{"id":157,"date":"2010-09-20T06:13:35","date_gmt":"2010-09-20T10:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/s11\/apsr-andrew-march-on-sayyid-qutb"},"modified":"2025-09-24T13:06:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T19:06:16","slug":"apsr-andrew-march-on-sayyid-qutb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/s11\/apsr-andrew-march-on-sayyid-qutb\/","title":{"rendered":"APSR: Andrew March on Sayyid Qutb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=apsa_section11\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><em>Taking People As They Are: Islam As a \u201cRealistic Utopia\u201d in the Political Theory of Sayyid Qutb<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">This article presents an interpretation of Sayyid Qutb&#039;s political theory based on a prominent feature of his thought: the claim that Islamic law and human nature (fitra) are in perfect harmony, and that the demands of Islamic law are easy and painless for ordinary human moral capacities. I argue that Qutb is not only defending Islamic law as true and obligatory, but also as a coherent \u201crealistic utopia\u201d\u2014a normative theory that also contains a psychological account of that theory&#039;s feasibility. Qutb&#039;s well-known fascination with the earliest generation of Muslims (the salaf) is an integral part of this account that serves two functions: (1) as a model of the feasibility and realism of an ideal Islamic political order, and (2) as a genealogy of the political origins of moral vice in society. Qutb&#039;s project is thus an account of exactly why and how Islam requires politics, and how modern humans can be both free and governed.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background: #FFFFFF;margin: 0 10px 10px 0;padding: 0 10px 0 0;text-align: left;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;line-height: 1em\">\n<div style=\"font-size: 11px\"><strong>ANDREW F. MARCH (2010).<\/strong><br \/> <a href=\"http:\/\/journals.cambridge.org\/action\/displayJournal?jid=PSR\">American Political Science Review<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/journals.cambridge.org\/action\/displayJournal?jid=PSR&amp;volumeId=104&amp;bVolume=y#loc104\">Volume 104<\/a>,  <a href=\"http:\/\/journals.cambridge.org\/action\/displayIssue?jid=PSR&amp;volumeId=104&amp;issueId=01&amp;seriesId=0\"> Issue 01<\/a>, February 2010 pp 189-207 <br \/> <a href=\"http:\/\/journals.cambridge.org\/action\/displayAbstract?aid=7449460\">http:\/\/journals.cambridge.org\/action\/displayAbstract?aid=7449460<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taking People As They Are: Islam As a \u201cRealistic Utopia\u201d in the Political Theory of Sayyid Qutb Abstract This article presents an interpretation of Sayyid Qutb&#039;s political theory based on a prominent feature of his thought: the claim that Islamic law and human nature (fitra) are in perfect harmony, and that the demands of Islamic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3307,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apsr-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/s11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/s11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/s11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/s11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/s11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/s11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/s11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/s11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/s11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}