Sayyid Qutb: Poet, Reactionary, Islamist (Part 2)

If the start of Sayyid Qutb’s life was defined by the evolution of his thought, the second part was defined by a calcification of his beliefs. With revolution brewing in Egypt following the Second World War, Qutb turned from analysing the aesthetics of the Quran to Islamism, explicitly calling for a new socio-political and economic order based on the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet. Following a trip to America, where he saw decadent Western society in stark relief, he returned to preach it at home, joining the Muslim Brotherhood and eventually coming up against the new regime of Gamal Abdul Nasser. It was in prison that he would write his most famous works.

In this second episode on Sayyid Qutb’s life, we plot the end of his journey, showing how he became the most influential Islamic thinker of the modern era. We also round off our series looking at the antecedents to modern Salafi Jihadism, showing how their thought has come together to influence terrorists in the modern era. Because to understand the mind of fundamentalists today, we have to understand their legacy.

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