ePub Reinterpreting Exploration: The West in the World (Reinterpreting History: How Historical Assessments Change over Time) by From Oxford University Press in History

Description

Sayyid Qutb is widely considered the guiding intellectual of radical Islam; with a direct line connecting him to Osama bin Laden. But Qutb has too often been treated maliciously or reductively-"the Philosopher of Islamic Terror;" as Paul Berman famously put it in the New York Times Magazine. James Toth offers an even-handed account of Sayyid Qutb and shows him to be a much more complex figure than the many one-dimensional portraits would have us believe. Qutb first gained notice as a novelist; literary critic; and poet but then turned to religious and political criticism aimed at the Egyptian government and Muslims he deemed insufficiently pious. After a two-year sojourn in the U.S.; he returned to Egypt even more radicalized and joined the Muslim Brotherhood; eventually taking charge of its propaganda operation. When Brotherhood members were accused of assassinating Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser; the group was outlawed and Qutb imprisoned. He was executed in 1966; becoming the first martyr to the Islamist cause. Using an analytical approach that investigates without passing judgment; Toth traces the life and thought of Qutb; giving attention not only to his well-known Signposts on the Road; but also to his less-studied works like Social Justice in Islam and his 30-volume Qur'anic commentary; In the Shade of the Qur'an. Toth's aim is to give Qutb's ideas a fair hearing; to measure their impact; and to treat him like other intellectuals who inspire revolutions; however unpopular they may be. In offering a more nuanced account of Qutb; one that moves beyond the cartoonish depictions of him as the evil genius lurking behind today's terrorists; Sayyid Qutb deepens our understanding of a central figure of radical Islam and; indeed; our understanding of radical Islam itself.