PhD, mag. art ., Department of the Study of Religion, Faculty of Theology, University of Aarhus.

Project: Sayyid Qutb

Presently, I am revising my PhD dissertation Art & Activism: The Qur’ânic Exegesis of Sayyid Qutb in order to make it ready for publication.

The subject of the dissertation is the main work of the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966): In the shade of the Qur’ân ( Fî zilâl al-Qur’ân ). In his work, Qutb among other things presents a radical Islamist vision of the implementation of an ideal Islamic society of the future. Qutb believed that democracy in its Western shape constituted a rebellion against the sovereignty of God. Man could only realize the will of God by submitting to the will of God and establishing a society based on the Qur’ân and the sunna of the prophet Muhammad. To reach this goal, it was crucial to have a revolutionary elite which in the last resort was willing to use violence to reach its goals. Qutb’s ideas thus came to constitute a significant part of the foundation of modern radical Islamism.