Qutbism

Qutbism (Arabic: ٱلْقُطْبِيَّةِ, romanized: al-Quṭbīyah) is a political philosophy that comes from the Islamic scholar and thinker Sayyid Qutb. 

Sayyid Qutb

Qutb was a leading member of an Islamist political group called the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928 by a different Islamic scholar, Hasan al-Banna.  It is banned in Egypt and in a number of other Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, even though these are also all Sunni Muslim states. 

alt=A photo shows Sayyid Qutb behind jail bars. He is wearing a Western style suit and striped tie. It is the only known photo of him on trial before his execution. |thumb|Sayyid Qutb in 1966

Qutbism is a Sunni philosophy. Its main associate, the Muslim Brotherhood, has supported other Sunni Islamist groups from the beginning of its foundation, including the Syrian Opposition groups, ISIS and Hamas (until 2017).

Core beliefs

Qutbism shares many core beliefs with other reformist Islamist philosophies, such as Wahhabism and Salafism. The main one being that for centuries, the Muslim community has not been following true Islam and must be reinvigorated by following the beliefs of the Prophet and his community. 

Taqfir

The most controversial and well-known aspect of Qutb's philosophy is takfirism – the belief that Muslims who do not adhere to his strict tenets of Islam are not Muslim but apostates. In Sharia law, the penalty for apostasy is the death penalty. 

Controversially, he claimed that the entire Muslim world had become taqfir, as they no longer practised Islam as the prophet did. Therefore, they had fallen into a state of jahiliyah – a word describing the time before the Qur'an's revelation to the prophet – ignorance.  

Kafir

Although, neither the Hadith or the Qur'an mention the word taqfir, instead using the word kufr (unbelief) or kafir (unbeliever). The word taqfir is a political invention by the wave of Islamic reformists such as Qutb who sought to reform Islam in his own terms. It has been used to justify violence by such groups against other Muslim communities by groups such as ISIS. 

Milestones (Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq)

Milestones, or Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq in Arabic, is Qutb's main work where he outlines his religious and political ideas.

Related pages

 Nazism
 Islamic terrorism
 Islam and fascism
 Islamic extremism
 Palestinian political violence

Category:Islam
Category:Fascism
Category:Islamism
Category:Sunni Islam
Category:Antisemitism
Category:Political philosophy
Category:History of the Middle East