Understanding the Adversary: Sayyid Qutb and the ... - Australian Army

TerrorismUnderstandingthe AdversarySayyid Qutb and the Roots of Radical IslamPeta TarlintonThe al-Qa’ida terrorist attacks on the United States of 11 September 2001acted as a catalyst in revealing the new dynamics of a global security environmentin which radical Islamism has emerged as a violent and dangerousopponent to liberal democracy. These attacks were symptomatic of how, in the latterhalf of the 20th century, a cycle of Islamic radicalism had swept through the MiddleEast, fuelled by the works of powerful ideologues. One of the most influential ofthese Islamist ideologues was the Egyptian scholar, Sayyid Qutb. Indeed, manyobservers consider Qutb to have been the key figure in providing the ideologicaltemplate of contemporary militant Islam and its philosophy of terror. 1The aim of this article is to try to provide an understanding of the roots ofmodern Islamist ideology—both in its historical context and its current employmentby groups such as al-Qa’ida and the Muslim Brotherhood—through an examinationof the beliefs of Sayyid Qutb. The article explores two areas. First, Qutb’s careerand the key themes of his works that form a template for modern Islamism areexamined. Second, the article briefly analyses the impact of Qutb’s writings on theradicalisation and militancy of al-Qa’ida—the prototypical Islamist terrorist threatof the 21st century.Australian Army Journal Volume II, Number 2 page 173

Terrorism Peta TarlintonSayyid Qutb’s Career and IdeologySayyid Qutb, an Egyptian, was born in 1906 and received a conservative Islamic education.He attended university in Cairo and began a career in the Egyptian Ministry ofEducation. In the late 1940s, Qutb studied education at the University of NorthernColorado, receiving a master’s degree. The experience of three years in America from1948 until 1951 convinced Qutb that US society was materialistic, decadent, in thrallto consumerism and technology, and had little to offer the Arab world. Moreover, heviewed American support for the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948 as a rejectionof Arab equality. As a result, Qutb developed an uncompromising hatred towardsthe Jewish and Christian civilisations. This hatred would come to shape the remainderof his personal and professional life. He believed that, in its division between churchand state, the West had created a ‘hideous schizophrenia’ in modern life, causingpersonal alienation and contributing to the rise of secularism—both of which threatenedIslamic society. 2 Returning to Egypt in the early 1950s, Qutb joined the Islamistmovement, the Muslim Brotherhood, and soon became its leading theoretician.In 1952, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser and a group of officers overthrew the Egyptianmonarchy in a military coup and inaugurated a nationalist and pan-Arab revolution.Nasser initially looked to the Muslim Brotherhood for support. However, Qutb wantedNasser to introduce an Islamic ‘community of belief’, or umma, rather than pan-Arabnationalism. It was not the promotion of Arab civilisation as much as the promotionof Islamic civilisation that concernedQutb. By 1954, the Muslim Brotherhood hadbeen banned and many of its leading figureshad gone into exile to Saudi Arabia. One ofthese figures was Qutb’s younger brother,Muhammad Qutb, a religious scholar, whobecame a professor of Islamic studies andlater taught Osama bin Laden. Sayyid Qutbremained in Egypt. In 1954 he was accused ofconspiring to assassinate President Nasser andBoth Marxism and Westerndemocratic liberalism rancounter to Qutb’s view ofthe totality of religious life.was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment. During his incarceration, Qutb wrote histhirty-volume interpretation of the Qur’an entitled, In the Shade of the Qur’an, and his1964 manifesto Milestones. Finally, in 1966, as the Egyptian regime moved towards aform of Arab socialism and closer links with the Soviet Union, Qutb was executed fortreason. In the words of his biographer, Hasan, Qutb ‘kissed the gallows’. 3 He became‘the martyr of the Islamic revival’ throughout the Middle East and his books came toform the nucleus of the modern Islamist movement. 4For Qutb, the Qur’an was not merely a body of belief; it was a way in whichto live, based on a oneness with God. Both Marxism and Western democraticpage 174 Volume II, Number 2 Australian Army Journal

Understanding the Adversaryliberalism ran counter to Qutb’s view of thetotality of religious life. Marxism denied Godwhile liberalism restricted God and translatedfaith into private rather than public morality.As Paul Berman has observed, what Qutbdisliked the most about the modern West was‘the split between the sacred and the secularin modern liberalism’. 5 Such a split threatenedthe purity of Islam as a total belief system.From this perspective Qutb viewed KemalAtatürk’s secular reforms in Turkey in the 1920s as retrograde and marking the endof the Islamic Caliphate. The spread of Western-style liberalism into the MiddleEast threatened to create ‘partial Islam’, which could only lead to annihilation of thefaith. Atatürk’s reforms amounted to little more than an offensive against Muslimcountries. Such an offensive, wrote Qutb, was ‘an effort to exterminate this religion[of Islam] as even a basic creed, and to replace it with secular conceptions havingtheir own implications, values, institutions and organizations’. 6Qutb’s answer to creeping secularism was for a vanguard to begin the renovationof Islamic life globally. The key elements of his writings that inform contemporarypolitical Islam as a movement include the concepts of hakimiyyah, jahiliyya andjihad. All three concepts are central to understanding the ideological foundationfor current anti-Western attitudes and modern Islamic terrorism.Hakimiyyah… what Qutb disliked themost about the modernWest was ‘the split betweenthe sacred and the secularin modern liberalism’.One of the intellectual tools that Qutb uses to explain his Islamist philosophy isthe term hakimiyyah. This term is derived from the Arabic word hukm, meaningto rule or govern, and Qutb uses it in a divine sense, referring to the absolutesovereignty of God. Islam stands entirely on the belief in the Oneness of God, itsinstitutions and all its laws, and insists on man’s total bondage to God alone. Whenthe belief that there is no deity except God (la illaha illa Allah) dominates humanexistence—including government, law, education and individual private life—Islamfulfils its true purpose in securing freedom for all individuals.Central to the practical manifestation of Islam in society is the implementationand acceptance of Shari’ah (Divine Law). While denoting legality, Shari’ah is not tobe confined to law or government and is to encompass everything pertaining to theorganisation of human life, including principles of faith, justice, morality, behaviourand knowledge. Such an approach requires a complete dismissal of all man-madesocial systems. Since the Shari’ah is viewed by Qutb as the embodiment of God’s willon earth, anything less than complete submission is heretical.Australian Army Journal Volume II, Number 2 page 175

Terrorism Peta TarlintonJahiliyyaThe term jahiliyya means to be ‘in ignorance of divine guidance’. In his manifesto,Milestones, Qutb writes that the world is divided into two kinds of societies:Muslim and non-Muslim jahiliyya (ignorant) societies. In Muslim societies, Islamis applied to all aspects of life through observance of Shari’ah. Consequently, Qutbbelieved that Islamic society was, ‘by its very nature, the only civilised society, andthe jahili societies, in all their various forms, are backward societies. It is necessaryto elucidate this great truth’. 7 Qutb defined a jahili society as any society that ‘doesnot dedicate itself to submission to God alone, in its beliefs, in its observances ofworship and its legal regulations’. Jahili included all Christian and Jewish societiesas well as all ‘idolatrous societies’, with specific reference to countries such as Japanand the Philippines, and some countries in Africa. 8As Qutb believed that Jews and Christians had distorted their original beliefsin the infallibility of God’s law by conceding legislative power to secular authority,they were jahiliyya—the enemy. The West’s defection from the ‘way of God’ camethrough its secularism of political and administrative life by a conscious separationof church and state. Qutb ruled out any accommodation with the jahili system. Theonly proper Muslim relationship with jahiliyya was one of complete rejection. Assuch, those Muslim societies that chose to incorporate elements of jahili systemsinto the Islamic framework—that is, through the adoption of a secular governmentor legal systems—were also jahiliyya. As the enemy of Islam they were to bedestroyed. For Qutb jahiliyya societies are incapable of offering an individual truefreedom. He argues:When, in a society, the sovereignty belongs to God alone, expressed in its obedience tothe Divine Law, only then is every person in that society free from servitude to others,and only then does he taste true freedom. This alone is ‘human civilisation’. 9In Qutb’s view, Western society bestowed higher value on materialism ratherthan on the dignity of the individual. If materialism dominated, as was the casewith the United States and Europe, and ‘all otherhuman values are sacrificed at its altar, then sucha society is backward’. 10 Consequently, such asociety could not confer freedom in the real sensebut offered only a degraded and regressive existence.Submission to a human authority not sanctionedby God meant that individual freedomwould be lost to a material world susceptible tocorruption. In this way, the roots of jahili societybecame mere human desires, ‘which do not letIn Qutb’s view, Westernsociety bestowed highervalue on materialismrather than on thedignity of the individual.page 176 Volume II, Number 2 Australian Army Journal

Understanding the Adversarypeople come out of their ignorance and self-importance’. 11 Qutb believed that trueMuslims in the vanguard movement must engage in a constant struggle against theinfluence of jahiliyya. Qutb believed that revolution, not reform, was required. It isonly through the total destruction of secular societies that the Islamic system couldbe secure. Thus Qutb wrote, ‘the foremost duty of Islam in this world is to depose ofjahiliyya from the leadership of man, and to take the leadership into its own handsand enforce the [Islamic] way of life’. 12JihadThe term jihad, meaning ‘struggle’ or‘striving’ (in the way of God), was central toQutb’s rationale forQutb’s radical form of Islam. Jihad was necessaryin order to make the Islamic way dominantin the world and was commanded by the associated with the notionusing armed violence wasQur’an. Qutb believed that ‘since the objective of justified conflict againstof the message of Islam is a decisive declarationone’s enemy.of man’s freedom, not merely on the philosophicalplane but also in the actual conditions oflife, it must employ jihad’. 13 According to Qutb,jihad is a legitimate method by which Islam may seek victory over the influence ofjahiliyya, thus ensuring the sovereignty of God on earth. Qutb rejected the writingsof those who stipulated that Islamic jihad is only permissible in a ‘defensivewar’. Indeed, he condemned such as an attempt to separate Islam from its methodof affirmation. 14Qutb’s rationale for using armed violence was associated with the notion ofjustified conflict against one’s enemy. The reasons for jihad are ‘to establish God’sauthority on the earth; to arrange human affairs according to the true guidanceprovided by God; to abolish all the Satanic forces and Satanic systems in life; to endthe lordship of one man over others’. 15 The Egyptian ideologue believed that thestruggle to secure such a victory could not be achieved under a national banner, butonly under the banner of faith alone. Jihad isa revolution of ideas and a war of ideologiesunlimited by geography or state sovereignty;it is a universal phenomenon that necessitatesthe revolution of a community of believers(umma) in order to achieve the destructionof jahiliyya and the restoration of God’scommand over life. Jihad is the physicalpower that Islam should bring to bear inorder to abolish the jahili system. 16Jihad is a revolution of ideasand a war of ideologiesunlimited by geography orstate sovereignty …Australian Army Journal Volume II, Number 2 page 177

Terrorism Peta TarlintonQutb’s Influence on ContemporaryMilitant Islam: The Case of al-Qa’idaQutb’s revolutionary writings and his execution at the hands of Nasser have had asignificant impact on the leadership of al-Qa’ida. In particular, Qutb has been oneof the most important influences on Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri—the man consideredto be the intellectual architect behind much of al-Qa’ida’s rhetoric and campaignplanning. In Montasser al-Zayyat’s recent critical biography of al-Zawahiri, TheRoad to Al Qaeda: the Story of Bin Laden’s Right-Hand Man, al-Zayyat describes theextensiveness of Qutb’s influence on the leader’s ideology and principles:In Zawahiri’s eyes, Sayyid Qutb’s words struck young Muslims more deeply than thoseof his contemporaries because his words eventually led to his execution. Thus, thosewords both provided the blueprint for his long and glorious lifetime, and eventually ledto his end. 17This admiration was reinforced by the fact that al-Zawahiri’s uncle, MahfouzAzzam, was a lifelong friend of Qutb and was engaged as his lawyer until his deathin 1966. Like many in Egypt and the broader Islamic community, al-Zawahiri sawQutb as a revolutionary and a martyr whom he aspired to emulate by membershipof the Islamic Jihad Group. 18 Subsequently, almost every publication by al-Zawahiriincluded admiring references to Sayyid Qutb and his contribution to modern Islamicrevival. For example, Zawahiri notes:Although Qutb… was oppressed and tortured by Nasser’s regime, [his] influence onyoung Muslims was paramount. Qutb’s message was and still is to believe in the onenessof God and the supremacy of the Divine path. This message fanned the fire of Islamicrevolution against the enemies of Islam at home and abroad. The chapters of thisrevolution are renewing one day after another. 19Osama bin Laden also clearly identified withQutb’s Islamist ideology. As mentioned earlier,while a student at King Abdul Aziz Universityin Saudi Arabia, bin Laden was tutored byQutb’s brother, Muhammad, and close friendAbdullah Azzam. The latter was bin Laden’sIslamic Law professor and later went on tofound Afghan−Arab terrorist training camps inPeshawar, Pakistan. Of Palestinian origin, Azzamchiefly instructed his students with the works ofIslamist ideologues such as Qutb. Heavy instructionin Qutbian philosophy provided bin LadenHeavy instruction inQutbian philosophyprovided bin Ladenwith an ideological basisfor the evolution of hisrevolutionary ideas.page 178 Volume II, Number 2 Australian Army Journal

Understanding the Adversarywith an ideological basis for the evolution of his revolutionary ideas. His numerouspublic announcements since the mid-1990s have continually reflected key Qutbianbeliefs, indicating an earnest desire that he and his followers in the al-Qa’ida networkare the spearhead of the modern international Islamic movement, committed torestoring Islam to the glory of its medieval days. 20Militarily, the al-Qa’ida leadership has adopted Qutb’s understanding of jihadand embraced his overall objective—that is, the destruction of jahiliyya for the creationof ‘freedom’ defined in an Islamist sense. This view is reflected in al-Qa’ida’srhetorical emphasis on an overall international strategy. By appropriating Qutb’sinterpretation of the justification for jihad, al-Qa’ida has been able to rationalisewar against the United States. The adoption of Qutb-style ideas have also allowedal-Qa’ida to establish a strong international support base through the unification ofdiverse Islamist movements, nourished on anti-Western hostility and emphasisingtheir holy duty as Muslims to carry out jihad.ConclusionFor Sayyid Qutb, Islam was not divisible into the sacred and the secular. An Islamicsystem means the abolition of man-made laws in a theocracy based on the shar’iah.The enemies of such an Islamic system were Jews and Christians as well as Muslimhypocrites who perpetrated corruption. Understanding Qutb’s ideology and its influenceis a step towards comprehending the motivation behind political Islam and its useof terrorism as a tool of warfare. Western understanding of Islamist ideology remainsweak and is framed by a secularism that is rejected by movements such as al-Qa’ida.While military force and law enforcement are essential in the global war on terror,the West must engage in the war of ideas being waged in the Islamic world. In the1990s such an engagement was not pursued effectively and, as in the 1930s withfascism, the West slept while danger gathered. In the 21st century, we require intellectualammunition to win what is a global struggle. Sayyid Qutb’s writings providea convenient entrée into the radical ideology of contemporary political Islam and, assuch, deserve critical evaluation by Western strategists and intelligence agencies. Asdaunting as the global struggle against Islamist terror may be, in terms of knowledgeof its enemy, the West can afford to sleep no longer.Endnotes1 See John Calvert, ‘The Mythic Foundations of Radical Islam’, Orbis, Winter 2004;Clive Bradley, ‘The rise of political Islam’, Workers Liberty, vol. 2, no. 2, March2002; and Yvonne Haddad, ‘Sayyid Qutb: Ideologue of Islamic Revival’, in Voices ofResurgent Islam, ed. John Esposito, Oxford University Press, New York, 1983.Australian Army Journal Volume II, Number 2 page 179

Terrorism Peta Tarlinton2 Quoted in Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism, W. Norton & Co., New York, 2003, p. 75.3 Quoted in ibid., p. 101.4 J. A. Nedoroscik, ‘Extremist Groups in Egypt’, Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 14,no. 2, Summer 2002, p. 54.5 Berman, Terror and Liberalism, p. 87.6 Ibid., p. 92.7 Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, Mother Mosque Foundation, New York, 1979, p. 94.8 Ibid., p. 81.9 Ibid., p. 94.10 Ibid., p. 96.11 Ibid., p. 132.12 Ibid., p. 131.13 Ibid., p. 63. For a discussion of jihad see R. C. Martin, ‘Religious Violence in Islam:Towards an Understanding of the Discourse on Jihad in Modern Egypt’, in PaulWilkinson and Alasdair M. Stewart (eds), Contemporary Research on Terrorism,Aberdeen University Press, Aberdeen, 1987, p. 61.14 Haddad, ‘Sayyid Qutb: Ideologue of Islamic Revival’, pp. 84−5.15 Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, p. 70.16 Ibid., pp. 57; 71.17 Montasser al-Zayyat, The Road to Al Qaeda: The Story of Bin-Laden’s Right Hand Man,Pluto Press, London, 2004, p. 25.18 Virginia Murr, The Power of Ideas: Sayyid Qutb and Islamism, Rockford CollegeSummer Research Project 2004, Rockford College, 2004, at .19 Ayman Zawahari, Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet, quoted in al-Zayyat, TheRoad to Al Qaeda: The Story of Bin Laden’s Right Hand Man, pp. 24−5.20 Christopher Blanchard, Al Qaeda: Statements and Evolving Ideology, CRS Report forCongress, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, Washington DC,November 2004, p. 6.The AuthorPeta Tarlinton graduated from the University of Queensland in 2003 with a combineddegree in law and international relations. She completed the Defence Graduate DevelopmentProgram in 2004 and will undertake further Arabic language training at the AmericanUniversity in Cairo in 2005. Ms Tarlinton currently works as an analyst with the DefenceIntelligence Organisation.page 180 Volume II, Number 2 Australian Army Journal