The author speaks about the unique Quranic generation, the nature of the Quranic method, the characteristics of Islamic society, jihad in the cause of God, and a Muslim s nationality and his belief among other things.
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126 of 147 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This treatis on political Islam is helpful in understanding the mindset of violent Muslim Jihadists in today's world. You may disagree with the logic--or after close study lack thereof, in this book. I wish this volume included a better introduction of who the historical Sayyid Qutb was, it helps put this volume and what it was/is trying to accomplish in its proper context.
Qutb (1906-1966) was an Egyptian novelist and literature teacher who received a western-style education and even earning his Master's Degree in Education in the United States, where he lived from 1948-1950. At least partially due to Qutb's experience living in the United States, he developed an anti-western anti-modernization attitude. While in The United States, Qutb was horrified to witness such lewd events as Church sock-hops, where a female could look a male in the eye and talk to him without fear of having a male relative automatically assume the worst and cut her throat. He wrote:
"They danced to the tunes of the gramophone, and the dance floor was replete with tapping feet, enticing legs, arms wrapped around waists, lips pressed to lips, and chests pressed to chests. The atmosphere was full of desire..."
Whether this is what he actually saw at a church event in late 40's America (sounds more like Woodstock), whether it means Americans were dirty and immoral, or Qutb's own mind simply had a particularely laschivious bent which he deigned to blame other innocent people for, the reader must decide. The fact is that this "immorality" and events similar to it he witnessed in the West, coupled with injustices he saw and experienced in Egypt before and after his sojurn in the U.S. led Qutb to become heavily involved with the conservative Muslim Brotherhood upon his return to Egypt.
After the attempted assasination of Egyptian President Nasser in 1954 by Muslim Brotherhood operatives, a number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including Sayyid Qutb, were imprisoned. While in prison Qutb wrote a 30-volume series on his interpretation of the Quran, "In The Shade of the Quran", as well as this book, "Milestones". Milestones is at its core a treatis on Political Islam. If you're wondering how it became vital to many Jihadi factions in the modern age, After Qutb was hanged for subversion in 1966, his brother Muhammed Qutb went to Saudi Arabia, where he taught Islamic Studies. Among his students was Ayman Zawahiri, teacher of Osama Bin Laden.
I found this volume to be full of well-meaning idealism. Qutb desperately wants a just, fair society, for Islam to be THE ultimate and perfect solution to all human problems. With some limitations (namely on women and non-Muslims). He claims to be combating "Jahiliyya", or human ignorance of true religion. Included among the Jahiliyya societies are Communist and Western societies as well as modernized Muslim societies. Qutb it seems wished to turn back the clock and reconstruct an idealized Islamic society gleaned from his interpretation of Quran readings.
Qutb's rationalizations are often circular in nature and hard to follow. It is often a case of 'the Quran says it, it is true!'. Quotes from the Quran compete with a few mentions of long-outdated Western scandals people must seriously research to understand (how irrelevent they were in their time, even moreso today). Little thought is given to obvious contradictions any thinking person would have. For instance while quoting Islam's Prophet Muhammed as having castigated Christians and Jews as idolators who had lost their way:
"Whatever their priests and rabbis call permissible, they accept as permissible; whatever they declare as forbidden , they consider forbidden, and thus they worship them" (page 60)
Somehow, Qutb can quote this absurdity while attempting to justify those who stupidly follow Islamic Mullahs and Imams, blindly obeying their edicts and fatwahs with no critical thought whatsoever! Few are more obedient than fundamentalist Salafi & Wahabbist Muslims--yet Qutb himself didn't draw the same logical conclusion. Namely that fundamentalist Muslims _worship_ and _idolize_ their religious Mullahs and Ayatollahs--not to mention Prophet Muhammed! The whole book is quite NEUROTIC and hypocritical in this way, swaying from one standard for those Qutb opposes, to another for the "REAL" Muslims, whoever they are (Qutb & NOT Allah decides)...On page 61 Qutub says:
"It is not the intention of Islam to force its beliefs on people, but Islam is not merely 'belief'. As we have pointed out, Islam is a delaration of freedom of man from servitude to other men".
Reading Qutb's "Milestones" makes it very clear thoughout that this brand of Islam is _all about_ making men submit to _other men_ (Specific Hardcore Fundamentalist Salafi or Wahabbi Muslims) who are justifying themselves by seeing who can say God's name the most, Martyr the most poor & desparate members of their society, and kill the most of the creator's creations who are unlike them in belief. They are men who, unlike the rest of us peons, think they have the "One Truth". Or so they tell the rest of us. Qutb also justifies the use of violence and conquest in his chapter on "Jihad in the Cause of God", speaking of Jihad as "...the movement for freeing mankind and demolishing the obstacles which prevent mankind from attaining this freedom" (65).
Like many leaders in the Islamic world today Qutb constantly mixes the terms "submission" and "freedom". This is the most RIDICULOUS contradiction found throughout!!! Qutb sums up his school of thought with a quote from Sura 3:78 of the Quran on page 117: "In the world there is only one party of God: all others are parties of Satan and rebellion. Those who believe fight in the cause of God, and those who disbelieve fight in the cause of rebellion. Then fight the allies of Satan...".
According to Qutb, we are "free" to _submit_...or face the consequences! This is the "freedom" of Islamic extremism. What do YOU choose?
Qutb (1906-1966) was an Egyptian novelist and literature teacher who received a western-style education and even earning his Master's Degree in Education in the United States, where he lived from 1948-1950. At least partially due to Qutb's experience living in the United States, he developed an anti-western anti-modernization attitude. While in The United States, Qutb was horrified to witness such lewd events as Church sock-hops, where a female could look a male in the eye and talk to him without fear of having a male relative automatically assume the worst and cut her throat. He wrote:
"They danced to the tunes of the gramophone, and the dance floor was replete with tapping feet, enticing legs, arms wrapped around waists, lips pressed to lips, and chests pressed to chests. The atmosphere was full of desire..."
Whether this is what he actually saw at a church event in late 40's America (sounds more like Woodstock), whether it means Americans were dirty and immoral, or Qutb's own mind simply had a particularely laschivious bent which he deigned to blame other innocent people for, the reader must decide. The fact is that this "immorality" and events similar to it he witnessed in the West, coupled with injustices he saw and experienced in Egypt before and after his sojurn in the U.S. led Qutb to become heavily involved with the conservative Muslim Brotherhood upon his return to Egypt.
After the attempted assasination of Egyptian President Nasser in 1954 by Muslim Brotherhood operatives, a number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including Sayyid Qutb, were imprisoned. While in prison Qutb wrote a 30-volume series on his interpretation of the Quran, "In The Shade of the Quran", as well as this book, "Milestones". Milestones is at its core a treatis on Political Islam. If you're wondering how it became vital to many Jihadi factions in the modern age, After Qutb was hanged for subversion in 1966, his brother Muhammed Qutb went to Saudi Arabia, where he taught Islamic Studies. Among his students was Ayman Zawahiri, teacher of Osama Bin Laden.
I found this volume to be full of well-meaning idealism. Qutb desperately wants a just, fair society, for Islam to be THE ultimate and perfect solution to all human problems. With some limitations (namely on women and non-Muslims). He claims to be combating "Jahiliyya", or human ignorance of true religion. Included among the Jahiliyya societies are Communist and Western societies as well as modernized Muslim societies. Qutb it seems wished to turn back the clock and reconstruct an idealized Islamic society gleaned from his interpretation of Quran readings.
Qutb's rationalizations are often circular in nature and hard to follow. It is often a case of 'the Quran says it, it is true!'. Quotes from the Quran compete with a few mentions of long-outdated Western scandals people must seriously research to understand (how irrelevent they were in their time, even moreso today). Little thought is given to obvious contradictions any thinking person would have. For instance while quoting Islam's Prophet Muhammed as having castigated Christians and Jews as idolators who had lost their way:
"Whatever their priests and rabbis call permissible, they accept as permissible; whatever they declare as forbidden , they consider forbidden, and thus they worship them" (page 60)
Somehow, Qutb can quote this absurdity while attempting to justify those who stupidly follow Islamic Mullahs and Imams, blindly obeying their edicts and fatwahs with no critical thought whatsoever! Few are more obedient than fundamentalist Salafi & Wahabbist Muslims--yet Qutb himself didn't draw the same logical conclusion. Namely that fundamentalist Muslims _worship_ and _idolize_ their religious Mullahs and Ayatollahs--not to mention Prophet Muhammed! The whole book is quite NEUROTIC and hypocritical in this way, swaying from one standard for those Qutb opposes, to another for the "REAL" Muslims, whoever they are (Qutb & NOT Allah decides)...On page 61 Qutub says:
"It is not the intention of Islam to force its beliefs on people, but Islam is not merely 'belief'. As we have pointed out, Islam is a delaration of freedom of man from servitude to other men".
Reading Qutb's "Milestones" makes it very clear thoughout that this brand of Islam is _all about_ making men submit to _other men_ (Specific Hardcore Fundamentalist Salafi or Wahabbi Muslims) who are justifying themselves by seeing who can say God's name the most, Martyr the most poor & desparate members of their society, and kill the most of the creator's creations who are unlike them in belief. They are men who, unlike the rest of us peons, think they have the "One Truth". Or so they tell the rest of us. Qutb also justifies the use of violence and conquest in his chapter on "Jihad in the Cause of God", speaking of Jihad as "...the movement for freeing mankind and demolishing the obstacles which prevent mankind from attaining this freedom" (65).
Like many leaders in the Islamic world today Qutb constantly mixes the terms "submission" and "freedom". This is the most RIDICULOUS contradiction found throughout!!! Qutb sums up his school of thought with a quote from Sura 3:78 of the Quran on page 117: "In the world there is only one party of God: all others are parties of Satan and rebellion. Those who believe fight in the cause of God, and those who disbelieve fight in the cause of rebellion. Then fight the allies of Satan...".
According to Qutb, we are "free" to _submit_...or face the consequences! This is the "freedom" of Islamic extremism. What do YOU choose?
34 of 42 people found the following review helpful
By Novice
Format:Paperback
"Milestones" is a valuable primary source for the study of Islamic fundamentalism in the 20th century. Qutb's arguments present the flaws and vigor of extremist thinking: his ideal society is poorly delineated, and his desire for "freedom" clashes sharply with his desire to violently silence those who disagree with him. Furthermore, Qutb's notions of the inherent corruption and bankruptcy of man never manage to escape the reality that even in a "divinely ordained" society, the agents and authorities of its execution wil always be human beings.
136 of 177 people found the following review helpful
By kiptoo
Format:Paperback
Sayyid Qutb is easily one of the major architects and "strategists" of contemporary Islamic revival. Along with Maulana Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami, the revivalist movement in South Asia, and Imam Khomeini, the leader of Iran's Islamic revolution, he gave shape to the ideas and the worldview that has mobilized and motivated millions of Muslims from Malaysia to Michigan to strive to reintroduce Islamic practices in their lives and alter social and political institutions so that they reflect Islamic principles. Milestones was written to educate and motivate the potential vanguard of the re-Islamization movement.
Qutb, like most contemporary mujaddids, Islamic revivalists, was distressed with the growing distance between Islamic values, institutions and practices and the emerging postcolonial Muslim societies, specially in his native Egypt. In Milestones, he sought to answer some of the fundamental questions such as why Islam needs to be revived? why no other way of life is adequate? What is the true essence of an Islamic identity and an Islamic existence (he uses the term "concept" to signify these two elements)? How was Islam established by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and his companions? Can the same method, which was undoubtedly divine in its conception be replicated again? Qutb is particularly concerned with this issue of "Islamic methodology". He believes that Islamic values and the manner in which they are to be realized (read as were realized by Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and his glorious companions) both together constitute the faith of Islam.
Relying entirely on the Quran, Qutb uses the concepts of jahiliyya, Islamic concept, Islamic methodology, jihad and Allah's sovereignty, to dilineate the strategy by which Muslims would:
1. realize the true significance and implications of La-ilaha-illallah, having faith in the exclusive unity of Allah (tawhid).
2. understand the imperfections, injustices and moral poverty of jahiliyya.
3. empower themselves by realising the meaning of ashhadu-anna-muhammadur-rasoolullah (bearing witness that Muhammad is Allah's messenger) -- internalizing his method of dawah and submitting to the will and laws of Allah.
4. through this Islamic methodology, as articulated in the Quran and manifested in the practices of Prophet Muhammad, which does not separate theory from practice, and discourse from action, establish an Islamic order. The Islamic order, which is Allah's most significant gift to the entire humanity.
5. The most remarkable aspect of Qutb's book is his insistance on an approach in "stages" and the repeated assertion that the need for implementing Islamic law would not arise until every member of the community had completely submitted to the sovereignty of Allah and by that agreed to live under Allah's laws. Laws would then be framed merely to serve the needs of this "living community of Islam". A far cry from the perception that a handful of Islamists are out to impose an essentialized shariah on all Muslims and non-Muslims living in Muslim lands.
Jahiliyya, as used in the traditional Islamic sense suggests ignorence in the ways of God. However, Qutb gives an interesting twist to the idea of jahiliyya. Jahiliyya for Qutb is the sovereignty of man over man. Socio-political orders where men have power over other men, to institute legislation and determine principles of right and wrong conduct. The Quran is explicit in postulating Islam as the antithesis of jahiliyya. Qutb, by redefining jahiliyya to encompass modern secular systems of political organization, is basically decreeing that all existing systems are unacceptable and even antithetical to the spirit of Islam. Thus the dichotomy, Islam and jahiliyya includes both the Islamic and the anthropocentric way of doing things, and Islamic regimes and the existing unIslamic regimes in Muslim lands. A clever ploy that uses Islamic reasoning to indirectly condemn contemporary political organizations as antithetical to Islam.
His notion of the sovereignty of Allah as opposed to the sovereignty of man is basically a restating of the meaning of Islamic faith -- submission to the will of God. It clearly suggests, that any principle of organization that is not premised on God's supreme and sole prerogative as a legislative source, is shirk. Shirk, in Islam is the only unforgivable sin. It means to associate other Gods with Allah thereby denying the fundamental article of faith, lailaha illalah, there is no deity but Allah. He also uses it to declare the "universal declaration of the freedom of man on earth from a every authority except Allah" (p. 48). I have already discussed his idea of the Islamic concept which basically emphasizes the inseparability of knowledge and practice. It is an important insight which means that one cannot really understand Islam fully unless one is also practicing it. Islamic methodology is his interpretation of how Prophet Muhammad realized the Islamic ideal. He believes that any other way of approaching Islamization is destined to fail.
His understanding of the obligation of jihad -- struggle in the path of Allah -- is also a significant departure from traditional understanding. He understands jihad as taking many different forms depending upon the stage of development of the Muslim community. Thus at the earliest stage it implies struggling to assert the principle of tawhid against all odds. Further along the journey of Islamization it means defending the communities right to "freely practice Islamic beliefs" even if it entails the use of arms. He challenges the "defensive" constitution of the duty of jihad and argues that jihad is a mandatory proactive activity that seeks to establish Allah's sovereignty on earth. He is however careful to emphasize that it does not necessarily mean the use of violence, it includes preaching use of service and wealth in the way of Allah. He is also careful to remind his readers that there is no compulsion in Islam. But if someone has chosen to live by it then no one has the right to prevent him from doing so. Jihad, for Qutb is both, the defense of the right to believe and live by Islam and also the struggle to establish Allah's sovereignty. Qutb, true to his preachings died for the values he espoused. He was sentenced to death and hanged by a military court established by Nasser. I think, and Qutb would agree, writing Milestones was his jihad against the jahiliyya that he saw all around him.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
A manifesto of the envious
Qutb was your typical Muslim fruitcake "theorist" who hated the West because in the West people enjoyed living. Muslims, on the other hand, are taught to hate life. Read more
Published 18 days ago by Edward Cline
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not light reading
I asked some "experts" about what books to read to better understand Islam radicalism and this was one of them. I read it cover to cover. Read more
Published 26 days ago by Charles A. Albrecht
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is the other must-read by Qutb.
It's more strident and direct than Social Justice in Islam, but one is well-advised to read both together if (s)he wishes to know and understand the roots of radical Islamism.
Published 1 month ago by Rufel F. Ramos
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best book to understand Islam.
This book will tell you everything you need to know about why Muslims kill. This book made me see Islam in a whole knew way.
Published 3 months ago by lisa nancollas
4.0 out of 5 stars
Revolutionary, European, and Pseudo-Islamic
Qutb (1906-1966) was born in Egypt and was, and still is, a guiding light for the Muslim Brotherhood. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Duane
4.0 out of 5 stars
Milestones - The Islam Brotherhood
Inside look at why the Muslim Brotherhood believes what it does. The man who wrote it, Qutb, had no idea what grace is.
Published 4 months ago by L. Masson
4.0 out of 5 stars
Needs to be read
I never know how to rate books like this. Do I rate and review the ideas put forth, or do I look at the historical significance of the work and focus on its affects? Read more
Published 4 months ago by Matthew Smith
1.0 out of 5 stars
Poor quality...
This book came from india and looked nothing like the one pictured on amazon.com. The English was not properly written. The spelling was atrocious. Read more
Published 4 months ago by David E. Firester
4.0 out of 5 stars
Milestones
I don't understand the hatred that Qutb has engendered. reading the reviews and the internet articles on him you'd think he was shaitan incarnate of course I am new to Islam but he... Read more
Published 5 months ago by James Ward
5.0 out of 5 stars
the delirious ravings of a disillusioned broken man
i gave 5 stars to this book because through this book you will have a lot better understanding of some current issues, such as the muslim brotherhood in egypt or osama bin laden... Read more
Published on December 5, 2010 by dune cruiser
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