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Taking People As They Are: Islam As a “Realistic Utopia” in the Political Theory of Sayyid Qutb

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2010

ANDREW F. MARCH
ANDREW F. MARCH*
Affiliation:
Yale University
*
Andrew F. March is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Yale University, 115 Prospect Street, Rosenkranz Hall, New Haven, CT 06520-8301 (andrew.march@yale.edu).
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Abstract

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 (the salaf) 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.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 104 , Issue 1 , February 2010 , pp. 189 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2010

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