Islamit views of “Modernity”: A historiographical critique on the “religious revival” through the works of Sayyid Qutb

Abstract

Faced with Islamic criticism of the scope of secular thought and the Western liberal system, many historians have turned their attention to the “dangers of the religious resurgence”. Faced with Islamic criticism of the scope of secular thought and the Western liberal system, many historians have turned their attention to the “dangers of the religious revival.” In studies of the Middle East, discourses and movements claiming Islam as a solution to modern dilemmas have been postulated as symptoms of the “crisis of modernity. Through historical-discursive analysis, the paper seeks to understand the concept of “modernity” in Sayyid Qutb's discourse. It aims to demonstrate how the concept reflects an internal debate with the Islamic legacy, and not merely a “reaction” to the Western vision. The limits and uses of reason and revelation, as well as the need to return to Qur'anic basis, are central and historical to Islam, and were used in Qutb's arguments alongside Qur'anic concepts. Sovereignty, servitude, universality, ignorance and oneness guide Qutb's understanding of the Islamic call, as well as the formulation of his theory of decadence and the concept of modernity itself. It is therefore necessary to review the theories of the “crisis of modernity” and the “religious resurgence” present in Western historiography to raise questions about the association between the religious and the “retrograde”. It also contests the presumed spontaneous and endogenous nature of Western arguments concerning “modernity” being “imposed on the East”.