Modernity and Revitalizing Islamic Thought: a review on Sayyid Qutb's Political Thought

Islamism has been one of significant intellectual leanings in the twentieth century and early third millennium. Although the leaning has various spectrums, all of them have consensus on several points: modernity has not realized its vow at the start of Enlightenment Age based on human's prosperity and emancipation; modernity is not consistent with many Islamic values and ethical principles; and we should revitalize Islam as an "ism" or school in order to overcome such problems as backwardness, westernizing and so on. In this article, we will deal with one of these Islamists, namely Sayyid Qutb. Our main question is: how much has modernity impacted the formation of Sayyid Qutb's political thought? Furthermore, we will explore this subject that what the contradictions are that islamists like Sayyid Qutb face. We will use Skinner's hermeneutics for examining Sayyid Qutb's political thought. In addition, the theory of orientalism has been used for acquiring a more precise and perfect knowledge about Sayyid Qutb's thought.