The Islamist Big Three

Any political movement rarely evolves without recourse to an intellectual foundation and Political Islam is certainly no exception. Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb and Syed Abul A'la Maududi are three thinkers that are often viewed as the essence of Sunni Islamism and by extension the Doctrine of the Armed Jihad.

Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949) was an Egyptian school teacher and an Imam who came of Age in an Egypt that had underwent a national revolution in 1919. He was also heavily affected by the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924 an event that he described as a calamity and ‘a declaration of war against all shapes of Islam’. Not happy with the secularism of the Wafd (Egypt’s National Liberal Party) al-Banna helped establish the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 (initially by organizing workers in protest at the way the Suez Canal was being managed). Within ten years the Brotherhood would grow to include half a million members.

It was al-Banna who popularized the notion of the Armed Jihad as a struggle against the colonial usurper. In fact he declared the ‘Jihad of the Sword to be greater than that of the Heart’ - a not insignificant assertion that has no doubt motivated many a Jihadist since then.

Al-Banna’s greatest strength though was his ability to grow his base network, make use of mass communication and increase the presence of the Brotherhood across the religious, educational and family framework in Egypt. Like later Islamists he would have no qualms about using anti-Semitism as a way of furthering his ends and was vocal in adding much rhetorical fuel to the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine.

Unfortunately for al-Banna though he ran afoul of the Egyptian establishment and was assassinated in 1949 on what is believed to be the action of King Farouk’s Iron Guard.

However his legacy lives on in the strength of the Freedom and Justice Party (headed for sometime by Mohamed Morsi) who following the turbulence of the recent Arab Spring emerged briefly as the power in Egyptian politics.

Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) was more of an enigmatic figure. Somewhat of a loner he lacked al-Banna’s charisma. However as a thinker he articulated very well the alienation that many Arabs felt in the post-colonization era. Qutb studied for a while in the US (1948-50) and came to resent the nation as a degenerate entity. He loathed its liberalism, its embrace of Jewry and its lack of Islamic type values. These tropes are often expressed in his writings (including his poems) which were well received in the Arab world. In fact much of his work features prominently in educational curricular in the Ummah despite the hate filled nature of many of his screeds.

Initially aligned with Gamel Nasser’s pan-Arabism Qutb broke with the General over Nasser’s support for a secular revolution. Qutb had earlier joined the Brotherhood and saw Nasserism as being an affront to an Islamic Revolution. Eventually his criticism of Nasser would result in his imprisonment and later his execution guaranteeing him the martyrdom that has become legend among Islamists.

Qutibism extended al-Banna’s notion of the Jihad by stressing its offensive over its defensive nature. He also believed that power should reside with a virtuous few and was disdainful of democracy. Qutb saw Islam as a philosophy that extends beyond religion to transform every aspect of society.

Qutb’s link to Al-Qaeda and by extension Daesh flows through Ayman al-Zawahari, arguably the mastermind behind much Jihadist activity since 911 and the current leader of Al-Qaeda). Zawahari was a student of Qutb and he in turn would influence Osama Bin Laden. In fact it would not be unreasonable to describe Qutb as the intellectual godfather of Al-Qaeda .

Syed Abul A'la Maududi (1903-1979) is the final piece in the Troika and the only one of three figures not to die a violent death. He also had a non-Arabic origin coming to Islam from its center of influence in the Indian sub-continent. Maududi was a journalist, jurist, philosopher and imam who made Islamic revivalism his ideology. Like Qutb his writing is motivated by what he perceives as the ‘decadence of secular society’ but his focus initially was more centered on India. He was particularly distraught at the weakening of Purdah (the religious and social practice of secluding women from society).

Maududi founded the Jamaat-I-Islami as an alternative to both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League in the fight for Independence from Britain. At the forefront he stressed Sharia Law including its advocacy of interest free banking system, hadd penalties (amputation, flogging etc) and its full inclusion in almost every aspect of a person’s life. Like other Islamists he saw no distinction between the personal and the private as he stated below

‘The sharia is a complete scheme of life and an all-embracing social order where nothing is superfluous and nothing lacking.’

It was Maududi who coined the phrase Islamic Revolution in the 1940s even though he personally felt that the revolution should be implemented more gradually with great patience to ensure that it would become entrenched for some time. On this facet he differed from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni in Iran and General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in Pakistan. He also favoured a top down approach and like other Islamic elitists was scornful of grassroots Islamism.

In Maududi’s world an Islamic state would be guided by Three Principles – tawhid (oneness of Allah), risala (prophethood) and khalifa (caliphate).

All three of these notions have been co-opted by the various Jihadist groups in the contemporary. Maududi argued for an Islamic constitution where non-Muslims in the state would be given limited rights and be subject to the jizya (per capita yearly tax levied by Islamic rulers on non-Muslims) in exchange for protection from externalities.

Just as al-Banna and Qutb referenced back to the Jihad so did Maududi who saw its use as a necessity pathway to eliminate ‘un-Islamic systems’. The details of Jihad and its role in resurrecting the Islamic State are outlined in the Al Jihad fil-Islam ("Jihad in Islam") – a tract that was serialized in the newspapers for mass consumption as early as 1927.

Maududi’s personal life is shrouded in a mystique and he seems to appear even more so than Qutb as a larger than life figure. Oddly enough as his health failed he sought treatment elsewhere eventually dying from a kidney ailment in of all places Buffalo, New York.