Fighting Islamist Ideology (read Sayyid Qutb)

Submitted by Jon (United States), Apr 15, 2003 at 10:55

There was an excellent article in the NYTimes magazine a few weeks ago, called "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror", written by Paul Berman. It was about the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb. Although I think Fuller is right about there being differences amongst the Islamists, there are some deep idelogical commonalities. Much of this ideology comes from the writing of Qutb. These writing are very deep and philosophical, contrasting islam with judaism and christianity - coming to the obvious conclusion that the other two religions are fatally flawed creating evils that have degenerate most of the world, whereas Islam is perfect and the answer to this debauchery. The author, Paul Berman, points out that we cannot just beat the Islamists like Al-Qaeda militarily, but that we should be addressing them ideologically and beating them in that battle. We should be addressing the fundamentals of their philosophy. There are many layers in which this could be done. As I don't speak Arabic, so I am not aware if this idelogical battle is being waged by moderate Muslims in the Arabic world. However, I see very little of it in the westerm world.

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