Sayyid Qutb: The Emergence of an Islamist Calling for Social Justice in Islam, 1906–1948

Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. 42, No.1, Fall 2018 Sayyid Qutb: The Emergence of an Islamist Calling for Social Justice in Islam, 1906–1948 Adnan A. Musallam* Introduction This is a biographical inquiry into Sayyid Qutb’s life (1906–1948), who was an Egyptian teacher, poet, journalist, literary critic and a leading but highly controversial intellectual of the contemporary Islamic movement in Egypt, the Arab and the Islamic world. Qutb was imprisoned with many of the rank and file of the Society of Muslim Brothers from 1954–1964 and was subsequently rearrested and tried in 1965 and 1966 for allegedly leading an underground apparatus which was conspiring to overthrow the late president Gamal Abd al-Nasser’s regime by force. Qutb is noted for a revolutionary zeal with which he promoted what he considered the inevitable establishment of a true and just Islamic society in place of the “Jihili” (pagan) society which exists throughout the world including Egypt. This revolutionary thought which appears in his controversial work Ma’alim fi al-tariq (Milestones on the Road), 1964, was utilized by the Egyptian state security prosecutor’s office in building its case against him and was instrumental in sending him to the gallows in August 1966. Qutb’s posthumous fame: 1966–present, and the impact of his controversial thought on radical Islamist resurgence and global jihadists are well known, but are not the focus of my presentation today. My focus, instead, is on the years 1906–1948 and Qutb’s emergence as an Islamist calling for social justice in Islam. 1 *Adnan A. Musallam: Earned his PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. His interest is Contemporary Arabic/Islamic Thought; Contemporary History of the Arab World and the Middle East; and Contemporary Arabic Literature. He is an associate professor of history at Bethlehem University, Palestine and he is an active member of Al-Liqa’s Board of Trustees. 2 Problems in Researching Sayyid Qutb’s Biography Students wishing to pursue an objective study of Sayyid Qutb should be aware of the obvious shortcomings of the existing literature. For example, M.M. Siddiqui’s “An outline of Sayyid Qutb’s life”1 and S. Badrul Hasan’s Sayyid Qutb Shaheed 2 are typical examples of partisan literature; they lack documentation and present questionable biographical information. Thus, in Siddiqui’s work the inaccurate and undocumented account of Qutb’s family relocation to Cairo’s suburb Hulwan is described as follows: “Sayyid’s parents, realizing the gifts of their son, were concerned about his education and so they moved to Hulwan a suburb of Cairo, and Sayyid entered Tajhiziyah Dar al-‘Uloom.3 In Badrul Hasan’s work the same account is repeated but in a more ornate and melodramatic language: “The parents of Sayyid were very keen and anxious to have this brilliant and promising child of theirs sent for higher education. As luck would have it, the parents of Sayyid, leaving the village, settled in Hulwan, a satellite town of Cairo. Thus providence paved the way for educational progress and eminence for Sayyid. He entered the Secondary School of Cairo named Tajhiziyah Dar al-‘Uloom.”4 In actual fact, however, Qutb left his village around 1921 to live with his maternal uncle in the Zaytun suburb of Cairo in order to continue his education. His family did not move to Hulwan until after the death of his father in about 1933 when Sayyid was already attending Dar al-‘Uloom.5 Likewise, Siddiqui gives the following inaccurate account of Qutb’s career after his graduation from college: “Sayyid entered Dar- al-‘Uloom in 1929 and completed his B.A. in Education in 1933. Immediately after the completion of his degree he was appointed a lecturer in this college.”6 In Badrul Hasan the same misinformation is given but with an added touch of melodrama: “He was appointed professor in this college because of his God-given intelligence. For some time he displayed his capabilities in Cairo University.”7 However, Qutb did not teach in Dar al-‘Uloom or Cairo University following his graduation in 1933. Instead, he was appointed elementary school teacher of Arabic in the...