The “Humanity” of Radical Jihad

Abstract

Sayyid Qutb, one of the fathers of modern Islamic fundamentalist thought, located physical jihad at the centre of his vision of twentieth century political Islam. Although analysts—particularly in the post-9/11 era—have tended to conceptualize physical jihad as a thoroughly warlike enterprise, Qutb’s rhetoric reveals a very different logic at work in the propagation of jihad as a primary means of political transformation in the name of Islam. In fact, Qutb’s most influential work frames jihad as a particular strategy of socio-political activism—an activism geared toward the reinvigoration of particular conceptions of human nature and human agency.