The political ideology of Syed Qutb and Mawdudi: An analysis of their impact on contemporary Violent and Non-violent Islamist Organizations
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Date
2018
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UMT.lahore
Abstract
The political ideology of Mawdudi and Qutb, who are the two most prominent Muslim scholars, revolutionized people’s ideas about the state, politics, the economy, society and jihad. Both had a deep influence on Islamist organizations, particularly in Asia, the Middle East and many Western countries. Writers have observed that Mawdudi, who supported a peaceful course to achieve his idea of an Islamic state, became an inspiration for Qutb, who is much more radical in his approach. Qutb in the later part of his life propagated armed resistance and became the intellectual father for many extremist organizations such as Al-Qaida and Taliban.
Through documentary analysis of their key texts this paper argues that the political philosophy of both is still relevant as a source of inspiration to many Islamists organization (both violent and non violent).. These organizations are categorized by using a predetermined scale, of ideologically impressed only organizations and those which are both ideologically committed and tactically employed ones. These organizations are then labeled as violent/radicalized, non-violent/reformist and hybrid (vacillating between a violent and non-violent trajectory)
The corollary of the main argument looks for the causes behind the success of such organization and here, by applying the “Social Movement Theory” we argue that the processes and pressures of social forces, such as feelings of deprivation, social injustice, weak political systems, and structural strains of prevalent order are some of the leading causes behind their success. These cause together form the favorable local context for the growth of such organizations.