Whatever Berman's faults, don't shoot the messenger. Qutb's writings lay out the groundwork for waging violent struggle against secular society. For him, the tolerance advocated in the Quran can only come after the political victory of the faithful and the establishment of the Muslim state. He was obsessed with purity (both spiritual and physical) and with the decadence not just of the West but also of Pan-Arab Nationalists like Nasser. That he was tortured and executed in Egyptian prisons doesn't (or shouldn't) make one sentimentalize or marginalize him.
Karen Armstrong's Islam: A Short History (Modern Liberary, 2000) has a short section on Al-Qutb. "He's the real founder of modern fundamentalism" "Every modern Sunni fundamentalist movement has been influenced by Qutb," especially Egypt Islamic Brotherhood. Agreed that Berman's parallels with Fascism and Nazism are a bit overstated and he exaggerates the unity between such groups, but much of the Islamic Brotherhood rhetoric leaves little room for compromise with any secular society (capitalist or not).
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Karen Armstrong's Islam: A Short History (Modern Liberary, 2000) has a short section on Al-Qutb. "He's the real founder of modern fundamentalism" "Every modern Sunni fundamentalist movement has been influenced by Qutb," especially Egypt Islamic Brotherhood. Agreed that Berman's parallels with Fascism and Nazism are a bit overstated and he exaggerates the unity between such groups, but much of the Islamic Brotherhood rhetoric leaves little room for compromise with any secular society (capitalist or not).
- bruno 3-24-2003 9:00 pm