Friday, May 01, 2009
Osama bin Laden: Qutbist, Qutbist, Qutbist
American officials fighting against Islamic terrorism should utilize a war-of-words to marginalize militant extremists, according to a new comprehensive study, the “Militant Ideology Atlas,” commissioned by the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The key element to this new cultural and psychological strategy is “Qutbism,” named after Sayyid Qutb, an Islamist writer and former leader in the Muslim Brotherhood who was executed in 1966. Qutb was one of the first to advocate the Jihad in struggles against imperialists, thus launching the Jihadi movement.
U.S. military analysts argue that Islamic militants like Osama bin Laden should be branded “Qutbists,” because it not only reflects the origins of their influence, but also because it would humiliate them. Terrorists consider “Qutbi” a negative label “and would much rather be called Jihadi or Salafi,” according to the report, because “[Qutbi] implies that they follow a human and are members of a deviant sect.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Militant Ideology Atlas (by William McCants and Jarret Brachman, U.S. Military Academy) (PDF)
Militant Ideology Atlas – Compendium (by William McCants and Jarret Brachman, U.S. Military Academy) (PDF)
Qutbism (Wikipedia)
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