Need Debunking: Sayyid Qutb was a Liason for the Communist International

TheNZThrower

Active Member
Hi everyone! This one Epoch Times article alleging that Islamic Terrorism is somehow tied to Communism claims that Islamist Sayyid Qutb was a Liaison officer for the Communist International and a Communist in his youth, citing a right-wing Catholic author, Robert R. Reilly, as their source:
Qutb was a member of the Communist Party in his youth, and his ideas were steeped in the rhetoric of Marxism-Leninism. Robert R. Reilly, a senior fellow at the U.S. Foreign Policy Committee, has said that Qutb was actually a Communist International liaison for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Communist Party of Egypt.
The booklet sourced, The Roots of Islamist Ideology, leads to this dead PDF link. I was not able to find any other pdfs of the book online, and Google Books doesn't even have a cover picture or a preview of the book. Neither does Amazon. Looking at the Wikipedia page for Qutb, it makes no mention of him having any affiliations with any Communist organisation, and notes that though some of his ideas superficially resemble the Vanguardism of Lenin, he has made it clear that he opposes all Western ideologies, Socialism and Communism included:
Though Qutb's program for a vanguard to lead a revolutionary bears some resemblance to Vladimir Lenin's Communist Party, he loathed all Western ideologies, socialism being no exception. "Islam ... is the only Divine way of life ... those who deviate from this system and want some other system, whether it be based on nationalism ... class struggle, or similar corrupt theories are truly enemies of mankind!
This appears to be confirmed via this pdf of one of Qutb's books, called Milestones:
Islam, then, is the only Divine way of life which brings out the noblest human characteristics, developing and using them for the construction of human society. Islam has remained unique in this respect to this day. those who deviate from this system and want some other system, whether it be based on nationalism, color and race, class struggle, or similar corrupt theories are truly enemies of mankind! [Milestones p.51]
Likewise, Qutb also writes about the evils of Communism on the prior page of the aforementioned quote:
Communism also wanted to establish a new type of society, demolishing the walls of race and color, nation and geographical region, but it is not based on 'human relationship' but on a 'class system'. Thus the Communist society is like the Roman society with a reversal of emphasis; there nobles had distinction, while here the proletariat had distinction. The underlying emotion of this class is hatred and envy of other classes. Such a selfish and vengeful society cannot but excite base emotions in its individuals. [Milestones p.50]
Hence there is not much evidence for the claim made by Reilly, but a wealth of evidence against it.

If anyone is able to track down a copy of Reilly's booklet, please respond to this post.
 
If anyone is able to track down a copy of Reilly's booklet, please respond to this post.

I also hit a dead end.

https://crce.org.uk/publications/index.html gave me another possible lead:
The Roots of Islamist Ideology
By Robert R Reilly (Crisis Magazine)
February 2006
Content from External Source
But https://www.crisismagazine.com/author/reilly doesn't list anything with that title, or even anything political at that time.

I agree with your analysis though. Nothing Reilly says matches anything I've ever read by or about Qutb, so I guess he's just conflating all things that Good Christian Americans(TM) hate as being equal to and interchangable with each other. Your Qutb quotes are the slam dunk, IMHO. Case closed.

I'm shocked, shocked to find that nonsense is being carried by The Epoch Times!
 
It's kind of hard to tell what Outb did in his youth. What's obvious is his distance to Nasser and the socialists late in his life, after 1952. The Brotherhood did support the coup, so some sort of connection is there.
 
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