Investigations

Sayyid Qutb’s ‘ignorance’: How did the Masonic Brotherhood legitimize the terror of Al-Qaeda and ISIS?

Saturday 08/December/2018 - 04:04 PM

Mahmoud Mohammadi

“If we look at the sources and foundations of modern ways of living, it becomes clear that the whole world is steeped in ignorance, and all the marvelous material comforts and high-level inventions do not diminish this ignorance,” Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb wrote in his book “Milestones”.

Qutb considered that all human communities live in “ignorance” appearing in the perceptions of people and their beliefs, customs, traditions, culture, arts, literature, and laws. He said, “This ignorance is based on rebellion against Allah's sovereignty on earth. It transfers to man one of the greatest attributes of Allah, namely sovereignty, and makes some men lords over others.”

We are also surrounded by ignorance today, which is of the same nature as it was during the first period of Islam, perhaps a little deeper. Our whole environment, people's beliefs and ideas, habits and art, rules and laws is ignorance,” he continued.

Violence in change

The ideas of Qutb lead to the inevitability of a clash and the impossibility of coexistence, as well as his call for change by force. "There is no escape except by means of one, which is that a select elite understands Islam in its proper face, be it the elite of the Muslim Brotherhood or others, and makes all their efforts to correct the doctrine of the people."

These polar ideas aimed at "surpassing ignorance" are the first steps in the application of Islamic law, the removal of the modern state that does not rule over what Allah has revealed, and the human society under the authority of the state with its values and morals, or as Qutb stated, "Changing this reality of the ignorant basis, removing all tyrants from the land, and breaking the ruling political regimes."

Effects of the Brotherhood's View

There is no doubt that the writings of Qutb had an impact on the ideas of extremist groups that emerged after his death. In his book "Terror and Liberalism", American writer Paul Berman exposed the influence of the Brotherhood's view of Islamic fundamentalism, beginning with its impact on the "Islamic Awakening" in the 1970s.

Qutb influenced the minds of many young people who spoke his words generation in a generation, starting with the jihad organization that attempted to overthrow the Egyptian state and attack the Military Technical College in 1974, moving on the ideas of the al-Jama’at al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad organizations, and ending with the various generations of Al-Qaeda, especially founder Osama bin Laden and current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Qaeda's organization took what Qutb had left behind in his literature and transformed it from a theoretical framework to a practical one.

Bin Laden and Qutb

According to the book “The Secret History of Al-Qaeda” by Palestinian journalist Abdel Bari Atwan, Osama’s father Muhammad bin Laden was hosting a number of intellectuals and scholars during the pilgrimage season, and Osama was enthusiastic to meet them.

Bin Laden first met with Muhammad Qutb, the brother of Sayyid Qutb, at that time, and he also met with Abdullah Azzam, the ideologue of jihad in Afghanistan and an influential figure among young Muslims in the 1980s. This caused a major transformation for Bin Laden to become the leader of the largest terrorist organization, according to Atwan.

In a videotape broadcast by jihadist websites in January 2015, Zawahri admitted that Bin Laden had emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood. He said Bin Laden followed the organization's instructions strictly when he went to Pakistan and that the organization sent him to Pakistan when the Soviet invasion took place. Bin Laden was specifically tasked with providing support to the Islamic group there and instructed not to enter Afghanistan, but he violated the orders.

Zawahiri and Qutb

In his book “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner”, Ayman al-Zawahiri wrote, “Qutb’s thinking had a clear impact on the Islamic movement’s knowledge and identification of its enemies, and the realization that the internal enemy is no less dangerous than the external enemy, rather it is the tool used by the external enemy and the curtain behind which he seeks cover in his war on Islam.”

ISIS upon Qutb’s approach

ISIS elements have left murals on buildings in areas under their control in Syria and Iraq, revealing the terrorist group’s adoption of Qutb’s ideas. In October 2014, Brotherhood leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi admitted in a video clip that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In November 2014, the New York Times reported in an interview with the British ISIS member Kabir Ahmed, before he blew himself up in a suicide bombing at a refinery north of Baghdad, that he loved and respected “Sayyid Qutb, Anwar al-Awlaki, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.”