Bookends Of Revolution

[PoliticalChic]

Perhaps Islamofascism and Marxism appear unrelated......bookends of revolution.....but in the life of this largely unknown, but deeply significant patron of the Islamist movement, there is the nexus.



1. "Sayyid Quṭb

Sayyid Quṭb, in full Ibrāhīm Ḥusayn Shādhilī Sayyid Quṭb, (born Oct. 9, 1906, near Asyūṭ, Egypt—died Aug. 29, 1966, Cairo), Egyptian writer who was one of the foremost figures in modern Sunni Islamic revivalism. He was from a family of impoverished rural notables. For most of his early life he was a schoolteacher. Originally an ardent secularist, he came, over time, to adopt many Islamist views."
Britannica.com

2. Sayyid Qutb, the single most influential Islamist writer. His masterwork, “In the Shade of the Qur’an,” commentaries on the various suras: Most of the original 30 volumes (114 Surahs) were written (or re-written) while in prison following an attempted assassination of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954.

Fi Zilal al-Quran - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

3. The notion of Islam as totality was Qutb’s most important concept, distinguishing Islam from all other worldviews- ‘Tawhid,’ the oneness of God. (Of course, Marxists had the same belief: George Lukacs defined that characteristic of Marxism that distinguished it from bourgeois thinking: ‘the primacy of the category of totality.’)


4. The suggestion of martyrdom can be found in one of his screeds against the Jews. “The Koran points to another contemptible characteristic of the Jews: their craven desire to live, no matter at what price and regardless of quality, honour, and dignity.” Imam Zaid Shakir’s Powerful Rebuttal Against Muslim Extremists



5. In the early ‘50’s, Qutb had abandoned his original, traditional idea that jihad was a defensive struggle, in favor of a more radical and aggressive notion that jihad was a struggle for all mankind. Al Qaeda picked up on this and launched a global struggle. Fitting, as Qutb had spoken against the narrow notion of Arab nationalism, and for a broader notion of Islam. Moreover, Qutb had declared that all but a few Muslims were jahili barbarians, making it open season on the main Muslim powers.

Bin Laden framed his political demands in Qutb’s theological framework: peace in Palestine (the end of the Zionist state), infidel troops out of the land of Muhammad (Americans out of Saudi Arabia), the end of suffering for the Iraqi people (end foreign pressure on Saddam).

 

[bluzman61]

Perhaps Islamofascism and Marxism appear unrelated......bookends of revolution.....but in the life of this largely unknown, but deeply significant patron of the Islamist movement, there is the nexus.



1. "Sayyid Quṭb

Sayyid Quṭb, in full Ibrāhīm Ḥusayn Shādhilī Sayyid Quṭb, (born Oct. 9, 1906, near Asyūṭ, Egypt—died Aug. 29, 1966, Cairo), Egyptian writer who was one of the foremost figures in modern Sunni Islamic revivalism. He was from a family of impoverished rural notables. For most of his early life he was a schoolteacher. Originally an ardent secularist, he came, over time, to adopt many Islamist views."
Britannica.com
View attachment 381603


2. Sayyid Qutb, the single most influential Islamist writer. His masterwork, “In the Shade of the Qur’an,” commentaries on the various suras: Most of the original 30 volumes (114 Surahs) were written (or re-written) while in prison following an attempted assassination of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954.

Fi Zilal al-Quran - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

3. The notion of Islam as totality was Qutb’s most important concept, distinguishing Islam from all other worldviews- ‘Tawhid,’ the oneness of God. (Of course, Marxists had the same belief: George Lukacs defined that characteristic of Marxism that distinguished it from bourgeois thinking: ‘the primacy of the category of totality.’)


4. The suggestion of martyrdom can be found in one of his screeds against the Jews. “The Koran points to another contemptible characteristic of the Jews: their craven desire to live, no matter at what price and regardless of quality, honour, and dignity.” Imam Zaid Shakir’s Powerful Rebuttal Against Muslim Extremists



5. In the early ‘50’s, Qutb had abandoned his original, traditional idea that jihad was a defensive struggle, in favor of a more radical and aggressive notion that jihad was a struggle for all mankind. Al Qaeda picked up on this and launched a global struggle. Fitting, as Qutb had spoken against the narrow notion of Arab nationalism, and for a broader notion of Islam. Moreover, Qutb had declared that all but a few Muslims were jahili barbarians, making it open season on the main Muslim powers.

Bin Laden framed his political demands in Qutb’s theological framework: peace in Palestine (the end of the Zionist state), infidel troops out of the land of Muhammad (Americans out of Saudi Arabia), the end of suffering for the Iraqi people (end foreign pressure on Saddam).

Thank you for another informative post, PC.

 

[PoliticalChic]

It's almost always a mistake to look at one issue or event, and fail to see the larger context.
That's the reason a broad and deep education is so valuable.....see where 'reading books' fits in there?


As all of life is political, it helps to connect the dots.




No idea, or movement, remains trapped in a bottle, e,g, remaining in its birthplace....especially if it is successful.
Unfortunately for mankind, totalitarian dictatorships have largely been successful.


Here's where we move on to the Middle East.

6. Communism was the first of the new mass movements in Europe, and the first to flourish in the Middle East as well. Europe’s Fascist and fascist-style movements began in the years after World War One. The major difference was that Communists and Marxists, aimed to show how similar they were in every country…the Fascists’ aims were to show how local and parochial, how ‘nationalist’ and ancient its interests were.


a. Baath Socialism had its myth of man and history, the Arab nation was it’s people of God, corrupted and polluted by forces within and forces without. From Michel Aflaq, the founder and greatest of the Baathi theoreticians: "The philosophies and teachings that come from the West invade the Arab mind and steal his loyalty.”


b. And the people of evil who corrupted the nation of God, were, of course, the Jews. Pan-Arabists of one kind or another were responsible for the anti-Semitic outbreaksof the ‘40’s and ‘60’s.
The Arabs, in this projection, would return to their “pure, original nature” by revering the revolutionary Leader who embodied the “Arab Spirit,” the spirit one embodied in the Prophet Muhammad himself. This meant unlimited mass obedience, and this implied following the political organization, or the state.




7. This view was not only totalitarian, but another element that traces back to the Enlightenment- nihilism.

In Sayyid Qutb’s “In the Shade of the Quran,” a thirty-volume commentary, violent jihad is the method of choice, and this is the inspiration for Muslim warriors worldwide.

“We should by now have become used to the death cult that is thriving at the fringes of the Muslim world. This is the cult of people who are proud to declare, "You love life, but we love death." This is the cult that sent waves of defenseless children to be mowed down on the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war, that trains kindergartners to become bombs, that fetishizes death, that sends people off joyfully to commit mass murder. Because the death cult is not really about the cause it purports to serve. It's about the sheer pleasure of killing and dying.” Opinion | Cult of Death

 

[PoliticalChic]

8. Never imagine that the Islamist movement is more than a few degrees of separation from every other totalitarian movement.


The Arabs, in this projection, would return to their “pure, original nature” by revering the revolutionary Leader who embodied the “Arab Spirit,” the spirit one embodied in the Prophet Muhammad himself. This meant unlimited mass obedience, and this implied following the political organization, or the state. This view was not only totalitarian, but anther element that traces back to the Enlightenment- nihilism.


Although it followed the European versions by decades, it remained true to the form, the pattern…Instead of wanting with Mussolini, to resurrect the Roman Empire of ancient Italy; or, with Hitler, the Roman Empire of Nazi mythology; or with Franco to resurrect the medieval Spanish crusade for Christ the King- their particular yearning was for the Caliphate from the days of Muhammad. That was the Baathi “Renaissance.” This was fully in line with the twentieth century tradition.


Muslim’s other grand radical movement, Islamists, might seem, at first, to be an exception, free of the European virus… as the Egyptian and Pakistani versions began as organs of peaceful political reform, i.e., the strictly religious Muslim Brotherhood, …but scratch the surface, and there is the sympathy for Nazism. The Young Egypt Society, the ‘Greenshirts,’ were openly Nazi, and Hassan al-Banna was not far behind.
http://74.39.184.126/vb/showthread.php?t=130932 The Brotherhood even had it’s units designated ‘kata’ib’ or phalanges, a la Franco.