Christopher Hurtado

There is today, in the minds of many, an East-West divide along Christian or Secular vs. Islamic lines. Many argue that this divide has existed for millenia and manifests itself in a clash of civilizations, to borrow the term used by Samuel P. Huntington, and that it will ultimately result in the fall of one or the other. This struggle for hegemony can be seen today in the geopolitical arena. At the heart of this debate, are deeply entrenched religious or other dogma and closely held cultural values on both sides. At stake for each side are its standards, ideals, principles and values. Each has a Utopian vision of an ideal world based on these standards, ideals, principles and values. Each affirms a past, whether historical or not, which affirms these standards, ideals, principles and values. At the extremes of either side there are those who dogmatically affirm that the differences existing between the two sides form a chasm that cannot be bridged, while at the same time, in the center there are pragmatists who firmly believe that the chasm can be bridged. In my opinion, pragmatism is the only answer to this dilemma.

“Humankind today is on the brink of an abyss … because it lacks the values that can nurture and protect it and guide it on the right path,” wrote the so-called “philosopher of Islamic terror,” Sayyid Qutb. For Qutb, a key member of the Muslim Brotherhood during Nasser’s regime in Egypt, the West (whether capitalist or communist) was materialistic and sexually depraved. To illustrate his point, he pointed to Americans who focused more  on the appearance of their lawns and their own personal appearance than on the key social problems he saw, who displayed a bestial lustfulness even at church dances and found brutish displays of strength such as American football entertaining. He believed these problems, as he saw them, were the result of the West’s failure to submit to God’s law as revealed to the prophet Muhammad. He saw the rule of men over men as usurping God’s sovereignty.

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Introduction

There are many challenges faced by Muslims in general in the West. Principal among them are those falling under the categories of education, economics, nutrition and health, holidays, Islamic “products,” and personal concerns. Many of the challenges faced by Muslims in the West generally are shared by African American Muslims in particular. However, the genesis, history, and current trajectory of African American Islam produces variances in the nature and degree of those challenges for African American Muslims. Also, the challenge of integration with the umma is unique to them.

Challenges faced by Muslims in the West generally

Islamizing the education of their children is important to Muslims in the West, as education in the West is generally ethnocentrically Occidental and Judeo-Christian or secular in nature. The economic concerns of Muslims in the West range from the avoidance of interest to financing mosques and Islamic centers without state support. Muslims in the West face nutrition and health concerns ranging from keeping their dietary restrictions to Islamic practices in health care. Muslims in the West grapple with the question of whether to celebrate Christian and Jewish holidays along with their neighbors and struggle for recognition of their own holidays. The relative scarcity of Islamic “products” in the West such as books, videos, CDs, instructional materials, software, games, puzzles, products that address the Muslim concern of time and direction for prayer, alcohol-free makeup, and Muslim clothing, can be a challenge to Muslims in the West. Other concerns, particularly those of a personal nature, run the gamut from whether to listen to music, praying at work or postponing or skipping prayer, fraternization with non-Muslims, women’s behavior and public participation, and traditional Islamic burial.

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Introduction

This essay will compare and contrast the ideologies and vision of political Islam of Muslim intellectuals Sayyid Abuʾl-Aʿla Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb. Though Mawdudi’s ideologies and vision influenced Qutb’s, accounting for similarities in thought between them, the differences are significant. This essay will examine these similarities and differences in turn. It will demonstrate why Mawdudi was successful at changing India’s government and at spreading that change abroad while Qutb ultimately failed to change Egypt’s. Nevertheless, this essay will also show the far-reaching influence of Qutb’s thought.

Historical Background

Qutb was born in a small village in Upper Egypt and immigrated to Cairo to complete his education. There, he was educated in a Western style and rose in prominence as a writer and literary critic while working as a teacher and an inspector for the ministry of education. His primary concern and topic of writing at the time was the morality of the individual. This he held up to the standard of Islam as he understood it and sought to understand the reason for the lack of it around him. A two-year stint in the United States to earn a master’s degree while at the same time studying the U.S. educational system caused him to see the threat to Islamic morality in a new light.

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Introduction

Most books about Islam are either well informed, but too specialized for the general reader or misinformed and sensationalistic, but accessible. Unfortunately, this makes the latter the general reader’s pick, leading to the dissemination of misinformation. The prevalence of lack of historical background is at the root of misinformation. While one might assume that current is better, too often current omits relevant historical background, thus leading to misinformation. Following Muhammad presents a sympathetic, if not apologetic, look at mainstream Islam as distinguished from fundamental Islam.

Historical Background

Ernst first became interested in Islam through the Persian poetry of Sufis such as Rumi. Thus he began his investigation of Islam through the lens of Sufism. Along the way, he learned Arabic, Persian, and Urdu and earned a Ph.D. in Islamic studies. He also spent time living and doing research in Muslim countries, primarily the non-Arab Eastern countries of India, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey. As a specialist in Islamic studies, Ernst has undertaken to help the West to overcome existing suspicion and ignorance about Islam recently intensified by the hijacking of the language of Islam by Islamic extremists by humanizing Muslims.

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