Radical Islamism and Totalitarian Ideology: a Comparison of Sayyid Qutb's Islamism with Marxism and National Socialism

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the reasons for the strong anti‐western point of view in radical Islamism by comparing its political ideology to the western totalitarian ideologies, Marxism and National Socialism. The comparison is based on a reconstruction of the political theory of three major founders of these ideologies: Sayyid Qutb, Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler. Despite all differences, their arguments follow the same basic structure: the history of mankind is perceived as a life and death struggle between good and evil, in which those who are evil threaten the existence of mankind. Those who personify good have the mission to save humankind by ridding it from evil and by realising the utopia of the classless society, the natural race struggle or the purified society of followers of the true faith. The article concludes that radical Islamism is not a rejection of modernity from a pre‐modern or Islamic standpoint, but is rather an ideology which seduces its followers by criticising liberal societies for failing to fulfil their own promise of freedom.