There is no god but politics

(Ed: And Sayyid Qutb is the prophet of politics.)

[...] Qutb’s book is obsessed with the achievement of political and social power. There is very little spiritual content in it. He says:

It is clear, then that a Muslim community cannot be formed or continue to exist until it attains sufficient power to confront the existing jahili society.

Only the total triumph of Islam (in Qutb’s sense) will bring peace to the world, just as all human conflict will end when the classless society is brought about by the final triumph of the proletariat.

The only religious aspect of Qutb’s thought is his belief that the Koran is the unmediated word of God, a belief that he does not, because he cannot, justify. For him, the will of God is indisputably known without any need of interpretation, and in fact he knows it. It isn’t difficult to see, then, that in the name of the destruction of all political authority and of the lordship of man over man in obedience to God’s will, Qutb thinks he ought to be total dictator, and that he is as obsessed with the here and now as any Marxist. Read more