two decade-long training from schools such as Al Azhar, all Qutb's formal post-secondary schooling was secular. Qutb's assertion that the Qur'an should be approached as a source of "instruction for obedience and action" (following the fundamentalist prescription that "the Quran is our law,") comes under modernist criticism that of 6000 verses in the Quran only 245 concern legislation, and only 90 of those concern constitutional, civil, financial or economic matters. Qutb's general assertion that the sharia is all-encompassing — a "complete way of life" with rules on everything from "administration and justice" to "principles of art and science" — is challenged by the Modernist claim that sharia law (as revealed to man) is notably short on solutions to modern problems, be they traffic control, price stability, or health care. Freedom Qutb explains that sharia law needs no human authorities for citizens to obey and thus frees humanity from "servitude" because God's law has "no vagueness or looseness" which would necessitate judges to settle disputes over interpretation, and no need for enforcement authorities because "as soon as a command is given, the heads are bowed, and nothing more is required for implementation (of sharia) except to hear it." This uniquely free socioeconomic system not only frees Muslims to be true Muslims, but explains why offensive jihad to "establish the sovereignty of God", i.e. true Islam, "throughout the world" would not constitute aggression towards non-Muslims but rather "a movement to wipe out tyranny" and to introduce "true freedom" to mankind, since even the most contented and patriotic non-Muslim living in a non-Muslim state is still obeying a human authority. These non-Muslims must be freed by Islamic jihad, just as the non-Muslims of Persia or Byzantium were freed by invading Muslim armies in the 7th Century AD. The problem alleged here is that while true Muslims who believe in sharia law might in theory obey it without any state or police to enforce it, non-Muslims would have no such incentive, since by definition they do not consider Islamic law to be divine. However, if obedience were not voluntary, offensive jihad would lose the rationale Qutb claims for it as a movement to wipe out tyranny. Qutb's political philosophy has been described as an attempt to instantiate a complex and multilayer eschatological vision, partly grounded in a counter-hegemonic anti-western view of Islamic 'universalism'. Notes References Bibliography (paging in notes is from this edition) External