Taking People As They Are
Islam As a "Realistic Utopia" in the Political Theory of Sayyid Qutb
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3557546 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andrew F March (0000-0002-2632-1094, Yale University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 104 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 189-207 |
| Publication date | 2010-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s000305541000002x |
| OpenAlex | W2132986695 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 16 |
| References cited | 36 |
This article presents an interpretation of Sayyid Qutb's political theory based on a prominent feature of his thought: the claim that Islamic law and human nature (fitra) are in perfect harmony, and that the demands of Islamic law are easy and painless for ordinary human moral capacities. I argue that Qutb is not only defending Islamic law as true and obligatory, but also as a coherent "realistic utopia"-a normative theory that also contains a psychological account of that theory's feasibility. Qutb's well-known fascination with the earliest generation of Muslims (thesalaf) is an integral part of this account that serves two functions: (1) as a model of the feasibility and realism of an ideal Islamic political order, and (2) as a genealogy of the political origins of moral vice in society. Qutb's project is thus an account of exactly why and how Islam requires politics, and how modern humans can be both free and governed
Art · Epistemology · Harmony (color · Interpretation (philosophy · Islam · Normative · Order (exchange · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Realism · Sociology · Theology · Utopia · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Religious studies · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought
Islamic Political Thought
Political Theology and Sovereignty
What does it mean to be a moderate Muslim in the war on terror? Muslim interpretations and reactions
Tocqueville and Qutb
Political theology and sovereignty
Conservative Anti-Colonialism
How Long Is Life? Neoliberalism and Islamic Piety
A Not-so-Islamic Utopia
Radical Islam in the Western Academy
Against insular liberalism
Alfarabi and the Creation of an Islamic Political Science
Political Philosophy in Political Science
Atheism, secularism and toleration
Seeing Like an Islamic State
The boundaries of pragmatism in Muslim education
Economies of Violence
The Law of Peoples
Fear
Two Concepts of Liberty
Sayyid Quṭb and Islamic Activism
Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World
Rescuing Justice and Equality
A History of Islamic Legal Theories
The Society Of The Muslim Brothers
Consensus, Stability, and Normativity in Rawls’s Political Liberalism
Islamic Reform
The existence of God
The Harmony of Natural Law and Shari’a in Islamist Theology
Nature and Politics
From Secularism to Jihad
Enemy in the Mirror
A modern Islamic confession of faith and conception of religion
The Feasibility Condition in Political Theory
Islamic Orthodoxy or Realpolitik? Al-Ghazālī's Views on Government
Sayyid Qutb and Islamic Activism. A Translation and Critical Analysis of Social Justice in Islam
Islam as a ‘system’ in the later writings of Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb's Doctrine of Jāhiliyya
The Dialectic in Contemporary Egyptian Social Thought
Demandingness as a Virtue
Taking People as They Are
Sayyid Qutb's fiqh al-waqi`i, or New Realist Science
Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age
Ghazālī on the Ethics of Action
Islamist Revivalism and Western Ideologies
The Development of the Thought of Sayyid Qutb as Reflected in Earlier and Later Editions of 'Social Justice in Islam
| Unique citing works | 16 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2010 - 2025 (16) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 16 |