The Real Qutb . . . and the Real Islam(ism)?

Sayyid Qutb

Contributing quotable quotes

to the genre of prison literature...

(Image from d1bird at Photobucket)

In searching for a precise quote from Sayyid Qutb on "jahiliyya" (roughly, "ignorance," but see below) that I had read in Quintan Wiktorowicz's useful article "A Genealogy of Radical Islam," I came across an interesting article by another scholar . . . but first let's look at the Qutb quote in Wiktorowicz's article, with an expression that I was checking noted in red:

Jahiliyya (barbarity) signifies the domination (hakamiyya) of man over man, or rather the subservience to man rather than to Allah. It denotes rejection of the divinity of God and the adulation of mortals. In this sense, jahiliyya is not just a specific historical period (referring to the era preceding the advent of Islam), but a state of affairs. Such a state of human affairs existed in the past, exists today, and may exist in the future, taking the form of jahiliyya, that mirror-image and sword enemy of Islam. In any time and place human beings face that clear-cut choice: either to observe the Law of Allah in its entirety, or to apply laws laid down by man of one sort or another. In the latter case, they are in a state of jahiliyya. Man is at the crossroads and that is the choice: Islam or jahiliyya. Modern-style jahiliyya in the industrialized societies of Europe and America is essentially similar to the old-time jahiliyya in pagan and nomadic Arabia. For in both systems, man is under the dominion of man rather than Allah. (Wiktorowicz, "A Genealogy of Radical Islam," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 28:75-97, 2005, page 79)

Wiktorowicz borrows this quote from pages 23-24 of Emmanuel Sivan's Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), but I don't have that book.

What struck me in this quote was the characterization of "jahiliyya" as the "sword enemy of Islam." While I could see a certain logic to Qutb thinking this way, for he followed traditional Islamic views in seeing the world divided into two spheres, the realm of Islam and the realm of war, I nevertheless wondered if this weren't a typographical error for "sworn enemy of Islam." I therefore conducted a Google search and found that I was correct, for I found an article by Charles Selengut with the expression "sworn enemy of Islam":

[Jahiliyyah] denotes rejection of the divinity of God and the adulation of mortals. In this sense, jahiliyyah is not just a specific historical period (referring to the era preceding Islam) but a state of affairs. Such a state of human affairs existed in the past, exists today, and may in the future, taking the form of jahiliyyah, that mirror image and sworn enemy of Islam. In any time and place human beings face that clear cut choice: either to observe the Law of Allah in its entirety, or to apply laws laid down by man of one sort or another. In the latter case they are in a state of jahiliyyah. Man is at the crossroads and that is the choice: Islam or jahiliyyah. (Charles Selengut, "Religious Visions and Sacred Terror: The Case of Islam," Muhammad's Monsters: A Comprehensive Guide to Radical Islam for Western Audiences, text to footnote 19)

Selengut is also quoting from Emmanuel Sivan's Radical Islam (page 24) and may even have correctly typed Sivan's spelling of "jahiliyyah" -- though it can be spelled without the "h" also, as Wiktorowicz has rendered it in his article. (Update: Amazon allows a text search, which shows that Wiktorowicz is correct in his quote except for the typo of "sword" for "sworn.")

Spelling matters aside, Selengut's article offers an interpretation of Islamism's popularity that we ought to consider (even though I usually refrain from psychologizing), for he borrows from a psychologist whose ideas on how we deal with the tension between deep beliefs and dissonant knowledge does provide a possibly useful way of thinking about the dilemma faced by Islam in the modern world:

Dissonance produces discomfort and, correspondingly, there will arise pressures to reduce or eliminate the dissonance. Attempts to reduce dissonance represent the observable manifestations that dissonance exists. Such attempts may take any of three forms; the person may try to change one or more of the beliefs, opinions, or behaviors involved in the dissonance; to acquire new information or beliefs that will increase the existing consonance and thus cause the total dissonance to be reduced; or to forget the importance of those cognitions that are in a dissonant relationship. (Selengut, "Religious Visions and Sacred Terror," text to footnote 5; quoted from Leon Festinger, et. al., When Prophecy Fails (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1956) p. 25.))

Selengut, of course, is borrowing from Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance. Selengut applies Festinger's theory as follows:

There are three ways religious groups can attempt resolution to the experience of cognitive dissonance and chronic religious disappointment: surrender, reinterpretation and revolutionary transformation. In the Muslim case, these correspond to what I will refer to as modernism, traditionalism and militant Islam. (Selengut, "Religious Visions and Sacred Terror," first paragraph below subheading 'Islamic Responses')

Selengut then procedes to describe these three responses in more detail. The third interests us most in our present circumstances:

The militant response in its demand to engage in jihad, to make the literal texts come alive, to fulfill the precise demands of scripture is not sectarian or idiosyncratic as many Western secular observers imagine, but central to the inner life of Islam. The Islamic injunction to establish a universal Islamic society, to reclaim immediately Muslims lands and to establish shari'ah as the state law is the Muslim obligation. (Selengut, "Religious Visions and Sacred Terror," second paragraph below subheading 'Militant Islam: The Transformation of Reality')

Selengut's emphasis here upon the militants as having focused upon jihad as "central to the inner life of Islam" suggests that he thinks the Islamists correct in their reading of Islam's orthodox texts -- though Wiktorowicz would probably disagree since he holds that the militants were overturning "well-established Islamic legal opinions that jihad was primarily a struggle against the soul (jihad al-nafs) or a defensive war to protect the Muslim community" (Wiktorowicz, "A Genealogy of Radical Islam," page 79).

Read both articles -- Selengut's and Wiktorowicz's -- and make of them what you will.