Philosopher
Sayyid Qutb
1906–1966
Egyptian writer turned Islamist ideologue, executed in 1966, who described all contemporary societies, Muslim ones included, as living in jahiliyya and called for God's sovereignty alone.
Sayyid Qutb was born in an Egyptian village and went to Cairo in 1920 for secondary school and the teacher-training college Dar al-Ulum. From 1933 to 1952 he worked for the Ministry of Education, as a teacher and then an inspector, and belonged to the secular literary elite, publishing more than a hundred poems as well as books and essays.
In his early forties he became an Islamist and became one of its leading ideologues. He did not consider himself a philosopher, though he wrote on God, human nature, knowledge, ethics and history. He was executed by the Egyptian government in 1966 for his Islamist activities, which, as his followers regard him as a martyr, greatly increased the impact of his ideas.
Key ideas
- Modern jahiliyya
- Qutb’s best-known doctrine applied jahiliyya, the ‘ignorance’ of pre-Islamic Arabia, to every society of his time, Muslim ones included. He called for jihad, conceived as revolution, in response.
- The sovereignty of God
- Faith in one God (tawhid) means that God alone is sovereign, and that human beings must be freed from serving other humans instead of God; all of social life should follow God’s law.
- Freedom and cosmic harmony
- The universe is a harmonious whole under God’s rule, and humans are God’s deputies on earth with a freedom other beings lack. Used rightly, it fits them into creation; misused, it brings discord and misery.
- Tradition
- Arabic and Islamic
- Region
- Egypt
- Period
- Later Islamic
- Themes
- How to govern
Terms on this page
- jahiliyya
- ‘Ignorance’: the state of Arabia before Islam. Sayyid Qutb applied the term to every society of his own time, Muslim ones included, that did not live under God’s law alone.
- tawhid
- God’s oneness, or unity. Nasir Khusraw held that only a clear understanding of it leads to spiritual perfection; for al-Shahrastani it meant denying God every attribute humans ascribe.
Sources
- William E. Shepard, Sayyid Qutb, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy