On 9-11 and the philosopher Qutb
At 9:00 AM, September 11th 2001, Lee Hanson received a call from his son Peter:
"It’s getting bad, Dad—A stewardess was stabbed—They seem to have
knives and Mace—They said they have a bomb—It’s getting very bad
on the plane—Passengers are throwing up and getting sick—The
plane is making jerky movements—I don’t think the pilot is flying the
plane—I think we are going down—I think they intend to go to
Chicago or someplace and fly into a building—Don’t worry, Dad—
If it happens, it’ll be very fast—My God, my God."
Lee turned on a television and saw the second aircraft hit the World Trade Center.
Who are these terrorists and why do they hate us?
20 years later the question burns on. The mechanics of the attack are well documented though still subject to debate.
The ideas behind the attack are less well understood. Terms like Radical, Islamist, Jihadi have all been used either in combination or on their own, to describe the ideological brand of the 9/11 terrorists. These words help group the terrorists but do little to reveal and define the thinking that led to the attack.
Prologue
Ideas matter. As much as ideas derive from the abstract mind, they are rooted in an individual reality. The terrorists on 9/11 and more importantly their leaders were acting in opposition to modern trends in the Muslim world. Specifically, political domination of Muslim countries by American and European governments, secular governments in Muslim countries and the cultural challenge to Islam in an increasingly pluralistic and technological society. The reaction took place at flashpoints all over the world, from military confrontation between the Arab world and Israel, Muslim volunteers (mujahadin) and the Soviet Union, or in the cultural conflict between conservative Islamic societies and modernizing rulers throughout the Middle East. The political and cultural conditions provide the fuel and ideology provided the ignition. The mind of Sayyid Qutb (pronounced ‘cut’ ‘up’) was one such spark.
Qutb and Egypt
Sayyid Qutb was a prolific author, poet, critic and educator who rose to prominence during early 20th century Egypt. At the time Egypt was a kingdom dominated by Great Britain. Britain ruled Egypt indirectly through its king. This arrangement enabled Britain to control the Suez canal and the Egyptian treasury. Egyptians widely detested British indirect rule. Grassroots political organizations that ranged from religious (Muslim Brotherhood) to nationalist (Nasser) to communist proliferated. The king’s attempts towards Egyptian independence were thwarted by direct British military rule during World War II and the birth of Israel. Egypt’s ineffective efforts to oppose the formation of Israel further eroded the King's legitimacy in the eyes of the people. Ultimately the defeat of Egyptian forces during the Israeli war of independence sparked an Egyptian military coup d'etat. with the tacit support of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Nasser succeeded in taking over the state but in the process abandoned the Muslim Brotherhood to implement his own brand of Arab Socialism modelled in part on the Soviet Union. Nasser's attempt to forge a new state and identity for Egypt ran headlong into the dream of an independent Islamic Egypt. A violent repression of Muslim Brotherhood members followed. Qutb's work illustrated the cultural dilution of Islamic orthodoxy by British imperialism, Egyptian modernizers and Nasser's secret police.
As a young man, Qutb was familiar with Shakespeare but had also memorized the Koran at a separate Islamic school. Growing up in a traditional village, Qutb held the larger world to be corrupt and godless. He became a literary figure and an educator. He even visited the United States to study but found American permissiveness, a horrifying prospect for the Muslim world. Qutb joined the Muslim Brotherhood or Ikwhan as head of propaganda. Qutb was arrested for editing Ikhwan publications and executed in 1966. Two of his books, written while he was imprisoned, "Milestones" and "The shade of Quran”proposed ideas that radically altered Islamic Doctrine.
After a career in literature, journalism and education, Qutb’s first contribution to the political Islamist movement was a treatise on social justice prior to his imprisonement and subsequent radicalization . Islam, according to Qutb, is rooted in God's realistic view of man. Man is flawed, hungry and weak. Yet with proper guidance, man is capable of improvement. But If he denies God's sovereignty he limits his potential. Injustice is inherent to all regimes that are ignorant of God's law, including Muslim regimes. Man will be “just” under God's Islamic law. God’s vision is in a constant struggle with man-made distractions inherent in the technological civilization that foster entertainment, secular law and irreligious ideologies.
Qtub contended that the only way to bring God's truth to the real living world was by implementing a comprehensive Islamic system. However an Islamic state would not be ruled by priests or mullah’s but by rulers who understand the Shariah. A leader, in Qutb’s view, must reflect the essential qualities of Islam. There is no halfway, there’s, no moderate, there's no reform, there is only Islam. Islam does not require innovation since what Muhammad presented is perfect and complete. Qtub urged the Islamic community to abandon any kind of Western syncretic strategy.
Qutb said, “The period of the Western system has come to an end primariÌy because it is deprived of those life-giving values which enabled it to be the leader of mankind. lt is necessary for the new leadership to preserve and develop the material fruits of the creative genius of Europe, and ...also to provide mankind with such high ideals and values as have so far remained undiscovered by mankind, and which will also acquaint humanity with a way of life which is harmonious with human nature, which is positive and constructive, and which is practicable...., the turn of Islam and the Muslim community has arrived - the turn of Islam, which does not prohibit material inventions... “
Qutb observed that Islamic society in the 20th century had lost the zeal of the first generation of Muslims during the lifetime of Mohammed:
“lt is necessary to revive that Muslim community which is buried under the debris of the man-made traditions of several generations, and which is crushed under the weight of those· false laws and customs which are not even remotely related to the Islamic teachings, and which, in spite of all this, calls itself the 'world of Islam.' I am aware that between the attempt at 'revival' and the attainment of 'leadership' there is a great distance, as the Muslim community has. long ago vanished from existence and from observation, and the leadership of mankind has long since passed to other ideologies and other nations, other concepts and other systems.”
The early authors of Islamic doctrine had felt that fitna was a terrible thing because it would just create division, sectarianism and ultimately weakness. Takfir is when a Muslim accuses another of not being a Muslim. Islam had discouraged Takfir for the past thousand years. Qutb believed that under imperialism (British, American or Soviet) there's a tendency, to become Muslim in form but not in deed, or in thought. Thus, Qutb said:
“ The humiliation of the common man under the communist systems and the exploitation of individuals and nations due to greed for wealth and imperialism·under the capitalist systems are but a corollary of rebellion against God's authority and the denial of the dignity of man given to him by God. ln this respect, Islam's way of life is unique, for in systems other that Islam, some people worship others in some form or or another. Only in the Islamic way of life do all men become free from the servitude of some men to others and devote themselves to the worship of God alone, deriving guidance from Him alone, and bowing before Him alone.”
Qutb encouraged his followers to be impatient with the ignorant and corrupt state and society that they found themselves in: ‘"The society should not be in such a condition that some are driven by greed while others are burning with envy, that all the affairs of the society are decided by the sword and the gun, fear and threats, that the hearts of the population are desolate and. their spirits are broken, as is the case under systems which are based on any authority other than God's."
Further he desired that they seek God's law here on Earth and to follow no other law. To follow another law than God's is to stray from God. " The basis of the message is that one should accept the Shari'ah without any question and reject all other laws in any shape or- form. This is Islam. There is no other meaning of Islam. One who is attracted to this basic Islam has already resolved this problem; he will not require any persuasion through showing its beauty and superiority."
Egyptian Epilogue
For their part, the Ikwhan has continued to grow in power and influence among the population of Egypt. After Nasser's successor, Sadat signed a peace agreement with Israel, Muslim Brotherhood members in the Army assassinated Sadat. Under Mubarak some Muslim Brotherhood members were able to participate in government. Whenever Ikwhan became too popular, they were subject to brutal repression. Military aid to the regime from the United States engendered widespread resentment among Egyptians suffering under corruption and brutality. Elders in the organization, often grandfathers living with their extended families, were rousted from their beds, arrested and subject to unspeakable torture.
Terrorism
Following the violent repression of the Muslim Brotherhood, secret terrorist cells attacked the World Trade Center in 1993. They linked American guns to Egyptian repression. They were led by an Egyptian, former Muslim Brother, the Blind Sheik, a disciple of Sayid Qutb. Attacks against the United States were a direct attack against an enemy they believed was attacking Islam through its agents in the many Muslim client states.
Qutb’s part
Qutb brought forward three significant innovations to Islam that will likely shake the foundation of our shared civilization for a long time to come.
First Qutb argued that interpretation, scholarship and jurisprudence beyond the Quran was unacceptable. A thousand years of commentary was wiped away. Only Quran is from God so only Quran is Islam. This is partly why the terrorists are referred to as fundamentalists, they seek to only trust the fundamental text.
Second, Qutb declares the current Muslim world (especially the state) to operate in a state of barbaric ignorance that he refers to as Jahiliyya. That is the word used in the Quran to describe pre-Islamic Arab pagan society. What does a Jahiliyya society do? It worships idols, it commits human sacrifices, it is licentious, adulterous and barbaric. In the Quran these societies are brought round to the righteous path by force. Qutb suggested that the Muslim world was in need of forceful renewal in order to live under a society that is obedient to God, that is a society under Shariah law. Interestingly, Qutb did not desire a theocracy, a world ruled by clerics, like Iran. Instead he suggested that every leader, any leader in a true Islamic society would be just by the very nature of Islamic practice. Any resistance to this rule is rebellion against God. Finally, on an individual level, Qutb brought the concept of Takfir to the broad Muslim world. This is the accusation that a person who claims to be a Muslim but does not practice Shariah law is not an actual Muslim. A Muslim apostate may be sentenced to death under Shariah law. An accusation of Takfir is divisive on a personal scale, but politically it is a declaration of illegitimacy for the apostate ruler. A declaration of war.
Afghanistan
The outlines of the Bin Laden operation on 9-11 are well known. It suffices to say that Bin Laden took the three precepts of Sharia, Jahiliyya and Takfir from Qutb and styled himself the righteous avenger against the champion of the West, the United States. Before he made his assault on America he was engaged in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. It was here that the international jihad forged in bloody warfare gained strength and ideological coherence.
In the chaos of a tribal civil war between and amongst the Pashto and the Tajiks, among others, emerged a global Jihad. That Jihad movement, organized as, al Qaeda, took aim at the United States.
The United States represented to Qutb the technological, scientific and by definition man-made challenge to Islam. He astutely observed that Communism was a spent force capable of little in the real world but he anticipated that the flashing lights of progress would take Muslims further from God. To him God's oneness encompassed society, law and social relations as much as the ritual and the spiritual. The separation of church and state, the western concept of confinement of religion to the individual conscience and household, was contrary to Islam. One way to keep Muslim’s in the fold is to subject them to the brutality of the American war machine. The bloodier our sword in Muslim lands the more that Muslims will turn away from our Jahiliyya and our corrupt puppets and towards Islam and its vanguard fighters.
Does Qutb bear any responsibility for the vicious murders on 9-11?
No.
Qutb had no fear of death and was prolific in his writing. If he wanted to encourage violence, especially against targets outside of Egypt, he would have said so.
Did Qutb’s ideas form the basis of the Jihadi worldview that lead to 9-11?
I leave that judgement to you.
Islam, even militant political Islam is not inherently a terroristic system. One Muslim who demonstrates the possibility of an anti-terrorist political Islam was the lion of Panjshir, Ahmed Shah Massoud. Massoud was a leader of the mujahideen fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He supported female education. He led the fight against the Taliban. He also had a key role in the 9-11 story that has not been widely reported but as far as I can tell is hard fact - Ahmed Masoud was killed two days before 9-11 by an Al-Qaeda hit squad under orders from Osama Bin Laden. In his speech to Congress ,the former California congressman Dana Rohrbacher lays out his perspective on that event and the fumbled efforts in Afghanistan that lead to 9-11. Massoud was a real hero who I think will be recognized as such as time goes by.
"Then just a few days before 9/11, the news came that Commander Massoud had been murdered in Afghanistan. I felt as if I had lost a close friend. And as I mourned his loss, I struggled to fully understand the significance of his death. Then it dawned on me. It dawned on me why Massoud had been assassinated. America was going to be attacked. It would be so monstrous that bin Laden's gang in Afghanistan wanted to cut us off from a means of counter attacking them in their base of operations in Afghanistan. We would have turned to Massoud if we were attacked. That is what we would have done, and they were cutting us off from turning to Massoud, but now Massoud was dead. Perhaps his death was a signal to set the planned attack on our country in motion. So on September 10, after I had figured that out a few days before 9/11, on September 10 I
tried to alert anyone and everyone who would listen to me. I tried to give my warnings of an imminent terrorist attack.
...Undeterred, I called the White House and asked for an emergency appointment with Condoleezza Rice in order to warn of an impending terrorist attack, a major attack. Her office apologized that she was incredibly busy that day but she respected my opinion and would see me the next day at 3:00 p.m. The next day was 9/11. The planes began flying into the buildings at 8:48 a.m."
Massoud was also a Muslim. He was a Mujahadeen. Today his son leads the resistance to the Taliban and the game continues.
As for Qutb, I like to think he would apply this quote from the Quran to the terrorists:
God Most High says about such people: "Say: Shall We tell you who will be the greatest losers in their deeds? Those whose effort goes astray in the present life, while they think that they are doing good deeds. Those are they who disbelieve in the signs of their Lord and in the encounter with Him. Their works have failed, and on the Day of Resurrection We shall not assign to them any value. That is their payment - Hell - for that they were unbelievers and took My signs and My Messengers in mockery." (18: 103- ·106)
And what next, after 20 years of Muslim blood spilled. It is not impossible that we will have to pay for every drop. Bin Laden was counting on it.
Sources:
Ahmed, Bilal Qutb’s Communism, Souciant, 14 April 2014
Barfield, Thomas, “Tribal and Religious Identity in Afghanistan -.” YouTube, PittGlobalStudies, 1 Feb. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF3Rkt42wPY.
CNN. “Look Back at How September 11 Unfolded.” YouTube, YouTube, 7 Sept. 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=D60QnpI_xH4&t=132s
“Timeline: U.S. War in Afghanistan.” Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org/timeline/us-war-afghanistan.
Gerges, Fawaz A. Making the Arab World: Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash That Shaped the Middle East. Princeton University Press, 2018.
Miller, John. “Greetings, America. My Name Is Osama Bin Laden.” Esquire, 21 Aug. 2020, www.esquire.com/news-politics/a1813/osama-bin-laden-interview/.
Syahnan, Mhd. “A Study of Sayyid Quṭb's Qurʾān Exegesis in Earlier and Later Editions of His Fī Ẓilāl AL-QURʾĀN with Specific Reference to Selected Themes /.” EScholarship@McGill, McGill University, 1 Jan. 1997, escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/bg257g921.
Salahi , Shaykh Adil. “Unscripted Podcast – islam21c Media: Unscripted #59: They Don't Know the REAL Sayyid QUTB: DR Adil Salahi on Apple Podcasts.” Apple Podcasts, 28 Aug. 2020, podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unscripted-59-they-dont-know-real-sayyid-qutb-dr-adil/id1473951152?i=1000489429626.
Rohrbacher, Dana. “User Clip: 9/11 Represented a Dramatic Failure of Policy and People.” C, www.c-span.org/video/?c4906081%2Fuser-clip-911-represented-dramatic-failure-policy-peopl+e&fbclid=IwAR2W7UOPa-P-46HBjvYjWjwOnSLcMvN2Dp5YVzKC8KcVceMac0pAJRMqwIg.
“Secrets & Spies - John Calvert Discusses Sayyid Qutb.” Google, Google, podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdWRpb2Jvb20uY29tL2NoYW5uZWxzLzUwMzgyMTUucnNz/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvNzY4MDU0Nzcy.
Toth, James. Sayyid Qutb the Life and Legacy of a Radical ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL. Oxford University Press, 2013.
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WW Norton and Company: New York and London. 2004
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Notes:
Nasser engaged in vicious repression against Ikhwan and the Egyptian people in general. His successors were no better. For their part, the Ikwhan had operated a secret armed wing under the monarchy and was accused of continuing to use it against the state under Nasser. While the membership and activities of this secret army are unknown, they are believed to have successfully assassinated the last prime minister under the monarchy. Qutb was sentenced to death for plotting Nasser’s assassination. In truth no evidence was ever provided at trial to prove that accusation.
An aside about human rights. Qutb was arrested and tortured for what he wrote. In prison he witnessed a massacre of prisoners. Meanwhile the secular leader, Nasser, continued to proclaim Islamic pieties.
Qutb’s political philosophy has been described as anarcho-Islamist.
Qutb said, “The period of the Western system has come to an end primariÌy because it is deprived of those life-giving values which enabled it to be the leader of mankind. lt is necessary for the new leadership to preserve and develop the material fruits of the creative genius of Europe, and ...also to provide mankind with such high ideals and values as have so far remained undiscovered by mankind, and which will also acquaint humanity with a way of life which is harmonious with human nature, which is positive and constructive, and which is practicable. Islam is the only system which possesses these values and this way of life. The period of the resurgence of science has also come to an end. This period, which began with the Renaissance in the sixteenth century after Christ and reached its zenith in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, does not possess a reviving spirit. All nationalistic and chauvinistic ideologies which have appeared in modern times, and all the movements and theories derived from them, have also lost their vitality. ln. in short, all man-made individual or collective theories have proved to be failures. At this crucial and bewildering juncture, the turn of Islam and the Muslim community has arrived - the turn of Islam, which does not prohibit material inventions. Indeed, Islam counts it as an obligation on man from the very beginning of time, when God deputized him as His representative on earth, and regards it under certain conditions as worship of God and one of the purposes of man's creation. “
وفي ذلك يرى قطب أن الجهاد هو الوسيلة الأساسية للتخلص من المعوقات التي تحول دون تأسيس الدولة الإسلامية وتحرير الإنسان من أي سلطة غير سلطة الله.
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