History of sayyid qutb milestones

About the Book

Egyptian Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) published Ma’alim fi’l-Tariq (known, in English, as Milestones or Signposts on the Path) in 1964. Since that time, the book has become one of the 20th Century’s most influential Islamic texts, available in almost every language, with over 2000 editions in print.

Milestones has inspired both Islamist terrorist organizations (like al Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad) and supplied the ideological basis for the Muslim Brotherhood’s ultimate political goals as well as their tactics. The Muslim Brotherhood (a group to which Qutb belonged since 1951) has recently praised him, saying: “[Qutb] does for the Islamic world what John Locke did for western democracy and liberalism.”

Qutb and Maududi (seeJihad in IslamandTafhim al-Qur’an, both jihad-endorsing texts found in American mosques) held similar views on jihad, warfare of conquest against non-Muslims, the importance of the Sha Sayyid qutb.