So let's take a close look at the Milestones and its ideas.
The key principle of the milestones into understanding Kuttab is
the division of the world between Jahiliyyah and Islam.
The Jahilli period is seen as the period,
classically before the time of
the Prophet Muhammad when there was great disorder and conflict.
Disorder and conflict that was healed by the rise of the Prophet Muhammad,
his acceptance of the revelations from God and the formation of
the Islamic religion and the development of their followers, the Muslim people.
And Kuttab looks at his times when he was writing,
the 1950s and he analogizes those times
for the Muslim people as the same as before Islam was created.
He says it is a period of Jahiliyyah.
In the milestones he argues that "The whole world is steeped in Jahiliyyah...
It's based on rebellion against God's sovereignty on earth."
So he believes that the period that they're living in,
is that there are other sovereigns,
that people are not following God's will.
He says, "Our whole environment,
people's beliefs and ideas,
their habits and art,
rules and laws - is Jahiliyyah even to the extent we consider it to be Islamic culture,
Islamic sources, Islamic philosophy and
Islamic thought are also constructs of Jahiliyyah!"
So remember back to the last lecture,
a Kuttab is rejecting all those scientific achievements of the Islamic golden age.
In the centuries after when Prophet Muhammad had died long ago,
and he was saying that they were tainted in many ways because they were living
not under a pure Islamic law and practices.
There was an intermingling of the Muslim people with the Christian world.
There was ideas and habits that
were not strictly in accordance in his view with the word of God.
So he considers all those achievements, the science,
the culture, the art to be Jahiliyyah.
For Kuttab, the key element of Jahiliyyah is the notion of man made law.
And he says that man made law is Jahilli.
He says, "Jahiliyyah takes the form of claiming that the right to create values,
to legislate rules of collective behavior,
and to choose any way of life rests with men.".
So he's rejecting a democracy and
other forms of government other than a theocracy really.
He's saying that the only, the right to develop
laws has to be done in accordance with God's will.
And when people are involved,
forming in a democracy or another form of governance when
people are involved in legislating the rules by which people should live,
it is disorder, it is chaos,
it is Jahilli that only adherence to God's law to pure Islam can heal.
So Kuttab strives very much and he wants this return to the time of the first generation.
He says, the first generation,
the followers of the Prophet Muhammad he
says at one time this message of Islam created this generation.
The generation, the companions of the prophet who without
comparison of the history of Islam,
indeed the history of all mankind,
never again did a great number of such people exist in
any one region and as was the case during the first period of Islam.
Why does he hold such veneration for this period?
He says it was during this time only one source of guidance,
they chose, they had only the Koran.
Again, the Muslim civilizations did not extend all the way to Indonesia and into Europe,
and across the African continent,
and through Pakistan and India.
There were all these other influences,
all these other traditions of governance.
The tribes, art, history.
He believe there is only the one source of guidance of the holy Qur'an.
And he says the Qur'an instructed all aspects
of their life which he believes the Koran is all encompassing.
So again not looking towards other kinds of influences in individual's life,
not looking to other forms of guidance like a government, or a group,
or a trade union,
or anything like that,
any secular influences like that he said the Qur'an instructed all aspects.
He saw Islam as being all encompassing.
And he said that the first generation were the greatest generation,
because they were the ones that denounced the disorder and
the Jahilli environment that surrounded
them and so they could be joined completely to Islam.
So Kuttab argues that there's a need for a Muslim revival,
an Islamic revival and he believes that to do
that you have to return to the pure practices of the time of the first generation.
He argues in the Milestones,
"If Islam is again to play the role of the leader of mankind,
that it's necessary that the Muslim community be restored to its original form."
And he means the original form and following the practices of the first generation,
it's necessary to revive that Muslim community which is buried
under the debris of the man made traditions of several generations.
Again, he's talking about all the history after the seventh century
when all these tainted influences in
his view have corrupted and made the practice of Islam,
and the influences that governed Muslim people impure.
The desired end state would be to return again to that pure source,
the source which is free from any mixing or pollution.
Our primary purpose he argues is,
to know what way of life is demanded by us by the Qur'an,
and the kind of legal and constitutional system it asks us to establish in the world.
So the milestones is not principally a religious document,
in many ways it's a political one.
And he makes it very clear is that we have that
the source of this political statement he believes is the Qur'an,
and he believes that the Qur'an tells Muslim people the kind of
legal and constitutional system that must be established around the entire world.
Now in the milestones he
says that there's a process of revival and in order to bring this about,
we need to initiate the movement of Islamic revival in some Muslim countries.
And the process of revival,
the foremost objective is to change the practices of this society.
His aim is to change the system which is
fundamentally at variance with Islam and which with the help
of force and oppression is keeping us from
living the sort of life which is demanded by our Creator.
So not only does he reject all of the influences
that are governing Muslims and he's looking,
of course, at the Nasser regime,
and saying that the secularism and the oppression,
the torture he was facing,
the use of state power against them that's
what he's referring to the help of force and oppression.
He says that those forces as secular rulers foisted upon them
by the colonial powers of the west were keeping them from living a pure life,
the one demanded by God in
his view and dictated by the principles laid out in the Qur'an.
So he's calling for a revival of casting
off of the current and replacement with a new type of society.
David SchanzerAssociate Professor of the Practice
