[lit-ideas] Re: Five Years Ago
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2006 09:34:53 -0700
JE: it's my quaint way of saying you ignore the parts of their writing with
which you disagree
LH: Well, why not go all the way and say I disagree with the parts of the
writing I disagree with? I have to read the passages before I can tell
whether I agree or disagree with them; so "ignore" makes no sense. Also, I
have read so that much of what I read is material I am already familiar
with. I especially enjoy writers who introduce me to something new as
Bowman is with his Honor.
JE: >Is the ideology influenced by Qutb a necessary condition for terrorism
and in particular, suicide attacks?
JE: >Is that ideology a sufficient condition?
JE: which were aimed at your
LH>the "root causes of 9/11" which scholar after scholar (del) tell us is a
virulent Jihadist ideology formulated by Sayyid Qutb.
JE: if you don't want to answer the questions, how about defining "root
cause"?
LH: Ah, I didn't realize that you intended a quibble. I thought you were
asking a legitimate question. So you are quibbling about what sort of cause
Sayyid Qutb was. Well, without Qutb there would not be Islamism as we know
it today; so he is a necessary cause. I am not a determinist (as Barnett
and Fukuyama are, by the way); so I have a problem with applying the term
sufficient cause to social events. Qutb didn't create Islamism out of whole
cloth. He was preceded by Wahhabism, Salafism, and in the Muslim Brothers
he was preceded by Al Banna. In Pakistan he was preceded by Maududi. And
then in regard to Khomeini, there are some who argue that even though Qutb
seems to have preceded the Islamist teachings of Khomeini, Khomeini came up
with them independently. Maybe he did and maybe he didn't. I don't know.
Could a modern day Jihadist become militant without ever having heard of
Qutb? Probably. The thing about Fundamentalist teachers is that they are
quickly set aside. They teach that one should have a literal belief in the
teachings of Christianity or Islam; so someone who accepts that isn't going
to say that they believe in Darby-Christianity or Qutb-Islam. They are
going to say that they have the one true interpretation of Christianity or
Islam and they are going to forget Darby and Qutb. I have argued with very
few Dispensationalists who knew that the theologian who founded
Dispensationalism was John Nelson Darby. It may be (but I don't know) that
there are more Islamists who know of Qutb than Dispensationalists who know
of Darby, but if they got their Islamism from the Friday sermons they may
not have heard of Qutb.
But back to your quibble: does the term "Root Cause" really fit Qutb's place
in Islamism? Well, let's look at how Mike intended the term "root cause."
He didn't specify, but I took him to be using the old Leftist idea that
Capitalism causes proletarian revolutions, and the "so-called" Islamist
unrest is at root just such an one. The U.S. was out in the world plying
its greedy Capitalistic trade and on 9/11, the chickens came home to roost.
While some Islamists do give lip-service to the Marxists paradigm, it goes
counter to their religious beliefs. They do not attack the infidel because
he is greedy or represents capitalism. They attack him because he is an
infidel and their literalistic Islamic views declare that he should be
exterminated. So I was intending to counter the assumption I thought Mike
was making, i.e., that the Root Cause was economic in nature, with the one I
believe to be true, that the Root Cause is religious in nature. Qutb
developed or in some cases put the final touches on the Islamism that is
behind the virulent Jihadist ideology that all nations in the Middle East as
well as Western and many other nations are being plagued with today.
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Judith Evans
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 8:41 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Five Years Ago
>Well, if Judy is any example, the assertion that I read only those
>who agree with me is morphing
d'you mean spreading?
> That seems to be her quaint way of saying that I don't accept everything I
read,
it's my quaint way of saying you ignore the parts of their writing
with which you disagree
>The thing about Qutb and the suicide attacks is that he took
> the Jihad into new regions.
this doesn't really answer my
>Is the ideology influenced by Qutb a necessary condition for
>terrorism and in particular, suicide attacks?
>Is that ideology a sufficient condition?
which were aimed at your
LH>the "root causes of 9/11" which scholar after scholar (del) tell
LH>us is a virulent Jihadist ideology formulated by Sayyid Qutb.
if you don't want to answer the questions, how about defining
"root cause"?
LH>Perhaps all Islamist Muslims do not become Jihadists
no "perhaps" about it. So:
why do people adopt the beliefs they do?
why do they act upon them?
Judy Evans, Cardiff
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