Full Bellies and Sincere Intentions: Re-reading Sayyid Qutb as a Theorist of Human Welfare

Islamist activists are increasingly seeking, sometimes fitfully, to participate in democratic processes. In theory, these processes force communities to negotiate a historically novel range of possibilities concerning the place of religion in public life. The work of Sayyid Qutb, a prominent mid-twe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Main Author: Elfenbein, Caleb (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Oxford University Press [2015]
In: Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Summary:Islamist activists are increasingly seeking, sometimes fitfully, to participate in democratic processes. In theory, these processes force communities to negotiate a historically novel range of possibilities concerning the place of religion in public life. The work of Sayyid Qutb, a prominent mid-twentieth-century Egyptian intellectual and activist infamous for his call to arms against enemies of Islam, provides an ideal vehicle to explore possible bases of such negotiation. When we interpret his writing through the lens of modern social theory, which I argue Egypt's colonial history requires of us, we can see that he is more a theorist of human welfare than of jihad. In fact, his Qur'an commentary In the Shade of the Qur'an shows how the concept of social welfare may provide sufficient ground upon which a “theo-political” vision of society might coexist with utilitarian-inspired sensibilities in the setting of collective life.
ISSN:1477-4585
Contains:Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfv055