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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...INGOT7CJF11.DTL
One of the leading theoreticians of Islamic fundamentalism was the Egyptian thinker, Sayyid Qutb, who has been called "the brains behind bin Laden." Like the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center, Qutb was a man who lived in the West and knew its ways. After studying in America, he wrote a book called "The America That I Saw" in which he argued that his familiarity with the United States was his basis for rejecting it.
Qutb, who died in 1966, wrote that he was shocked by the rampant prejud
ce of Americans, especially toward Arabs and Muslims. He professed outrage at the materialism and sexual promiscuity of American culture.
In his later writings, Qutb alleged that America used to be
Christian; now, it is pagan. The Muslim believer, he wrote, has no reason to envy
or emulate the ways of America; rather, true Muslims should feel contempt for those ways.
How in Qutb's view did America reach its sorry state? One problem, Qutb said, is that American and indeed Western institutions are fundamentally atheist, based on a clear rejection of divine authority.
Democracy and capitalism are in Qutb's view atheistic ideas. When democrats say that sovereignty flows from the people, this means that the people, not God, are the rulers. So democracy is a form of idol worship. So, too, Qutb insisted that capitalism, which is based on the notion that the market and not God is the best arbitrator of value, is a form of idolatry.
A second problem, Qutb wrote, is that the core
principle of America is liberty -- the right to determine one's own destiny. This, he argued, is a highly defective principle because liberty can be used well or liberty can be used badly.
Given what Immanuel Kant called "the warped timber of humanity," given the human propensity for selfis
hness and vice, Qutb argued that freedom will often be used badly.
For evidence of this, he said, just look at what goes on in America. Qutb pointed to divorce, family breakdown, homosexuality, promiscuity and the triviality and vulgarity of American popular culture as proof that human beings cannot be expected to use freedom except to gratify their basest impulses. Indeed, Qutb sternly charged that America is materially prosperous but morally rotten.
Qutb's alternative to America and the West is Islam, which in his book "Social Justice in Islam" he terms "an unparalleled revolution in human thinking" that provides the only solution to "this unhappy, perple
xed and weary world."
Islam, Qutb emphasized, is not merely a moral code or set of beliefs. It is a way of life based upon the divine government of the universe. The very term "Isl
am" means "submission" to the authority of Allah. This worldview requires that religious, economic, political and civil society be based on the Koran, the tea
chings of the Prophet Muhammad and the Shariah or Islamic law.
Qutb admits that notions of submission and obedience may sound alien to Western ears. In his view, this is because Western society is based on freedom, whereas Islamic society is based on virtue.
How should we in America evaluate and answer Qutb's critique? We need to take his views seriously, partly because they are taken seriously in the Islamic world and partly because for all his vehemence, Qutb is raising deep and fundamental questions.
Let us concede at the outset that freedom will often be used badly in a free society. Freedom by definition includes
freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. Given the warped timber of humanity, freedom becomes the forum for the expression of human flaws and weaknesses. On this point, Qutb and his
fundamentalist followers are quite correct.
But if freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best. The millions of Americans who live decent, praiseworthy lives
deserve our highest admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is not the only available option. Even amid the temptations that a rich and free society offers, they have remained on the straight path. Their virtue has special luster because it is freely chosen.
By contrast, the theocratic and authoritarian society that Islamic fundamentalists advocate undermines the possibility of virtue. If the supply of virtue is insufficient in free societies, it is almost nonexistent in Islamic societies because coerced virtues are not virtues at all.
Consider the woman in Afghanistan or Iran who is required to
wear the veil. There is no real modesty in this because the woman is being compelled. Compulsion cannot produce virtue. It can only produce the outward semblance of virtue.
Once the
reins of coercion are released, as they were for the Sept. 11 terrorists, the worst impulses of human nature break loose. Sure enough, the deeply religious terrorists spent their last days in gamb
ling dens, bars and strip clubs, sampling the licentious lifestyle they were about to strike out against. In theocratic societies such as Afghanistan under the Taliban or Iran today, the absence of freedom signals the absence of virtue.
This is the argument that Americans should make to people in the Islamic world. It is a mistake to presume that Muslims would be totally unreceptive to it. Islam, which has common roots with Judaism and Christianity, respects the autonomy of the individual soul. Salvation for Muslims, no less than for J*ws and Christians, is based on the soul choosing freely to follow God.
We can m
ake the case to Muslims that freedom is not a secular invention. Rather, freedom is a gift from God.
Moreover, it is not the case that Islamic fundamentalists care about virtue w
hile we in the West care only about freedom. We, too, care about virtue. Like them, we seek the good society; but we disagree with the Islamic fundamentalists about the best means to achieve this goal.
nIn the Western view, freedom is the necessary precondition for virtue. Without freedom, there is no virtue.
I
One of the leading theoreticians of Islamic fundamentalism was the Egyptian thinker, Sayyid Qutb, who has been called "the brains behind bin Laden." Like the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center, Qutb was a man who lived in the West and knew its ways. After studying in America, he wrote a book called "The America That I Saw" in which he argued that his familiarity with the United States was his basis for rejecting it.
Qutb, who died in 1966, wrote that he was shocked by the rampant prejud
ce of Americans, especially toward Arabs and Muslims. He professed outrage at the materialism and sexual promiscuity of American culture.
In his later writings, Qutb alleged that America used to be
Christian; now, it is pagan. The Muslim believer, he wrote, has no reason to envy
or emulate the ways of America; rather, true Muslims should feel contempt for those ways.
How in Qutb's view did America reach its sorry state? One problem, Qutb said, is that American and indeed Western institutions are fundamentally atheist, based on a clear rejection of divine authority.
Democracy and capitalism are in Qutb's view atheistic ideas. When democrats say that sovereignty flows from the people, this means that the people, not God, are the rulers. So democracy is a form of idol worship. So, too, Qutb insisted that capitalism, which is based on the notion that the market and not God is the best arbitrator of value, is a form of idolatry.
A second problem, Qutb wrote, is that the core
principle of America is liberty -- the right to determine one's own destiny. This, he argued, is a highly defective principle because liberty can be used well or liberty can be used badly.
Given what Immanuel Kant called "the warped timber of humanity," given the human propensity for selfis
hness and vice, Qutb argued that freedom will often be used badly.
For evidence of this, he said, just look at what goes on in America. Qutb pointed to divorce, family breakdown, homosexuality, promiscuity and the triviality and vulgarity of American popular culture as proof that human beings cannot be expected to use freedom except to gratify their basest impulses. Indeed, Qutb sternly charged that America is materially prosperous but morally rotten.
Qutb's alternative to America and the West is Islam, which in his book "Social Justice in Islam" he terms "an unparalleled revolution in human thinking" that provides the only solution to "this unhappy, perple
xed and weary world."
Islam, Qutb emphasized, is not merely a moral code or set of beliefs. It is a way of life based upon the divine government of the universe. The very term "Isl
am" means "submission" to the authority of Allah. This worldview requires that religious, economic, political and civil society be based on the Koran, the tea
chings of the Prophet Muhammad and the Shariah or Islamic law.
Qutb admits that notions of submission and obedience may sound alien to Western ears. In his view, this is because Western society is based on freedom, whereas Islamic society is based on virtue.
How should we in America evaluate and answer Qutb's critique? We need to take his views seriously, partly because they are taken seriously in the Islamic world and partly because for all his vehemence, Qutb is raising deep and fundamental questions.
Let us concede at the outset that freedom will often be used badly in a free society. Freedom by definition includes
freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. Given the warped timber of humanity, freedom becomes the forum for the expression of human flaws and weaknesses. On this point, Qutb and his
fundamentalist followers are quite correct.
But if freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best. The millions of Americans who live decent, praiseworthy lives
deserve our highest admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is not the only available option. Even amid the temptations that a rich and free society offers, they have remained on the straight path. Their virtue has special luster because it is freely chosen.
By contrast, the theocratic and authoritarian society that Islamic fundamentalists advocate undermines the possibility of virtue. If the supply of virtue is insufficient in free societies, it is almost nonexistent in Islamic societies because coerced virtues are not virtues at all.
Consider the woman in Afghanistan or Iran who is required to
wear the veil. There is no real modesty in this because the woman is being compelled. Compulsion cannot produce virtue. It can only produce the outward semblance of virtue.
Once the
reins of coercion are released, as they were for the Sept. 11 terrorists, the worst impulses of human nature break loose. Sure enough, the deeply religious terrorists spent their last days in gamb
ling dens, bars and strip clubs, sampling the licentious lifestyle they were about to strike out against. In theocratic societies such as Afghanistan under the Taliban or Iran today, the absence of freedom signals the absence of virtue.
This is the argument that Americans should make to people in the Islamic world. It is a mistake to presume that Muslims would be totally unreceptive to it. Islam, which has common roots with Judaism and Christianity, respects the autonomy of the individual soul. Salvation for Muslims, no less than for J*ws and Christians, is based on the soul choosing freely to follow God.
We can m
ake the case to Muslims that freedom is not a secular invention. Rather, freedom is a gift from God.
Moreover, it is not the case that Islamic fundamentalists care about virtue w
hile we in the West care only about freedom. We, too, care about virtue. Like them, we seek the good society; but we disagree with the Islamic fundamentalists about the best means to achieve this goal.
nIn the Western view, freedom is the necessary precondition for virtue. Without freedom, there is no virtue.
I