more on Islamism as 'new social movement'

James Heartfield Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk
Fri Nov 15 02:24:58 PST 2002


From an admittedly suspect source

"In a brilliantly illuminating and arrestingly readable analysis, Ruthven demonstrates the close affinities between radical Islamist thought and the vanguard of modernist and postmodern thinking in the West. The inspiration for Qutb's thought is not so much the Koran, but the current of western philosophy embodied in thinkers such as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Heidegger. Qutb's thought -- the blueprint for all subsequent radical Islamist political theology -- is as much a response to 20th-century Europe's experience of "the death of God" as to anything in the Islamic tradition. Qutbism is in no way traditional. Like all fundamentalist ideology, it is unmistakeably modern."

A Fury For God: The Islamist Attack on America by Malise Ruthven, Granta, £15, 315pp, reviewed by John Gray, Independent, 27 July 2002 http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/story.jsp?story=318696

-- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'



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