Qutbism

Qutbism (Arabic: ٱلْقُطْبِيَّةِ, romanized: al-Quṭbīyah) is a political philosophy that comes from the Islamic scholar and thinker Sayyid Qutb. Qutb was a leading member of an Islamist political group called the Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt in 1928 by a different Islamic scholar, Hasan al-Banna. It is banned in Egypt and in a number of other Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, even though these are also all Sunni-led states.

Qutbism is a Sunni philosophy. Its main associate, the Muslim Brotherhood, has supported other Sunni Islamist groups from the beginning of its foundation, including the Syrian Opposition groups, ISIS and Hamas (until 2017).

Core beliefs

Qutbism shares many core beliefs with other reformist Islamist philosophies, such as Wahhabism and Salafism. The main one being that for centuries, the Muslim community has not been following true Islam and must be reinvigorated by following the beliefs of the Prophet and his community.

Taqfir

The most controversial and well-known aspect of Qutb's philosophy is takfirism - the belief that Muslims who do not adhere to his strict tenets of Islam are not Muslim at all; they are apostates. In sharia law, the penalty for apostasy is the death penalty. Controversially, he claimed that the entire Muslim world had become taqfir, as they no longer practised Islam as the prophet did. Therefore, they had fallen into a state of jahiliyah - a word which is used to describe the time before the Qur'an was revealed to the prophet, and also translates as ignorance.

Although, neither the Hadith or the Qur'an mention the word taqfir, instead using the word kufr (unbelief) or kafir (unbeliever). The word taqfir is a political invention by the wave of Islamic reformists such as Qutb who sought to reform Islam in his own terms. It has been used to justify violence by such groups against other Muslim communities by groups such as ISIS.

Milestones (Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq)

Milestones, or Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq in Arabic, is Qutb's main work where he outlines his religious and political ideas.