Islamism and Modernity: The Political Thought of Sayyid Qutb

Abstract

Abstract Sayyid Qutb was one of the most influential Islamic thinkers of the twentieth century. However, for much of his life he was a member of Egypt’s liberal intelligentsia, and he published a number of works ranging from literary criticism to romantic fiction. It was his disillusionment with the corrupt parliamentary democracy of pre‐Revolution Egypt that led him to turn to Islam as the solution to all problems. Qutb became the main ideologue of the Muslim Brothers’ Society in the early 1950s. Imprisoned in 1954, he wrote the bulk of his Islamist works in jail, where his thought became increasingly radical.