Sayyid Qutb was a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s until his execution by Nasser.
He was born "to a smallholding family on the outskirts of Asyut in Upper Egypt. Repulsed at a young age by local clerics who failed to 'simplify religion for the public', Qutb snubbed Azhar [University] and embarked on the path of secular education. Qutb graduated to become a primary schoolteacher on 1933, and assumed a few bureaucratic posts at the Ministry of Education between 1940 and 1952. Unlike the vigorous-looking and socially engaging [Hassan] Banna, [the founder of the the Muslim Brotherhood], Qutb was plangued by poor health, always appearing pale and heavy-eyed, and leading the life of a chronically depressed introvert in the then-desolate district of Helwan, outside the capital [Cairo]. He found solace not in religion, but in literature and sensual poetry, and was quickly drawn to a circle of European-inspired intellectualls, patronized by the towering literal novelist 'Abbas Mahmoud al-'Aqqad. An extremist by nature [!], Qutb embraced atheism, joined a radical liberal party (al-Sa'di), and penned provocative articles advocating things as shocking as nude beaches. Interestingly, an enraged young Brother showed the latter article to Banna to ask for his permission to punish the author, but the founder did not want to waste time on 'juvenile half-wit thirsting for attention ... [and] absurdly fascinated by the Western civilization". It was this Western civilization, however, that managed to turn Qutb around. His disenchantment began with a mission to America (1948-50) to study modern education techniques. His 'America allati Ra'ayt' (The America I Saw), published in three installments in the wekkly al-Risala in December 1951, was a ringing indictment of all things Western. Qutb described America as the 'greatest lie the world has known,' and Americans as 'unethical, racist, materialist, lustful, and violent. And, partly because Americans were visibly ecstatic about Banna's 1949 assassination, as he claimed, Qutb suspected that Islamism might be the last garrison against Western penetration. Proclaiming himself born again in 1951, Qutb commemorated his rebirth with the famous polemic, Ma'rakat al-Islam wal-Ra'smaliya (The Battle between Islam and Capitalism), and began contributing regularly to the Muslim Brothers' al-Da'wa newspaper. Two years later he joined the Brotherhood."
Hazem Kandil, Inside the Brotherhood, 2015, p. 126.
References:
- Ahmed S. Moussalli, Tadical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Ideological and Political Discourse of Sayyid Qutb, 1992
- Sherif Yunis, Sayyid Qutb wa al-Usuliya al-Islamiya, 2012
- 'Adil Hammuda, Sayyid Qutb: Min al-Qariya ila al-Mashnaqah, 1999
He was born "to a smallholding family on the outskirts of Asyut in Upper Egypt. Repulsed at a young age by local clerics who failed to 'simplify religion for the public', Qutb snubbed Azhar [University] and embarked on the path of secular education. Qutb graduated to become a primary schoolteacher on 1933, and assumed a few bureaucratic posts at the Ministry of Education between 1940 and 1952. Unlike the vigorous-looking and socially engaging [Hassan] Banna, [the founder of the the Muslim Brotherhood], Qutb was plangued by poor health, always appearing pale and heavy-eyed, and leading the life of a chronically depressed introvert in the then-desolate district of Helwan, outside the capital [Cairo]. He found solace not in religion, but in literature and sensual poetry, and was quickly drawn to a circle of European-inspired intellectualls, patronized by the towering literal novelist 'Abbas Mahmoud al-'Aqqad. An extremist by nature [!], Qutb embraced atheism, joined a radical liberal party (al-Sa'di), and penned provocative articles advocating things as shocking as nude beaches. Interestingly, an enraged young Brother showed the latter article to Banna to ask for his permission to punish the author, but the founder did not want to waste time on 'juvenile half-wit thirsting for attention ... [and] absurdly fascinated by the Western civilization". It was this Western civilization, however, that managed to turn Qutb around. His disenchantment began with a mission to America (1948-50) to study modern education techniques. His 'America allati Ra'ayt' (The America I Saw), published in three installments in the wekkly al-Risala in December 1951, was a ringing indictment of all things Western. Qutb described America as the 'greatest lie the world has known,' and Americans as 'unethical, racist, materialist, lustful, and violent. And, partly because Americans were visibly ecstatic about Banna's 1949 assassination, as he claimed, Qutb suspected that Islamism might be the last garrison against Western penetration. Proclaiming himself born again in 1951, Qutb commemorated his rebirth with the famous polemic, Ma'rakat al-Islam wal-Ra'smaliya (The Battle between Islam and Capitalism), and began contributing regularly to the Muslim Brothers' al-Da'wa newspaper. Two years later he joined the Brotherhood."
Hazem Kandil, Inside the Brotherhood, 2015, p. 126.
References:
- Ahmed S. Moussalli, Tadical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Ideological and Political Discourse of Sayyid Qutb, 1992
- Sherif Yunis, Sayyid Qutb wa al-Usuliya al-Islamiya, 2012
- 'Adil Hammuda, Sayyid Qutb: Min al-Qariya ila al-Mashnaqah, 1999
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