none has any shred of authority over other human beings’.²⁰ Binder notes that Qutb stresses the need for an Islamic government, but the emphasis he makes on the ‘organization’ of the proposed Islamic state ‘is less than he does on the opposition to the un-Islamic state’.²¹

Binder emphasizes that ‘Qutb’s underlying problem is the contradiction between divine sovereignty and humanity’s disobedience. The separation of theory and practice is precisely what Qutb attacks as jahiliyyah – even perhaps worse, because it is jahiliyyah posing as Islam, while the ordinary form of jahiliyyah is strong precisely because it does not separate theory and practice, because it is, consciously or not, monistic, praxis-oriented and concerned with existential survival. Islam requires that thought and action be integrally related. Islam must be lived from the inside (i.e. from belief ) out (i.e. to the collectivity)’.²²

Binder argues that Qutb’s concept of jahiliyyah follows from the failure to distinguish between spirit and matter. He claims that Qutb’s distinction between spirit and matter, human and animal, shows the conflation of these contradictions as a characteristic of jahiliyyah. Binder emphasizes that Qutb recognizes spirit and matter as separate but equal, while humanity is quite clearly non-material and superior to the animal. In this regard, Binder notes that ‘this dualism is not selfconscious. Qutb is rather concerned to maintain the separate and distinct existence of all essences. Most importantly, this concern is reflected in a virtually compulsive insistence that there can be no social circumstance or situation which is mostly Islam or partly jahili. Whatever is not Islam is jahiliyyah. The only Islamic society is one which is completely devoted to the worship of God alone, that is to say it cannot be partly anything else because it is totally Islamic’.²³

In his preface to Kepel’s book The Prophet and the Pharaoh (1985), Bernard Lewis asserts that ‘Islamic history, tradition and law embraced two distinct and indeed contradictory principles, one activist, the other quietist’.²⁴ Lewis refers to two aspects of the Prophet’s life: the ‘rebel in Makkah and the sovereign in Madinah’.²⁵ He suggests that these two aspects of the Prophet’s life constitute the condition of ‘activist’ and ‘quietist’ and reflect parallel traditions in Islamic history: ‘In this as in so much else the Prophet was seen as a model, and his career as setting a pattern. Many later political aspirants attempted to follow his example; some of them succeeded, others failed. The two traditions, the Prophet as sovereign and the Prophet rebel, often recur through the centuries of Islamic history. Both are still very much alive.’²⁶ This idea alerts Kepel to consider Qutb’s ideas and movement as ‘activist’ and ‘quietist’, both rooted in early Islamic tradition. Thus, Qutb’s interpretation of jahiliyyah and hakimiyyah (sovereignty), whether considered radical or otherwise, has its origin in early Islamic tradition.²⁷

Kepel emphasizes that Qutb saw the Prophet’s Islamic State as a model to be implemented in today’s societies. Qutb compares Makkan society before the hijrah with contemporary Egypt. Qutb pronounces Egypt to be jahiliyyah.²⁸ Kepel asserts that Qutb considers the Prophet’s response to the jahiliyyah of the sixth century as a model for dealing with the contemporary jahiliyyah of Egypt.²⁹ This jahiliyyah must be overcome as was the historical one. In Kepel’s view, Qutb sees the Prophet’s hijrah from Makkah to Madinah as a temporary hijrah: a hijrah from the state of jahiliyyah in which Muslims were weak. When their strength grew in Madinah, the Muslims returned to Makkah to overthrow the jahiliyyah there and establish the Islamic State.³⁰

Kepel interprets Qutb’s statements in his Milestones as revolutionary statements in preparation for Islamic action to overthrow the contemporary jahiliyyah. Kepel believes that Muslims should be...