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The Platonic influence on Qutb’s ideas manifests itself most brightly in his “Signposts on the Road”. Plato founded the justice principle in his “Republic” on the principle of specialization, meaning that each member of the society should only perform the job he/she is suited to. Consequently, Plato proceeded his argument by specifying that the best suited to rule in his Kallipolis (The Philosopher-King) should the only ones who rule, and nobody else. If we consider that the role of the Philosopher-King in the Platonic model is to lead its citizens to the light of truth and justice outside of the cave with its fake illusive shadows, then by the same token, we can see that Qutb divided his ideal society into an educated vanguard, added to ordinary masses. He further assigned to the vanguard the duty of leading the masses out of the cave of corruption and jahiliyya towards the light of Islam.
Nevertheless, Qutb in his 30-volumes work “In the Shade of the Qur’an” goes into deep details regarding the ideal model for good child rearing as to reinforce, preserve, and sustain his utopian system, provided that it would be acquirable in the near future. It was actually Plato who specified very detailed codes for good child upbringing methods in the Kallipolis, as a means to maintain the status quo of his ideal city as soon as it would be achievable.
In the mid 1960s, after Qutb had ended his imprisonment duration, he worked in undercover with the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement to apply the means he had set forth in “Signposts on the Road” in order to practically achieve his utopian end. Qutb was again arrested, but this time under serious allegations of taking direct part in planning to bomb and sabotage a variety of vital structures in Egypt, such as some bridges on the Nile in Cairo, and the Delta Barrages. Following these events, Qutb was finally trialed and hanged by Nasser’s regime in 1966.
It is crucial to note that initial utopian intentions of both Plato and Qutb were essentially about establishing a virtuous society instead of an actually-existing corrupt situation, based on some noble principles, whether justice in the case of Plato, or Islam as seen by Qutb. Not only did the means both thinkers suggested for the attainment of their promised utopias come to be of hardcore radical nature, but also they influenced to a considerable level the ideas of the following generations. Moreover, it has turned out by putting the means each of Socrates and Qutb established for pursuing their ideal models, that if such models are to be theoretically attainable, they would result in a system where justice is the advantage of the stronger party that can reach the decision-making chair and sustain it by every permissible or impermissible means.
Furthermore, by putting into a comparison the execution of Qutb with that of Socrates, the initial ideologue of the “Republic”, important deductions may emerge. While sophism represented to Socrates the ultimate synonym of ignorance and injustice, and while secularism and westernization represented the ultimate evil to Qutb, the ideas of both ideologues were considered by their contemporary decision-makers to be radical and against all well-established customs. Furthermore, while the immediate fate of both thinkers was execution, the response of the following generations to their tragic way in which they had died ranged from admiration and inspiration to sentiments that they deserved such an outcome. At the end, the ideas of Plato and Qutb have continued to have a great impact, whether positive of negative, on the following generations.
By the same method in which the Platonic “Republic” has been always taken into account for quite a number of contemporary utopian thinkers, including Qutb himself, the writings of the latter and his thoughts have been considered to be the main idiom guiding the behavior of all militant Islamized groups, including Al-Qaeda for example. In accordance, the defeat of Nasser in 1967 by Israel represented a crucial turning point in the Middle East, since, not only did it mark the failure of Arab nationalism and Nasserite socialism, but also it opened the way to the other untried alternative: Islamized political movements.
To many fundamentalist Muslims, the big defeat of Nasser in 1967 was considered to be God’s punishment for his execution of Qutb. Furthermore, the death of Nasser and the rise of Anwar As-Sadat into power brought more freedom of operation to the Muslim Brotherhood. Sadat’s intention was to topple down the socialist tide in Egyptian universities by counterbalancing it with the Islamic tide, and he succeeded to a great extent in reaching his initial objective. Although Sadat was extremely lenient in dealing with the Islamic movements, the inflexion point that ended this honey moon was Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977, added to his 1979 Camp David unilateral peace treaty with Israel. To even other Arab governments, Sadat’s unilateral peace with Israel after 40 years of hostilities presented an overwhelming shock that led to a serious breach in the ties between Egypt and its Arab neighbors, to the extent that the official headquarters of the Arab League was transferred from Cairo to Tunis. Relatively, the reaction of Islamized groups to Sadat’s decisions was far off violent than that of Arab governments.
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Writer Profile
Saladin
My name is Ayman el-Hakea, I am a Construction Engineering graduate from the American University in Cairo. My origins date to an interesting mixture of Yemeni, Moroccan, Albanian, and Egyptian ancestors. I always try to be a moderate Muslim, I like animation, geopolitics, comparative religion, and football. I like to be with "people"...and I hope my writing isn't boring for anyone.
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Comments
Keep on the good work Naglaa Muhammad | Jan 14th, 2007
MASHALLAH,i did really enjoy reading it ,it's quite very informative too
Inspiration by plato Nathan Vogel | Feb 6th, 2007
I don't really think that all the theorists since Plato were inspired by the Republic because they were all responding to contemporary crises. That is just what theorists do. And probably Plato was not the first. If I eat because I'm hungry, I'm not being inspired by the first person who used eating to alleviate hunger. I could totally be wrong though, so I'd love to hear what you think.
Reply from the author Ayman El Hakea | Feb 26th, 2007
I totally agree about your well-said points, however, we should not neglect the cumulative influence of ancient thinkers on present-day politics. I invite you to have a look on Plato's influence on modern Neo-Conservative thinkers in the US, such as Leo Strauss, as an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss#Philosophy
Politics Patricia Sudi | Mar 8th, 2007
What is your view of Plato,s theory on current day political and democratic institutions especially in developing countries?
Neo-Platonism Ayman El Hakea | Mar 20th, 2007
Well Patricia, I think that idealistic models , whether hyper-radical Islam or Neo-Conservatism, are extremely inspired by Paltonism.
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