, also , () or Milestones, first published in 1964, is a short book written by the influential Egyptian Islamic author Sayyid Qutb, in which he makes a call to action and lays out a plan to re-create the "extinct" Muslim world on (what he believes to be) strictly Quranic grounds, casting off what he calls Jahiliyyah (pre-Islamic ignorance).
Ma'alim fi al-Tariq has been called "one of the most influential works in Arabic of the last half century."The Age of Sacred Terror by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, New York : Random House, c2002, p.63 It is probably Qutb's most famous and influential work and one of the most influential Islamist tracts written. It has also become a manifesto for the ideology of "Qutbism." Commentators have both praised Milestones as a ground-breaking, inspirational work by a hero and a martyr, and reviled it as a prime example of unreasoning entitlement, self-pity, paranoia, and hatred that has been a major influence on Islamist terrorism.
English translations of the book are usually entitled simply "Milestones" (the book is also sometimes referred to in English as "Signposts"). The title Ma'alim fi al-Tariq translates into English as, "Milestones Along the Way," "Signposts on the Road," or different combinations thereof.
History
Ma'alim fi al-Tariq marked the culmination of Qutb's evolution from modernist author and critic, to Islamist activist and writer, and finally to Islamist revolutionary and theoretician. First published in 1964, it was written in prison, where Qutb spent 10 years under charges of political conspiracy against the authoritarian Egyptian regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Four of its thirteen chapters were originally written for Qutb's voluminous Quranic commentary, Fi Zilal al-Qur'an (In the shade of the Qur'an).Kepel, Prophet, (1986), p.43
Less than a year after its publication, Qutb was again arrested and brought to trial in Egypt under charges of conspiring against the state. Excerpts from the book were used to incriminate Qutb and he was found guilty, sentenced to death and executed by hanging in 1966. His death elevated his status to Shaheed or martyr in the eyes of many Muslims. Milestones became a bestseller and widely distributed across the Arab speaking world. As of 2001, close to 2,000 editions of the work are said to have been published.Lisbeth Lindeborg, Dagens Nyheter, (Stockholm, Sweden), Oct. 25, 2001.
Contents
In his book, Qutb seeks to set out "milestones" or guiding markers along a road that will lead to the revival of Islam from its current "extinction."
Sharia According to Qutb, the Muslim community has been "extinct for a few centuries" and has reverted to Jahiliyyah ("The state of ignorance of the guidance from God") because those who call themselves Muslims have failed to follow, "the laws of God," or Sharia, traditional Islamic law. Following the Sharia is not just important for Muslims, but a defining attribute, more necessary than belief itself, because, "according to the Shari'ah, 'to obey' is 'to worship'." This means Muslims must not only refrain from worshiping anything other than God, they must not obey anything other than God: "anyone who serves someone other than God"—be that someone (or something) a priest, president, a parliament, or a legal statute of a secular state— is "outside God's religion," although he may "claim to profess this religion."
Sharia is much more than a code of religious or public laws (according to Qutb), it is a "complete" way of life covering "all minor or major affairs of mankind," based on "submission to God alone," crowding out anything non-Islamic. Its rules range from "belief" to "administration and justice" to "principles of art and science." Being God's law, sharia is "as accurate and true as any of the laws known as the 'laws of nature,'" (the laws of physics--motion, gravity -- electricity, etc.), and part of the universal law "which governs the entire universe".
The modern Muslim world has erred by approaching the Qur'an for the sake of "discussion, learning and information" or "to solve some scientific or legal problem." In fact it should be approached as a source of "instruction for obedience and action" to remove man from the servitude of other men and place him in the servitude of God.
When the law of God is established on earth, it will lead to blessings falling on all mankind. Sharia is "the only guarantee" against "any kind of discord" in life, and will "automatically" bring "peace and cooperation" among individuals.
This harmony and perfection that frees men from servitude to other men means that rule of sharia will not be theocracy because its divine perfection means no human authorities, no government will be necessary to judge or enforce its law. Just as in the days of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions "the fear of God's anger" will take "the place of police and punishments." Offensive jihad to spread sharia-Islam throughout the non-Muslim world will not be aggression but "a movement... to introduce true freedom to mankind."
Knowledge of the "secrets of nature, its hidden forces and the treasures concealed in the expanses of the universe," will be revealed "in an easy manner." The "harmony between human life and the universe" of sharia law will approach the perfection of heaven itself.
Just as sharia is—in Qutb's view—all encompassing and all wonderful, whatever is non-Muslim (or Jahiliyyah) is "evil and corrupt," and its existence anywhere intolerable to true Muslims. In preaching and promoting Islam, for example, it is very important not to demean Islam by "searching for resemblances" between Islam and the "filth" and "the rubbish heap of the West."
According to Qutb, to ignore this fact and attempt to introduce elements of socialism or nationalism into Islam or the Muslim community (as Nasser's Arab Socialist Union government was doing in Egypt at the time), is against Islam. This is illustrated by the fact that in the early days of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad did not make appeals to ethnic or class loyalty. Though these crowd-pleasing appeals would have undoubtedly shortened the thirteen years of hardship Muhammad had to endure while calling unresponsive Arabs to Islam, "God did not lead His Prophet on this course. ... This was not the way," and so must not be the way now.
Islamic vanguard To restore Islam on earth and free Muslims from "jahili society, jahili concepts, jahili traditions and jahili leadership," Qutb preaches that a vanguard (tali'a) be formed modeling itself after the original Muslims, the companions (Sahaba) of Muhammad. Qutb believes these Muslims successfully vanquished Jahiliyyah principally in two ways:
They cut themselves off from the Jahiliyyah—i.e. they ignored the learning and culture of non-Muslim groups (Greeks, Romans, Persians, Christians or Jews), and separated themselves from their old non-Muslim friends and family. They looked to the Qur'an for orders to obey, not as "learning and information" or solutions to problems.
Following these principles the vanguard will fight Jahiliyyah with a twofold approach: preaching, and "the movement" (jama'at). Preaching will persuade people to become true Muslims, while the movement will abolish "the organizations and authorities of the Jahili system" by "physical power and Jihaad". Foremost amongst these organizations and people to be removed is the "political power" which rests on a complex, "interrelated ideological, racial, class, social and economic support," but ultimately includes not only "the power of the state, the social system and traditions", but "the whole human environment." Force is necessary, Qutb explains, because it is naive to expect "those who have usurped the authority of God" to give up their power without a fight.
Remaining aloof from Jahiliyyah and its values and culture, but preaching and forcibly abolishing authority within it, the vanguard will travel the road, gradually growing from a cell of "three individuals" to ten, from ten to a hundred, until there are thousands, and blossom into a truly Islamic community. The community may start in the homeland of Islam but this is by no means "the ultimate objective of the Islamic movement of Jihad." Jihad can not merely be defensive, it must be offensive, and its objective must be to carry Islam "throughout the earth to the whole of mankind". This is not aggression, as Orientalists would lead you to believe, but necessary because "truth and falsehood cannot coexist on this Earth".
True Muslims should maintain a "sense of supremacy" and "superiority," on the road of renewal, and to remember their enemies are angered by them, hate them "only because of their faith", "only because they believe in God". And so it is important that they prepare themselves for a "life until death in poverty, difficulty, frustration, torment and sacrifice", and even to brace themselves for possibility of death by torture at the hands of Jahiliyyah's sadistic, arrogant, mischievous, criminal and degraded people. Qutb ends his book with quotes from "surat Al-Burooj" from the Quran, an example of persecution against Muslims and enjoining modern-day Muslims to endure the same or worse tortures for the sake of carrying out God's will. After all, "this world is not a place of reward"; the believer's reward is in heaven.
Influences
Islamic Two of Qutb's major influences were the medieval Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiya, and contemporary British Indian (later Pakistani) Islamist writer Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi. Both used the historical term jahiliyya to describe contemporary events in the Muslim world.Sivan, Radical Islam, p.65, 128; Kepel, Muslim, p.194
Two other concepts popularized by Qutb in Milestones also came from Maududi: al-'ubudiyya, or worship, (which is performed not only by praying and adoring but by obeying); and al-hakimiyya, or sovereignty, (which is God's over all the earth and violated when His law, the sharia, is not obeyed).Two terms Qutb uses: al-'ubudiyya, or `worship` and al-hakimiyya (also al-`uluhiya), `sovereignty,` appear in The Four Key Concepts of the Qur'an by Abul-a'la Mawdudi. (Kepel, Prophèt p. 48.)
Qutb's premise—that sharia law is essential to Islam, and that any self-described "Muslim" ruler who ignores it in favor of man-made laws is actually a non-Muslim who should be fought and overthrown—came from a fatwa of Ibn Taymiya.Sivan, Radical Islam, p.97-8. (Quran 5:44: "... and those who do not judge by what Allah has revealed are ˹truly˺ the disbelievers.")
Non-Islamic Qutb's intense dislike of the West and ethnic nationalism notwithstanding, a number of authors believe he was influenced by European fascism (Roxanne L. Euben,, quoted in The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists, by Khaled Abou El Fadl, Harper San Francisco, 2005, p.298 Aziz Al-Azmeh,, quoted in The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists, by Khaled Abou El Fadl, Harper San Francisco, 2005, p.298 Khaled Abou El Fadl). Some of his ideas (with religion replacing race or ethnicity in its ideology), that have been compared to fascism include: the decline of contemporary Western civilization and "infertility" of democracy; inspiration from an earlier golden age and desire to restore its glory with an all-encompassing (totalitarian) social, political, and economic system; belief in malice of foreign and (especially) Jewish conspiracies; violent revolution to expel alien influences and to re-establish the power and international supremacy of the nation/community;Berman, Terror and Liberalism (2003) p.60+ Although fascism made some impact among anti-British Arab Muslims before, during, and after World War II, the influence of fascist thinkers (particularly French fascist Alexis Carrel) in Qutb's work is disputed.Tariq Ali, The Clash of Fundamentalisms, Verso, 2002, p.274