Author's note: I am grateful to my colleague Roxanne Euben for her comments on an earlier draft of this paper, some of which have been taken into account in the present version.

¹ To Professor Serif Mardin belongs the credit for explicitly identifying this dialectic and organizing an international conference on it in Washington in 1989.

² Abu-Rabiʿ, Ibrahim M., Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 92–219Google Scholar. Unfortunately this work appeared too late to be used for this study. Binder, Leonard, Islamic Liberalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 170–205Google Scholar; Ḍiyāb, Muḥammad Ḥāfiẓ, Sayyid Quṭb: al-Khiṭāb al-Dīnī wa al-Idiyūlujiyya, 2nd ed. (Beirut: Dār al-Ṭalīʿa, 1988)Google Scholar; Haddad, Yvonne, Contemporary Islam and the Challenge of History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982)Google Scholar; idem, “The Qurʾanic Justification for an Islamic Revolution: The View of Sayyid Qutb,” Middle East Journal 37, 1 (Winter 1983): 14–29Google Scholar; idem, “Sayyid Qutb: Ideologue of the Islamic Revival,” in Voices of Resurgent Islam, ed. Esposito, John (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 52–70Google Scholar; Musallam, ʿAdnan, “Sayyid Qutb and Social Justice,” Journal of Islamic Studies 4, 1 (01 1993)Google Scholar; Moussalli, Ahmad, Radical Islamic Fundamentalism: The Ideological and Political Discourse of Sayyid Qutb (Beirut: AUB Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Kepel, Gilles, Muslim Extremism in Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 36–69Google Scholar; and Shepard, W., Sayyid Qutb and Islamic Activism (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996)Google Scholar.

³ Indeed, turāth involves not just sacred texts and commentaries on them but, in general, the whole legacy of the sacred and the nonsecular, including philosophy, literature, science, and popular culture. Turāth does not appear frequently in Qutb's writings. His concerns are better captured by concepts such as al-taṣawwur al-islāmī, which, however, does cover some of the “terrain” of turāth as defined earlier, especially the sacred texts.

⁴ Jābirī, , Naqd al-ʿAql al-ʿArabi, vol. I: Takwīn al-ʿAql al-ʿArabī (Beirut: Markaz Dirāsāt al-Waḥda al-ʿArabiyya, 1991), 103Google Scholar; and Ibid., vol. II: Binyat al-ʿAql al-ʿArabī (1990), 383–84Google Scholar.

⁵ Haddad says that Qutb's fascination with literature and interest in Western culture was shaped by ʿAbbas al-ʿAqqad prior to the latter's turn to purely Islamic themes; Haddad, , “Sayyid Qutb,” 69Google Scholar.

⁶ According to Khadduri, maṣlaḥa is a term of jurisprudence that, strictly speaking, means “utility,” as opposed to maḍarra or mafsada (“injury”), but generally, it denotes “welfare” and has been used by jurists in the modern period to mean “general good” or “public interest.” See Khadduri, Majid, Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., vol. VI, fascicules 109–10 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989), 738–40Google Scholar, s.v. “Maṣlaḥa.” On maṣlaḥa mursala, Qutb quotes at some length Shaykh Muhammad Abu Zahra, Professor of Shariʿa, Faculty of Law, Cairo University in the late 1940s, who said that it is an interest for which no specific text exists but agreement over the necessity of which has been established among the jurists. See al-ʿAdāla al-ljtimāʿiyya fī al-lslām, 9th ed. (Beirut: Dār al-Shurūq, 1983), 119 ffGoogle Scholar.

⁷ It appears that Mawdudi never wrote in Arabic, so his Arabic-language translators took some liberties. Thus, his phrase, ḥukūmat-i ilāhiyya (lit. divine government) has been inaccurately translated as ḥākimiyyat Allah (divine sovereignty). These are not identical terms. Thanks to Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr for confirming my view in this matter.

Certainly, Qutb's Maʿālim is replete with the phrase ḥākimiyyat Allāh. In various of his writings, the Egyptian Muhammad ʿAmara wrongly attributes to Mawdudi the phrase al-ḥākimiyya al-ilāhiyya. See, for example, his article “Takfīr al-Muslim,” in al-ʿArabī (Kuwait), no. 335 (10 1986), 16–20Google Scholar. And on Mawdudi's influence on Qutb, he declares: “Essentially, Sayyid Qutb's position on the theory of divine sovereignty [al-ḥākimiyya al-ilāhiyya] does not differ from that of Mawdudi.” But later, ʿAmara seems to contradict this statement when he says that Qutb took the idea much further than Mawdudi had by regarding not just contemporary societies with Muslim populations to be jāhilī but virtually all historical cases of Islamic society, save in the periods of the Prophet, the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and the short period of the caliphate of al-ʿAziz, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd (717–20)Google Scholar; ʿAmāra, , al-Ṣaḥwa al-Islāmiyya wa al-Taḥaddī al-Ḥaḍārī (Cairo: Dār al-Shurūq, 1989), 149, 152–53Google Scholar.

⁸ See Akhavi, Shahrough, “Sayyid Qutb: The Poverty of Philosophy and the Vindication of Islamic Tradition,” in Cultural Transitions in the Middle East, ed. Mardin, Serif (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 130–52. 52Google Scholar.

⁹ Hasan Hanafi believes that Qutb's writings can be divided into four periods: (1) literary writings (1930–50); (2) social writings (1951–53); (3) philosophical writings (1954–62); (4) political writings (1963–65). See his “Āthār al-Imām al-Shahīd Sayyid Quṭb ʿalā al-Ḥarakāt al-Dīniyya al-Muʿāṣra,” in al-Din wa al-Thawra fī Miṣr, vol. V: al-Ḥarakāt al-Dīniyya al Muʿāṣira (Cairo: Maktaba Madbūlī, 1988), 167–300Google Scholar. For a somewhat different periodization of Qutb's life from that of Hanafī, see Haddad, Contemporary Islam; and for yet a third periodization, see Ḍiyāb, Sayyid Quṭb.

¹⁰ Qutb's secular phase lasted from the 1920s to about the end of World War II. He abandoned his secularism thereafter. However, his work in the late 1940s and early 1950s was not so adamantly concerned with the fundamentals of the faith as it was to become after his prison experiences, which began in the mid-1950s and lasted until the end of his life.

¹¹ Qutb pursues these themes in al-ʿAdāla al-Ijtimāʿiyya fī al-lslām (Cairo: Lajnat al-Nashr li al-Jāmiʿiyyīn, 1949)Google Scholar, and Maʿrakat al-lslām wa al-Raʾsmāliyya (Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1951)Google Scholar; al-Salām al-ʿAlamī wa al-lslām (Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1951)Google Scholar; and Dirāsat Islāmiyya (Cairo: Maktabat Lajnat al-Shabāb al-Muslim, 1953)Google Scholar.

¹² It is true that the concept of takfīr and its verb form, kaffara, is implicit in Qutb's writings. He seldom seems to have used the words directly, though it seems a logical step for his followers to do so—as they have—in view of his denunciation of virtually all previous Islamic societies, save those of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and the rule of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz (717–20) as jāhilī and mushrik.

¹³ I am not suggesting that Qutb's organicism comes from his reading of Greek philosophers, merely that despite his repudiation of Greek philosophy, he cleaves closely to an aspect of Greek thought that had a profound influence on Muslim philosophy. Probably, Qutb's own organicism can be traced partly to Muhammad Asad, a convert to Islam whose original name was Leopold Weiss. This can be seen from the citation from Weiss that appears earlier. In fact, according to Haddad, Asad was a crucial influence on Qutb in the 1950s. See Haddad, , “Sayyid Qutb,” 70Google Scholar. For caution regarding the importance of external influences on Qutb, see Abu-Rabiʿ, Ibrahim M., Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 139Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Quṭb, , Khasāʿiṣ al-Taṣawwur al-Islāmī wa Muqawwimatuhu (Cairo: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Kutub al-ʿArabiyya, 1962), 52–53Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Quṭb, , Maʿālim fī al-Ṭarīq, 2nd ed. (Cairo[?]: Maktaba al-Wahba[?] 1964[?]), 37Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Quṭb, , Khaṣāʿiṣ, 46, 84–85, 100Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Ibid., 102.

¹⁸ Ibid., 103.

¹⁹ Quṭb, , Maʿālim fī al-Ṭarīq, 32Google Scholar.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Ibid.

²³ Ibid., 118–19.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Qutb's attribution of jāhiliyya to Islamic societies was not limited to those of the 19th and 20th centuries. In fact, he declares: “The existence of the Islamic umma is considered to have been ended many centuries ago”; Quṭb, , Maʿālim fī al-Ṭarīq, 5Google Scholar. ʿAmara, commenting on this passage, puts it this way: “Sayyid Qutb went beyond Mawdudi in pronouncing society to be jāhilī and pronouncing kufr upon it. He stated what Mawdudi had not, passing the judgment of kufr upon the umma, and not upon the society and the state. He expressed this judgment with certainty, and he indeed pronounced the judgment of this umma's being in a state of kufr over the centuries”; ʿAmara, , al-Ṣaḥwa, 153Google Scholar.

²⁷ Ibid., 32.

²⁸ Ibid.

²⁹ He puts it this way: “[Islamic values] were not the creation of history and have no intrinsic relation to time. They are a reality that came to humankind from Allah, transcending human reality and material existence”; Ibid., 118–19.

³⁰ Ibid., 119–20.

³¹ A disjuncture exists between Qutb's insistence on fixed truths and his advocacy that Muslims put at the service of their society the gains in material civilization that have taken place in jāhilī society. It is certain that Qutb does not wish to turn back the technological clock. But it is not clear how technological innovations can be made to conform with the fixed truths of the 7th century. It should be remembered that Qutb includes as part of such fixed truths that belong in the realm of Allah's guidance “human affairs, values and standards, principles and fundamentals in the political, social or economic systems and interpretation of the causes of human activity or the dynamics of human history”; Quṭb, , Maʿālim fī al-Ṭarīq, 124Google Scholar. For these matters, Qutb categorically forbids turning to jāhilī society. Yet, one cannot simply apply advances in engineering and the physical sciences without regard to these elements, which entail complex considerations of public policy and property rights (including patents) for which 7th-century truths not only would not provide guidance but could present obstacles.

³² Mustafa Sibaʿi, then chairman of the department of fiqh at the University of Damascus, wrote in 1959 that at a gathering where people were debating whether Syria could benefit from socialism, he expressed his opinion about the socialism of Islam and was rebuked by one who said: “Before word about socialism spread in Europe, none of us heard anyone call for socialism in our country. But now everyone calls for it, so that Islam has become socialist.” Sibaʿi replied: “After we came into contact with Western civilization and began to move towards reforming our political and social affairs, it was inevitable that we would be influenced by currents of thought prevailing in the West. What's so strange about our utilizing from the West sound methods in imitation of its influence upon our current revival.” See Sibaʿi, , Ishtirākiyyat al-Islām (1959), 2nd ed. (Cairo: al-Dār al-Qawmī li al-Ṭibāʿa wa al-Nashr, 1961), 8Google Scholar.

³³ Quṭb, , Fī al-Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, 12th ed. (Jidda: Dār al-ʿIlm li al-Tibʿā wa al-Nashr, 1986), II:689Google Scholar. Qutb emphasizes that it is not just Muslims or the People of the Book but all human beings who are covered by this command. Moreover, he insists that the phrase “judge justly among the people,” is a “right” (ḥaqq) to which these same people are entitled. He adds that the “justliness” (ʿadl) that must characterize the judge's judgment toward the people is a “comprehensive” justliness (ʿadl shāmil). In this regard, I take him to be trying to broaden the concept so that it approximates more our modern concept of social justice.

³⁴ This is not to say that later on jurists did not devise mechanisms that might be considered creating the preliminary groundwork for the construction of an understanding of “social justice” in Islamic history. The main one that needs to be mentioned is the concept of maṣlaḥa mursala—or the public interest. If one can adduce the idea that a public interest inheres, then one can proceed to maintain that one element of the public interest is the achievement of social justice.

³⁵ These codices are those of al-Bukhari, Muslim, Daʾud, al-Tirmidhi, Malik, al-Shafiʾi, al-Nasaʿi, and Ibn Hanbal.

³⁶ al-Nasāʿī, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Kitāb al-Sunan, “Ashribah,” 48Google Scholar, as cited by Wensinck, A. J., Concordance et Indices de la Tradition Musulmane (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1962), III–IV: 155Google Scholar.

³⁷ Huff, Toby E., The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 216Google Scholar; Schacht, Joseph, Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), 203Google Scholar, cited in Huff, p. 217. Emphasis added.

³⁸ Islamists such as Qutb generally cite part of 6:38 as a warrant for this view that the Qurʾan anticipated developments that occurred in later historical time: “We have left out nothing from the Book.”

³⁹ For example, he uncritically accepts Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya's (d. 1350) reflections on relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the context of a discussion on jihād, and Ibn Qayyim's writings on ḥadd punishments—for instance, in regard to theft. Despite Qutb's harsh attitudes on the “distortions” that were allegedly wreaked upon Islam after the Rightly Guided Caliphs (i.e., after A.D. 661), he actually equates ibn Qayyim's reflections on jihād and the ḥadd punishments for theft with “Islam.” See Zayd, Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū, Naqd al-Khiṭāb al-Dīmī (Cairo: Sīnāʿli al-Nashr, 1992), 42–43Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Sherif, Mohamed Ahmed, Ghazali's Theory of Virtue (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975), 73Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Ibid., 72.

⁴² It is also worth pointing out that Qutb was very cautious in regard to the role of maṣlaḥa mursala in Islamic law. Thus, he accepted the teachings of the Maliki school in this regard, rather than the more permissive Shafiʿi teachings. This is because in the Maliki interpretation, ijtihād, or independent judgment to deduce a ruling of law, is circumscribed by rather salient restrictions, whereas the Shafiʿi school is more open and tolerant of the usage of ijtihād and even—in its form as al-ijtihād al-tawfī—accords precedence to it over the text. This bespeaks Qutb's reluctance to invoke the “secondary principles” for fear of violating the categorical imperative of the sanctity of the text (naṣṣ). See Zayd, Abū, Naqd al-Khiṭāb al-Dīnī, 67Google Scholar. In a way, Qutb's caution on ijtihād in relationship to occasions for which textual stipulation appears to exist seems to be contrary to his notion—already mentioned—of Islam's “dynamic method” (manhaj ḥarakī) and its “dynamic realism” (wāqiʿiyya ḥarakiyya). In a relatively rare application of the idea of Islam as embodying a dynamic element, he maintains in perhaps his most famous work, Milestones (1964), that people must not regard each Islamic text as final. This comes in the context of his effort to refute those who claim that Islam's conception of jihād is purely defensive. Those who maintain that it is only a defensive idea do not understand the nature of the stages through which this “dynamic system” has passed. See Maʿālim fī al-Ṭarīq, 56–57Google Scholar. But it turns out that virtually throughout his work, Qutb is willing to consider the changing nature of Islamic prescriptions only within the confines of the doctrine of “abrogation of one text by another” (al-nāsikh wa al-mansūkh). One is therefore tempted to say that Qutb's attribution of a dynamic element to Islam occurs only when it suits his argument.

⁴³ Carré, Olivier and Michaud, Gerard, Les Frères musulmans: Ègypte et Syrie (Paris: Editions Gallimard/Juillard, 1983), 84, 233Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Apart from Qutb's own book, alʿAdāla, one should cite al-Ghazzāliī's book, al-Islām wa-Manāhij al-Ishtirākiyya (Cairo, 1949Google Scholar); and ʿAwda's, al-Māl wa al-Ḥukm fī al-Islām (Cairo/Beirut, 1951Google Scholar). According to Hasan Hanafi, prior to publishing his book on the subject, Sayyid Qutb had written an article in 1949 on the matter, although this is not cited in the extended bibliography of Qutb's works attached to the end of Ḍiyāb's Sayyid Quṭb.

⁴⁵ Musallam, ʿAdnan, “Sayyid Qutb and Social Justice,” Journal of Islamic Studies 4, 1 (01 1993): 52–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Qutb himself used the term “social justice” in the title of an article that he published in Majallat al-Shuʾūn al-Ijtimāʿiyya in 1944Google Scholar, although this was during his secular phase. Thanks to an anonymous referee for this last piece of information.

⁴⁶ That this is clearly a departure may be seen by the fact that in the Qurʾan, the root associated with notions of rule is a-m-r, not h-k-m. He remains a scripturalist, however, despite this innovation, because he simply would say that the meaning of the text is self-evident.

⁴⁷ See Hudhaybi's, book Duʿ āt, lā Quḍāt (Cairo, 1977), esp. 63, 72–73Google Scholar. Saying he has not found the term ḥākimiyya in either the Qurʾan or the sunna, Hudhaybi stresses that he has no trouble with the idea that to Allah accrues all power in the universe—all Muslims must avow this. But he objects to the idea of Qutb and his followers that this principle of Allah's absolute power means that human beings cannot make any laws for the regulation of society. What is unacceptable is that a self-appointed group can apply a litmus test to others as to whether their behavior enhances or detracts from Allah's omnipotence. “This view of ḥākimiyya is erroneous.” Allah has given human beings the ability to write and implement laws: “Truly, Almighty Allah has left us enormous leeway in the affairs of the world.”

⁴⁸ Quṭb, , al-ʿAdāla al-ljtimāʿiyya, 9th ed., 12Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ The standard response by the official clergy and liberal Islamists is that as long as an individual has recited the credo of the faith, the authenticity of his or her belief is a matter for Allah to decide. Several ḥadțths are frequently cited, including one in which the Prophet is related to have said: “I was not commanded [by Allah] to penetrate into the hearts of the Muslims.” Mawdudi himself insisted on extreme caution in this area. See ʿAmāra, , “Takfīr al-Muslim,” 18Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ For discussion of these points, see Quṭb, Maʿālim fț al-Ṭarīq.

⁵¹ “If [Qutb's] evolution had continued in its natural course, he would have ended with scientific socialism to correspond with Islam, and he would have become one of the pillars of the Islamic left in Egypt and one of its primary supports in the Islamic world.” See Hanafi, , “Āthār al-Imām,” 219Google Scholar.

⁵² ibid., 167–300.

⁵³ Hanafi, , “al-Taḍāmun wa al-Waḥda,” in Ḥanafī, al-Dīn wa al-Thawra fī Miṣr, 1952–1981, vol. IV: Al-Dīn wa al-Tanmiya al-Qawmiyya (Cairo: Maktaba Madbūlī, n.d.), 110, 116 ffGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁴ For Qutb's contempt for “mere abstract knowledge that traffics with minds,” “mental logic,” “locking up truth inside explanations,” and so forth, see his Khaṣāʾiṣ, 8, 16, 19–20Google Scholar.

^is55 Ḥanafț, , Min alʿAqīda ilā al-Thawra, vol. III: al-ʿAdl (Cairo: Maktaba Madbūlī, 1988), 438Google Scholar. Compare this citation to the following one from Qutb:

what is the foundation to which human life reverts and upon which it rests? Is it Allah's religion and its system of life or is it human reality of whatever sort? Islam decisively and unhesitatingly answers this question. The foundation to which the sum and essence of human life must revert is Allah's religion and its system of life.

See Maʿālim fț al-Ṭarīq, 92Google Scholar. Qutb then immediately poses the following interrogatory: “Islam poses the question: are you more knowledgable, or is Allah?” Qutb says that Islam replies: “Allah knows, and you do not know. You have been given only a little knowledge.” And he goes on:

He who teaches, creates, and nourishes is the One Who rules. His religion must be the system of life, it is the foundation to which life reverts. As for human reality, theories, and religions, they are corrupt and deviations, resting on the knowledge of human beings, who do not know and to whom only a little knowledge has been given. Allah's religion is not obscure, nor is His system of life vague. It is determined by reference to the second part of the credo: “And Muhammad is His Prophet.” It is contingent upon what the Prophet preached about the fundamental texts. If a text exists [about a matter], then the text rules. There can be no ijtihād when it comes to a text. The role of ijtihād comes into play when there is no text, according to the principles established in Allah's system itself, not according to caprices or wishes. “If you dispute in a matter, refer it to Allah and His Prophet” (4:59). The principles established for ijtihād and istinbāṭ [deductive discovery] are also known and not obscure or vague. No one can say about a law [sharʿ] that has been enacted: “This is Allah's law,” unless he has proclaimed that sovereignty is Allah's, not the people's, nor a party's, nor any human being's; and unless he reverts to the Qurʾan and the Sunnah to know what Allah wants. No one who wants to do so can claim authority in the name of God, which is what Europe experienced in the form of theocracy. There is nothing of this in Islam. No one can speak in Allah's name except His Prophet. There are specific texts, and they are what determine what Allah has legislated. The statement that religion is for the sake of reality is misunderstood and misapplied. Yes, this religion is for the sake of reality, but which reality? The reality that this religion itself establishes, according to its system, which simultaneously is in consonance with human nature, and meeting true human needs in their entirety. These are needs which the Creator has established, and He knows what He has created.…Religion does not face reality—of whatever kind—in order that it be established and studied by reference to one of its documents and by reference to a legal ruling that relates to it, like a tabula rasa. It faces reality in order to weigh it on its scales, and it establishes what it establishes and discards what it discards. It creates another reality if it is not satisfied with it. The reality that it creates is reality. This is the meaning of the phrase, “Islam is a religion for reality,” or what it should mean in its true sense. Perhaps the question may be asked: “Is it not the interest of human beings that forms their reality?” Again, we go back to the question that Islam poses and answers: “Are you more knowledgeable, or is Allah?” “Allah knows, and you do not know.” The interest of human beings is contained in Allah's law, as revealed by Allah and propagated by the Prophet [ibid., 93–95].

Repeatedly, Qutb reifies Islam. Even when he speaks about ijtihād and istinbāṭ, he seems to be imputing historicity to human behavior in a passing and glancing way. “This religion does” or “Islam says” are the operative kinds of expressions in his discourse.

⁵⁶ Ḥanafī, , Min al-ʿAqīda ilā al-Thawra, vol. I: Al-Muqaddimāt al-Naẓariyya (Cairo: Maktaba Madbūlī, 1988), 39Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ See Ibid., back cover.

⁵⁸ Boullata is wholly persuasive when he says that for Hanafi the turāth consists of “specific realizations of certain beliefs and attitudes under particular historical circumstances”; Boullata, Issa J., Trends and Issues in Contemporary Arab Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 40Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Ḥanafī, , Min alʿAqīda ilā al-Thawra, vol. V: al-Īmān wa al-ʿAmal—al-Imāma (Cairo: Maktaba Madbūlī, 1988), 5Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Zayd, Abū, Naqd al-Khiṭāb al-Dīnī, 155Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Ḥanafī, , Min alʿAqīda ilā al-Thawra, vol. I, 243Google Scholar. On the preceding page, he maintains that:

In modern reformist movements [presumably the Salafiyya] attempts to reconstruct the theory of knowledge or to formulate the theoretical introduction to the science of uṣūl al-dīn have not taken place as they did in the past. Instead, the theory of knowledge remained hidden, its place being taken by the description of the historical development of knowledge in order to know what is authentic and what is extraneous to it. The goal of defining the course of knowledge in history is to know how the transition occurs from unity to diffusion, from community to separatedness, so that we can transcend the current condition of diffusion and segmentation to the original condition of unity and community. As a consequence [of this transcendence] the science of uṣūl al-dīn will revert to being a guide for the conduct of the people toward action.

⁶² It has been suggested that Qutb emphasized the importance of theory as the indispensable prerequisite of practice. This is reflected in his use of the word “conception” [taṣawwur]. While it is true that Qutb was interested in theory, it is in a way that is different from Hanafi. Hanafi's theory is a critical theory, according to which subject matter is held to be problematical until demonstrated to the contrary. Qutb' theory is essentially an uncritical “Islamic conception” that becomes the template for human action. Action is Qutb' watchword, though the agent that acts is “Islam.”

⁶³ Ḥanafī, , Min al-ʿAqīdah ilā al-Thawra, vol. I, 89Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ Khuri, Richard, “A Critique of Hassan Hanafi Concerning His Reflections on the Scarcity of Freedom in the Arab-Muslim World,” in Cultural Transitions, 86–115Google Scholar. Khuri explains that in Hanafi's view of history, “residues pile up” over the centuries, with lower levels acquiring great authoritativeness. Control over meaning has been exercised by a self-appointed group that has continued to exercise its power over the long course of history in Islamic societies. In a dialectical relationship, the Ashʿarite–Ghazalian conceptions exercise their hold over the social group monopolizing power in society, and the social group in turn strengthens its monopoly of control over the thought by acting as sole gatekeepers to this thought, termed the turāth.

⁶⁵ Ḥanafī, , Min al-ʿAqīda ilā al-Thawra, vol. I, 35, 75, 211Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 5.

⁶⁷ Ibid., 223.

⁶⁸ Ḥanafī, al-Turāth wa al-Tajdīd (Cairo: al-Markaz al-ʿArabī li-al-Baḥth wa-al-Nashr, 1980), 15Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ “The text does not change in meaning, the interpreter makes it speak in accordance with his wishes. The essential thing is the current reality, for it is what gives the text its purport and its content. Instead of analyzing reality, itself and its constituent elements, there is a reliance on the proof of authority in a society in which the text is a source of authority”; Ḥanafī, , Min al-ʿAqīda ilā al-Thawra, vol. V, 229Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Ibid., 1:79.

⁷¹ Ibid., 33.

⁷² Ibid., V:387–88.

⁷³ Qutb speaks of a “new leadership” (qiyāda jadīda) of the “organic dynamic fusion” (tajammuʿ ḥarakī ʿuḍwī)—that is, of the vital Muslim masses; Maʿālim fī al-Ṭarīq, 49Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ The use of seemingly modern concepts by scripturalists to vindicate scripturalist ends is stressed in the recent work of Serif Mardin. For example, see his intellectual biography of Said Nursi, Beddiuzzeman, Islam and Social Change in Turkey (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989)Google Scholar; also, Mardin, ed., Cultural Transitions in the Middle East. Also, see Zubaida, Sami, Islam, the People, and the State, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1994)Google Scholar.