User:Vector4F/Qutb Carrel and fascism

Criticisms of article Neofascism and religion, regarding Qutb and fascism

 * I contribute to some articles on Islam, including Sayyid Qutb, so I am biased. However, this section appears to be a serious misrepresentation of multiple scholars and multiple texts.  The majority of scholars cited are not at all making the claim for which they are being cited.  Lots of questions here.  Just going down the section:


 * The Rudolf Walther article in Die Zeit is speculative. He is not citing anything, just interpreting.  The "decisive affinities" he claims are never proven, only stated.


 * Walther's statement "Qutb cites no author aside from the Koran as often and as extensively as Carrel." is unproven. No citation, no publication referred to.  This claim should be the result of survey, perhaps even quantification.


 * Abdal Hakim Murad's passage is not related to the claim that Qutb's facism derives from Carrel. Murad writes "Qutb was influenced by the Vichy theorist Alexis Carrel (1873-1944), through his odd, vitalist tract LHomme, cet inconnu, which remains an ultimate, though unacknowledged, source text for much modern Islamism."  This cites a correlation, an influence, and does not specify what that influence is.  Murad cites as his source a book by Euben, but Euben makes no mention of facism here, only Carrel.  In Murad's notes, he also quotes Youssef Choueiri's book Islamic Fundamentalism, where Choueiri writes: "What Qutb fails to inform his vanguard, however, is that the code of conduct he subsequently elaborated in his �commentary� on the Koran matches that of Carrel much more than Muhammad�s own Traditions. The result is not an indigenous form of governance, but a Third World version of Fascism."  Carrel's "code of conduct" does not match Qutb's.  Carrel advocates Islamic law?  Carrel advocates jihad?  Very poor use of citations here.


 * Choueiri is quoted, from Murad's notes. see above point.  Also, Choueiri says Qutb's Qur'anic commentary is the proof of this, but the only English commentary on this I know of (Mysticism and Politics, Olivier Carre) makes only three mentions of Carrel (the same number as of Freud) and no mention facism.  the actual Qur'anic commentary makes none that I am aware of.  I need Choueiri's full text to say more, but this is far from a thesis on Qutb deriving fascism from Carrel.


 * Tariq Ali's citation does not even mention Qutb, only "the fundamentalists" and his analogy of these particular Muslims as Muslim versions of a French neo-fascist group is highly speculative. No argument is made about why this comparison is made.


 * John Calvert's text does not mention Carrel, only Qutb, and his comparison of Qutb and fascism is set against Bolshevik experiences and Lenin. His mention of a "derivation" is not at all explained.


 * The Salafi Islamist article is completely ungrounded. The statement is made that "Qutb developed his idea of "Jaahiliyyah" directly from the writings of Alexis Carrel", but no explanation is given.  This observation is in turn cited from a Virginia tech Ph.D. paper, which itself does not explain the development.  The author also cites the Choueiri, which I have already addressed.

I suppose if something is said enough it simply becomes accepted. No direct quotes from Qutb, despite the claims that Qutb cited Carrel more than any other source and that Qutb's infamous concept of Jahiliyya came directly from Carrel. I know of only one book in which Qutb quoted Carrel - this is directly cited in the above by Ahmed Bouzid's Ph.D. thesis (which never mentions fascism). We even know from some above sources that Qutb disagreed with Carrel, yet these discrepanies are never explained together. The causation argument between Qutb and Carrel's facism (not the correlations, the "derivation" of Carrel's concept into Qutb's writing), as presented in the article, is a mess of a conjecture. I am currently seeking to compile all of Qutb's writing which mentions or even suggests Carrel's influence, as well as reviewing all known secondary texts which address this issue. Right now I cannot call this anything but original research. I have spoken on this issue over at Talk:Islamofascism. --Vector4F 06:49, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Text from Wikipedia article Neofascism and religion
(As of version [46542619])

The fascist influence on Islamism
Some writers have claimed that Sayyid Qutb, the intellectual father of Islamism, was influenced by Alexis Carrel, the French fascist eugenicist. Qutb cites Carrel more than any other source except the Koran although it is important to note that, in some of the portions cited, Qutb was distinguishing his philosophy from what he regarded as Carrel's scientific materialism. Qutb also quotes extensively from Carrel's critique of what he regarded as the intrinsic decadence of Western democracies. [16][17]

Several scholars, including Tariq Ali, Paul Berman, Aziz al-Azmeh and Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi find that Qutb's political ideas relating to the need for society to be remade by establishment of a ruling elite derive from Carrel's writings, although Carrel's racial and genetic terms are replaced by Qutb with religious terms. According to Rudolf Walther writing in Die Ziet:

The superficial commonalities between Carrel and Qutb are plain: we meet the medical man's elite in a 'scientific monastery' as Qutb's 'avant garde,' and the Carrel's 'biological classes' are Qutb's 'belief classes.' Whether 'civilization' (Carrel) or 'barbarism' (Qutb) -- neither are 'worthy of us,' because they contradict 'our true nature' (Carrel) or Qutb's 'good, healthy nature.' Both are quite in agreement in their goal to reconcile knowledge and belief. The decisive affinities lie deeper, though. Qutb cites no author aside from the Koran as often and as extensively as Carrel. What fascinated Qutb about Carrel was, as Islamic Studies scholar Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi wrote in his 1996 book Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence, first of all his view of humanity 'which he relies on more than the Koran.' Second, Qutb follows Carrel's method. The pious doctor complains that 'man, this whole,' this unique, complex being, is being subdivided and torn apart by social reality and science... The exclusive concentration on the material nature of man had the effect of repressing his spiritual side. [18] [19]

Abdal Hakim Murad, writing for The American Muslim, sees Qutb's anti-semitism as deriving from Carrel:

Antisemitism forms part of (the Islamist) vision too, certainly. But since, as Goldhagen confirms, this is an essentially Christian phenomenon, to be healed by correcting the views of the Evangelists, in an Islamic context which lacks a letter-spirit dichotomy it seems a hazier resource for identity construction. Qutb was influenced by the Vichy theorist Alexis Carrel (1873-1944), through his odd, vitalist tract LHomme, cet inconnu, which remains an ultimate, though unacknowledged, source text for much modern Islamism. [20]

Youssef Choueiri also sees a connection between Qutb and fascist ideology:

"What Qutb fails to inform his vanguard, however, is that the code of conduct he subsequently elaborated in his commentary on the Koran matches that of Carrel much more than Muhammad's own Traditions. The result is not an indigenous form of governance, but a Third World version of Fascism."(see note #10)

Similarly, Aziz al-Azmeh sees this same connection:

"Both Ali Shariati and Sayyid Qutb were great admirers of Alexis Carrel - a famous eugenicist of the 1920s, cultural advisor to the Marechal Petain, who railed against degeneration within, and advocated the cause of a small saviour minority which will bring health to the body of society diseased by degeneration."[21]

According to Tariq Ali:

"(T)he fundamentalists can be seen as the Muslim version of the National Front in France or the neo-fascists in the Italian government. A Western writer greatly appreciated by Muslim thinkers, a writer whose work fuels radical Islam, is Alexis Carrel, a Petainist whose books are also studied avidly in Le Pen's training camps." BLOOD AND BELIEF(see section titled: Replying to Huntington)

John Calvert, writing in Orbis, the journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, sees resonances between Qutbian Islamist philosophy and both fascism and "bolshevism":

(I)t would be incorrect to label radical Islam a utopian ideology, in the strict meaning of that term. Whereas utopias are models of the future based upon speculative discussion and planning, radical Islam is the expression of the collective conviction intuited in the moment. Much like fascism, radical Islam makes the revolutionary process central to its concerns at the expense of a fully thought-out “‘orthodox stage when the dynamics of society settle down to becoming ‘steady-state,’ namely when its internal and external enemies have been eliminated and new institutions created[...] "The situation of Islamist vanguardism is analogous to, and may well be a derivation of, the Bolshevik experience, where Lenin created a vanguard of dedicated political agents in order to diffuse socialism to the masses."[22]

According to an article published on a Salafi Islamist website called www.salafipublications.com:

"Sayyid Qutb was influenced heavily by...Alexis Carrel...(Qutb) borrows heavily from his observations and concurs with many many of his philosophical ideas about man, human nature, moral and social systems. Qutb developed his idea of "Jaahiliyyah" directly from the writings of Alexis Carrel. However, he did differ with him on the proposed solution that he envisaged..." [23]

For more on the Qutb/Carrel connection, see the following sources:

* Ali, Tariq. Clash of Fundamentalisms Verso, London, 2002 * Choueiri, Youssef. Islamic Fundamentalism Continuum International Publishing Group, London, 2002. * Walther, Rudolph. Die seltsamen Lehren des Doktor Carrel, DIE ZEIT 31.07.2003 Nr.32 * Pioneers of Islamic Revival (edited by Ali Rahnema), Zed Books, London 1994 * Abu-Rabi, Ibrahim M. Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence, SUNY Press, Albany, 1996 * Azmeh, Aziz (Aziz Al-Azmeh). Islams and Modernities Verso, London, 1993. * Berman, Paul. Terror and Liberalism W. W. Norton, 2003

Not all observers believe that Qutb adopted a fascist posture. For example, Robert Irwin, the Middle East editor of the Times Literary Supplement, writes "Qutb seems to have rejected all kinds of government, secular and theocratic, and, on one reading at least, he seems to advocate a kind of anarcho-Islam" [24].

According to New York University professor Chris Matthew Sciabarra "(w)hatever totalitarian echoes one sees in the Qutbian vision, there are distinctions that disqualify the usage of the word "Islamofascism" to describe it, or to describe Islamic fundamentalism in general." However, Sciabarra also states that "(i)t is no great leap to realize the dictatorial implications of this utopian vision, whose enforcement would echo the totalitarian projects of fascism, Nazism, and communism." [25] See Islamofascism.

Finally, Khalid Durán, who coined the word Islamism, summed up his views on the fascist nature of this movement in his "Muslims and Islamists in America":

"Islamism is a late 20th century totalitarianism. It follows in the wake of Fascism and Communism, picking up from those and seeking to refine their methods of domination. Islamists mold tradition so as to serve their political ends. This causes them to clash with traditionalist Muslims who resist this manipulation of religion for power politics. Islamism is not a reaction of people feeling a loss of religious meaning, but a reaction to a sense of loss in the political sphere; it is a quest for power, an attempt to conquer the state, not to regain independence for religion, least of all individual faith." [26]