Muslim Modernity: Poetics, Politics, and Metaphysics

Abstract

I start with two citations: first from Milestones ¹ Sayyid Qutb’s manifesto written in 1964, and the second from The Last Crusade, a book by Michael Palmer, published in the United States in 2007. These are the two extremes that frame the discussion of Islam in the United States and, to some extent, in the rest of the world. Both these authors, however, share certain striking visions. For Qutb, the nature of Western aggression has changed from the naked form of dominance to something more complex which has replaced the ‘unveiled crusading spirit’ that underwrote the crusades. For Michael Palmer, it is this crusading spirit that must posit itself as what it is. His idea of Americanism must use the naked force – as a secular crusade – to forcefully modernize the Islamic world.

The truth of the matter is that the latter-day imperialism is but a mask for the crusading spirit, since it is not possible for it to appear in its true form, as it was possible in the Middle Ages. The unveiled crusading spirit was smashed against the rock of faith of Muslim leadership which came from various elements, including Salahuddin the Kurd, Turan Shah the Mamluk, who forgot the differences of nationalities and remembered their belief, and were victorious under the banner of Islam.

(Sayyid Qutb 1964: 160)

The Bush administration’s response to bin Laden’s Jihad operations did, in fact, lead to an American-led crusade—not a religious crusade to destroy Islam, but a political one intent on modernizing the region.

(Michael Palmer 2007: 228)