44mean Islamism? There’s no such thing.” The
Muslim Brotherhood hates groups like the Islamic
State, and the Islamic State would kill members of
the Muslim Brotherhood. I always remind them,
that’s like saying there’s no such thing as commu-
nism just because Stalin is said to have killed
Trotsky. It’s an absurd conclusion to reach. Of
course there’s a thing called communism. And
there’s a thing called Islamism. It’s an ideology.
People are seeking to bring it about, but they differ
in their approach.
Degrees of religious conviction are not what
will help us understand the differences among ji-
hadists, revolutionary Islamists, po liti cal Islamists,
and non- Islamist Muslims. Let’s take Sayyid Qutb,
for example. Qutb was a member of the Muslim
Brotherhood and is now known as one of the
founding fathers of the theory that eventually be-
came modern jihadism. The Egyptian regime killed
him for writing a book, which he wrote while in-
carcerated in the same prison I came to be held in
many years later. It takes a high degree of religious
conviction to die merely for writing a book, and that,
for the Brotherhood, was martyrdom. Likewise,
Hizb ut- Tahrir members glorify the death of their
members at the hands of the regime, but not the
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