Ignorance or sovereignty

In a recently published peer-reviewed article, Saer El-Jaichi revisits the doctrine of armed jihad presented in Milestones on the Road, which is one of the most influential texts in the history of the modern-day jihadism. Its author, Sayyid Qutb, is well known as perhaps the most influential figure in the political revival of Islamist movements in the 1960s and 1970s. So far, his ideas have been associated mostly with radical groups embedded in the local fight against foreign occupation or authoritarian regimes.

El-Jaichi argues, however, that Qutb’s reappropriation of jihad, in the course of his reconstruction of the meaning of God’s sovereignty (hakimiyya), is better interpreted as encompassing both “national” and “transnational” forms of jihadism. Because ignorance of God’s laws is not restricted to any land or territory in today’s world, the (theological) duty of fighting ignorance is accordingly not - in Qutb’s conception - limited to lands controlled by apostate rulers who adopt secular laws and systems. The state of ignorance, or jahiliyya, is a state of moral bankruptcy that permeates every aspect of modern societies. Qutb therefore claims that the duty of dismantling the ignorance has become global. The article argues that this interpretation of jihad, which influenced generations of jihadi thinkers, including members of al-Qaeda, breaks with tradition to construe the entire world as one abode of disbelief.