America, he saw, was a perfectly pagan place:
"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 prejudice 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."
"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 prejudice 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."
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