Was Sayyed Qutb Right About the West?

Was Sayyed Qutb Right About the West?

 

Sayyed Qutb- the ideological mentor and inspiration for the Al Qaeda network and ifs affiliates- condemned the west for its hedonism and rampant capitalism and his works colored the vision and world view of generations of Muslims.  The narrative that he told about the west was premised upon his experience(s) and perceptions of the United States where he formed the formative and fateful opinion about the west as a whole. This narrative became the theme of Islamists across the world and served as the ideological rallying point for Islamists of various hues and complexions. Fatefully and fatally, it also became the focus or locus of Al Qaeda’s rage which it spewed out on the United States on that fateful and eventful day, September 11. This saga tells us more about the importance of narratives and ideas and how they can influence the minds of men and make them take recourse to extremism and violence.

The sad and unfortunate thing about this that it became the dominant narrative about the west and most peoples in the Islamic worlds still tend to see the west in these reductive terms. Ideas, it may not be far fetched and a bit of a stretch to say, are the motor of history and the stories that they tell or form determine men’s attitude and approach towards others-positively and negatively. It is a sad irony that Qutb , the literary genius  that he was, fell victim to a flawed and warped view of the west and in the process through the power of his pen influenced a movement that viewed the west as an enemy. Qutb’s perceptions of the United States were flawed because what he saw one aspect of the west: hedonism .And he reduced the west to it. The west, as I understand it is more than the sum of its parts and there is more to it than meets the eye.  The superficial aspect of the west –its hedonism, some social problems and pathologies-cannot and should not be taken as the benchmark for judging it. Getting the west right is very important for Muslims and the Islamic world more broadly at this crucial juncture in history.

So what yardstick should the Islamic world employ to understand and gauge the west? One tentative answer would be to understand the trajectory and history of the west-its struggles and intellectual and political battles. Viewing the west from this vantage point may accord us Muslims a perspective that would not only enable us to see the west holistically but help put into perspective some of our own lacunae and faults. I am not for one moment suggesting or implying that we mimic entirely the west’s trajectory and, for instance, disavow and displace God and the Prophet (SAW) from the central position that they occupy in our cosmos. However what we could cull from the west’s experience is to, once again, inject reason or more accurately integrate reason with faith. This philosophical approach would go ways in helping get rid of the morass and the torpor that the Muslim world is afflicted with. And the salubrious news is that this is eminently possible. The world of Islam has a rich and veritable philosophical and political tradition to draw from and all we need to do is open the gates of ijtihad (reform) and throw the gaze of reason onto ossified aspects of our tradition. A detached view of the ossified aspects of our tradition and a deep introspection may reveal that it is not the west or the other that is responsible for our ills but rather the fault lies within.  The fact that we have fallen behind and are wallowing in self pity and in a reactive mode has nothing do with Islam. It is aspects of the tradition that has ossified over centuries that nobody dares touch that is the reason for our regression. So the question is: what and how can this state of affairs be remedied?

The answer, to repeat myself lies in deep introspection and allowing the sweet whiff of reason to sweep away ossified tradition. Or in other words, integrate reason with faith. This is the substance. The form that this may take is democratization of the political systems of the Islamic world, the integration of rights and duties and other aspects of modernity into the corpus of our venerable tradition and a vigorous engagement with the west. When I speak of the west, I have in mind the Anglophone and anglosaxon west. We have to disaggregate the west and look toward the anglosaxon world for engagement. The other west-Western Europe, Northern Europe and Scandinavia-is too warped and steeped in prejudice and racism to even countenance the presence of Muslims within their domain let alone engage with them. So our best bet, regardless of the Iraq War fiasco and the war in Afghanistan, is to engage the doyen of the anglosaxon west: the United States. This may be counterintuitive call me a useful idiot or self hating Muslim but this is the most plausible and germane alternative for us. An immigrant country which is still a work in progress the United States enshrines religious freedom in its constitution and its posture determines the politics of the world. It stands to reason that the world of Islam tries to understand it and then engage with it in an idiom that is shorn of historical baggage and prejudice.

Vigorous introspection, integration of reason with faith and jettisoning the baggage of ossified and decaying tradition will reveal to us that the so called distant crusader and its crusading intent are but an illusion and a chimera. The fault lies with us and within us. It may also be revealed that engagement is a better option than confrontation and that the latter is not only a losing proposition but also a mug’s game. So let’s gird ourselves, embrace reason with vigor and brace ourselves for a future that we all owe to our peoples and faith. Time is not on our side. Let us make haste slowly.