Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism

390 Pages·2009·1.27 MB·English

by  John Calvert

SAYYID QUTB AND THE ORIGINS
OF RADICAL ISLAMISM
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JOHN CALVERT
Sayyid Qutb and
the Origins of
Radical Islamism
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Library of CongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Calvert,John.
Sayyid Qutb and the origins of radical Islamism / JohnCalvert.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-19-932687-7 (alk. paper)
1. Qutb, Sayyid, 1906–1966. 2.Islamic fundamentalism—Egypt. 3.Jam’iyat
al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Egypt) 4.Islam and state—Egypt. I.Title.
BP80.Q86C35 2010
320.5’57092—dc22
2009051954
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
CONTENTS
A Note on Transliteration vii
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1. Son of the Country 23
2. TheMaking of an EgyptianNationalist 53
3. Turn to Islamism 103
4. American Sojourn 139
5. In the Orbit of the MuslimBrothers 157
6. Radicalization 197
7. Martyrdom 229
8. Epilogue:TheTrajectory of ‘Qutbism’ 273
Bibliography 347
Index 365
v
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A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
For the most part, I have used a simplified version of the system of
transliteration adopted by the International Journal of Middle East
Studies.I use the diacritic (‘) for the Arabic consonant ‘ayn, as in ‘Ali
or ‘ulama, and (’) for hamza, the character that represents the glottal
stop, as in Shi’r . I have not employed the subscript diacritics, nor have
I assimilated the l of the definitive article al- to the following conso-
nant.Ta marbuta, signifying feminine singular endings, is written with
a terminal “a”; the adjectival -ya followed by ta marbuta is rendered
-iyya. I have generally transcribed proper names according to this
system of transliteration, the primary exception being ‘Abd al-Nasser,
which follows the relatively established rendering of the name in
English. I provide initial references to Arabic books in transliteration
andEnglish translation. Thereafter, I use the English translation only.
vii
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PREFACE
My first “encounter” with Sayyid Qutb occurred, appropriately
enough, in Egypt, where I studied Arabic at the American University
inCairo in the late 1980s. I had arrived in Cairo as an aspiring medi-
aevalist, intent on investigating the history and culture of the Mam-
luks. Soon enough, however, the pulse of contemporary history took
hold of me, nudging the mediaeval dynasties to the periphery of my
academic interest. In those days, trouble was brewing in Egypt. Seven
years after the Jihad Group assassinated Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat, militant Islamist organizations were again on the prowl, espe-
cially in the middle and southern regions of the country, and Sayyid
Qutb’s name was in the air. At that point, I did not know much about
Qutb or his influence on the modern jihadi trend. It was only after I
began talking with knowledgeable people, poked around the sprawl of
Cairo’s bookstalls, and read Gilles Kepel’s The Prophet and the Phar-
aoh—a pioneering work on Egyptian Islamism—that the importance
of the man came home to me. I thought that here is somebody worth
studying—a man who drew upon the hallowed corpus of the Islamic
heritage in order to craft a vision of life and governance ostensibly dif-
ferent from that currently in place.
I did not know it at the time, but that initial spark of interest marked
my transition from mediaevalist to student of modern history, and
signalled years spent in the company of Sayyid Qutb’s written work.
This book, then, is the fruit of my efforts to understand the evolution
of the thought of one of the most significant figures of radical Islam-
ism.But beyond Qutb’s influence on Islamism, what was it about him
that intrigued me? I came to the subject prior to 9/11, so I was not
motivated to study him in the light of bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, as
so many have been. Looking back, I think I was fascinated, and
unnerved, by Qutb’s ideological certainty—his conviction that there is
ix