Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb was an Egyptian writer whose prison works became the intellectual foundation of modern jihadist movements. Born in a village in Asyut province in 1906, he memorised the Quran as a child, trained as a teacher at Dar al-Ulum in Cairo, and spent his early career as a literary critic and poet, an admirer of Western literature and an early champion of Naguib Mahfouz. The Egyptian ministry of education sent him to the United States from 1948 to 1950, where he studied in Washington, Colorado and California. He returned repulsed — by what he saw as racism, materialism, sexual licence and a spiritual emptiness beneath the wealth. A church dance in Greeley, Colorado features in his account. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood in 1953 and edited its journal. The Brotherhood initially supported the Free Officers' coup of 1952, then broke with Gamal Abdel Nasser. After an assassination attempt on Nasser in 1954, Qutb was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years; he was tortured, and much of the rest of his life was spent in prison hospitals. There he wrote In the Shade of the Quran, a vast commentary, and in 1964 Milestones. Its argument was that Muslim societies had reverted to jahiliyya, the state of ignorance preceding Islam, because they were governed by human law rather than divine sovereignty. Since such rulers were not truly Muslim, they could legitimately be fought, and a vanguard was required to do it. This takfiri reasoning — declaring nominal Muslims apostate — is the doctrinal move later groups adopted. He was released in 1964, re-arrested in 1965, and hanged in August 1966. His brother Muhammad taught in Saudi Arabia, where Ayman al-Zawahiri and others absorbed the ideas.
- Lived: 1906 CE – 1966 CE
- Nationality: Egyptian
- Roles: religious_leader, writer
