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The renowned writer and man of letters Sayyid Qutb is, as his name suggests, a master and a pole among figures of the Islamic movement throughout the world. His books remain fundamental references for activists despite their considerable differences in concepts and positions, whether liberal and permissive, extremist Kharijite, or anywhere between those two. Scholars and students therefore undertook to answer him and explain serious errors and deviations in his books, advising the community and discharging their responsibility. Their efforts usefully drew attention to and warned against these positions: declaring Muslim societies unbelieving; distorting divinity, lordship and governance by what God revealed; affirming the unity of existence in parts of his commentary; interpreting away some divine attributes; showing disrespect towards certain messengers; interpreting God’s words through music and rhythm; attacking noble Companions, particularly the rightly guided caliph Uthman ibn Affan, invalidating his caliphate and treating it as a gap in the history of the rightly guided caliphate; advocating socialism and permission to legislate redistribution of wealth and eliminate capitalism and feudalism; and other deviations. Through God’s enabling and these commendable efforts, most have become widely known.

Unfortunately, responding to Sayyid Qutb and warning against his thought stopped there, at particular, detailed errors. These are certainly important and dangerous, but more important and dangerous is the overarching foundation of his doctrinal and intellectual deviation, the principal source of the detailed errors. Uncovering this foundation is the “criterion” for understanding his thought and the “key” to its dimensions and aims.

Most who hold his thought and follow his method do not themselves affirm those errors or accept those deviations. Some stubbornly deny their attribution, despite their presence in the books his brother Muhammad Qutb published in dozens of editions after his death. Others acknowledge them but excuse him as an Islamic thinker rather than a specialist religious scholar. Yet all agree on his books’ importance. None is prepared to diminish them or tolerate anyone daring to criticise their contradictions of the Book, Sunnah and predecessors’ creed. Woe to such a critic: accusations of malicious categorisation, betrayal, serving rulers and loyalty to unbelievers will pursue them in life and after death.

The central question is therefore: if most activists today reject the detailed errors in Qutb’s books, why insist on exalting and promoting them? The secret becomes clear only through knowing the overarching foundation upon which his thought rests. All his writing is intelligent advocacy and gradual consolidation of that foundation. Thus most readers and admirers have undergone some degree of doctrinal and intellectual deviation concerning it. Their view of prophethood, religion, worship and Islamic law has changed fundamentally. They proceed in learning, religious teaching and jihad without guidance, imagining they do well.

The overarching foundation of Qutb’s thought and call is the “political interpretation of Islam,” which claims that the purpose of creation and religion is developing the earth and establishing worldly justice. Worship is therefore not intended in itself but serves that immediate material, worldly purpose. This belief radically distorts Islam’s reality and Muhammad’s message. Among those claiming Islam, only extreme philosophers, extreme Sufis and esotericists held it. Some modern thinkers and religious teachers renewed and reformulated it, producing what is now called Islamic thought and the Islamic movement.

Qutb’s legacy is among the most important examples of this distortion of religion’s foundation. Yet, to my knowledge, those worthy scholars and students neither noticed nor warned about it. Even Shaykh Abd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Duwaysh (d. 1409 AH), may God have mercy on him, says in the introduction to al-Mawrid al-Zulal fi-l-Tanbih ‘ala Akhta’ al-Zilal that he read In the Shade of the Qur’an “from beginning to end, finding errors in places, especially concerning Sunni creed and spiritual conduct,” without identifying this most important error. His excuse, and that of others, is unfamiliarity with the theory of political and utilitarian interpretation of religion and lack of experience with Western thought and modern philosophies.

We therefore need to know the theory and its philosophy to grasp that Qutb’s vision of religion and interpretation of its great foundations and truths rest upon a comprehensive theory restricting religious obligation’s purpose to developing the earth, establishing just government and social solidarity. It interprets religion and worship accordingly, while making worship devoted exclusively to God, foremost the pillars of Islam, a means or something secondary.

The political interpretation of Islam is a comprehensive theory of prophethood, religion, worship and law. It is consequently difficult to establish someone’s adherence by quoting a single phrase. It is a philosophical outlook giving a particular character to conception, foundation and analysis. Clear, explicit statements are rare. Qutb, however, spared us the difficulty by stating his belief plainly:

“The term ‘worship’ was applied to ‘devotional rites’ only because they are one form of submission to God in one sphere, a form that does not exhaust the meaning of worship. Indeed, it belongs by subordination, not by primary standing.”

He then confirms that this explicit statement is what he intended throughout his books interpreting Islam:

“This is the truth we have repeatedly established in these Shades and elsewhere, in everything God enabled us to write about this religion, its nature and its movement-oriented method.”

The footnote refers to Milestones, The Characteristics and Constituents of the Islamic Conception, This Religion, The Future Belongs to This Religion, Islam and the Problems of Civilisation, Social Justice, and Islam and World Peace. In the Shade of the Qur’an, Hud 11:50–68, 4/1902.

Accordingly, all Qutb’s books rest on the political interpretation of Islam. Where his words outwardly agree with the correct understanding of religion and worship held by monotheists, Sunnis and Muslims generally, they must be understood through his particular conception: “Devotional rites do not exhaust the meaning of worship; they belong by subordination, not by primary standing.” He repeats this wording verbatim elsewhere, 4/1938.

Qutb explicitly states that devotional rites, foremost for all Muslims prayer, zakat, fasting and Hajj, enter worship’s meaning “by subordination, not by primary standing.” What is subordinate necessarily occupies a secondary, lower rank than what exists primarily. What, then, occupies the first and highest rank in worship? “Developing the earth,” as he states when commenting on “I created jinn and human beings only to worship Me” (al-Dhariyat 51:56):

“This short text contains an immense truth, among the greatest cosmic truths, without grasping and being certain of which human life on earth cannot be sound, whether individual life, collective life or all humanity’s life in every era. It opens many aspects and angles of meaning and purpose, all falling under this immense truth, the cornerstone of life. Its first aspect is that jinn and humanity have a definite purpose, represented in a function. Whoever undertakes and fulfils it realises their existence’s purpose. Whoever falls short or withdraws nullifies that purpose, becomes functionless, and lives a life empty of intention and its original meaning, from which its primary value derives. They escape the law by which they came into existence and reach the utter loss that afflicts every being escaping the law of existence that binds, preserves and sustains it.

“This definite function linking jinn and humanity with existence’s law is worship of God, or servitude to God: there is a servant and a Lord, a servant who worships and a Lord who is worshipped, and the servant’s whole life is ordered on this basis. Then another aspect of the immense truth emerges: worship’s meaning must be broader and more comprehensive than merely performing rites. Jinn and humans do not spend their lives performing rites, nor does God require this. He requires other activities occupying most of their lives. We may not know the activities required of jinn, but we know the bounds of activity required of humanity from the Qur’an: ‘When your Lord said to the angels: I am placing a successor on earth’ (al-Baqarah 2:30).

“Succession on earth is therefore this human creature’s work. It requires varied vital activity in developing the earth, discovering its forces, energies, stores and hidden resources, and fulfilling God’s will in using and developing them and advancing life upon it. It also requires upholding God’s law on earth to realise the divine programme harmonising with the universal cosmic law. Thus worship, humanity’s purpose of existence or foremost function, is broader and more comprehensive than mere rites. The function of succession certainly enters its meaning… Among the requirements of establishing worship’s meaning is undertaking succession on earth, fulfilling its duties and realising its fullest fruits.” In the Shade of the Qur’an, 6/3387.

If creation and religion’s purpose is succession and development, while the original acts of worship, Islam’s pillars, enter it “by subordination, not by primary standing,” then worship obviously loses its independent intrinsic value and falls from its lofty rank. Calling people to establish it becomes a minor, insignificant task. The subordinate has no value without its principal, and a branch cannot stand when the foundation falls. Qutb accepts this necessary logical implication:

“In reality, if worship meant merely devotional rites, it would not have deserved this noble procession of messengers and messages, all the exhausting efforts of the messengers, peace and blessings be upon them, or all the suffering borne by religious teachers and believers through time. What deserved this tremendous price was removing humanity entirely from submission to other servants and returning it to submission to God alone in every matter, every sphere and its whole way of life, for this world and the hereafter alike.

“The oneness of God in worship, the oneness of God in lordship, and unity in guardianship, sovereignty, the source of Islamic law, the way of life and the authority to which people submit comprehensively: this monotheism deserves all those messengers being sent, all those efforts expended and all that suffering endured through time. Not because God needs it, for He is independent of the worlds, but because human life cannot be sound, upright, elevated or worthy of humanity except through this monotheism, whose influence upon every aspect of human life is boundless.” In the Shade of the Qur’an, 4/1903, repeated approvingly at 4/1938.

This philosophical view of religion’s purpose brought Qutb close to Marxism and led him to adopt socialism, on which he wrote The Battle between Islam and Capitalism and Social Justice in Islam. One example confirms his explicit statements making developing the earth creation’s aim and worship a subordinate, marginal aim. Discussing “corrupt work and weak production,” he writes:

“Islam treats them by removing their initial material causes, then by filling the soul with a motivating creed that fills its emptiness and hollowness, raises it to God, and gives the individual an aim greater than themselves: the society in which they live and the humanity to which they belong…” The Battle between Islam and Capitalism, Dar al-Shuruq, Beirut, thirteenth edition, 1414 AH, pp. 49–51.

Thus Qutb defines creed’s purpose as worldly action for society and humanity. Making material, worldly action the supreme aim of humanity and its creed inevitably abolishes worship’s central place. Qutb accepts this implication and expressly states a few lines later, p. 52:

“Islam is the enemy of idleness in the name of worship and religiosity. Worship is not life’s occupation and has only its appointed time: ‘When prayer is concluded, disperse through the earth and seek God’s favour’ (al-Jumu‘ah 62:10). Spending time in recitations and supplications without productive work developing life is something Islam neither knows nor approves for the many thousands in Egypt whose only work is performing prayers in mosques or reciting supplications and remembrances at religious festivals. Were the matter in Islam’s hands, it would mobilise everyone for work.”

In this interpretation Qutb follows the philosophers’ view of the purpose and benefit of prophethood, the message and worship: they concern servants’ interests rather than a right belonging exclusively to God. His words undoubtedly show disrespect towards the Lord of the worlds, the true God deserving the utmost love, humility and reverence: “They have not esteemed God as He deserves. The entire earth will be in His grasp on the Day of Resurrection, and the heavens folded in His right hand. Glorified and exalted is He above what they associate with Him” (al-Zumar 39:67).

This is the “criterion” by which Qutb’s thought, intentions and aims should be understood: the thought upon which generations of revolution, violence, extremism, terrorism, declaring others unbelievers, bombings and suicide operations were raised. Thus came al-Qaeda, ISIS and the advocates of Arab destruction, and what happened happened. God is the One whose help is sought, and upon Him we rely.

Written by Abd al-Haqq al-Turkmani

15 Safar 1437 AH