This chapter examines and contextualizes Sayyid Qutb’s doctrine of property and social justice, which he articulated at a time of deep social conflicts in Egypt. The chapter describes how Qutb, along with other writers concerned with economic inequality in the 1920s–40s such as Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949) and Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri (1895–1971), conceptualised private ownership as a form of power that must be limited by religious obligations and subordinated to the public good. The chapter further shows that Qutb made this notion of restrained property central to a broader theory of social justice and wealth redistribution by combining the social teachings of the Qur’an with the modern ideal of the centralized interventionist state. Arguably this endeavour to revitalise the Quranic roots of Islamic charity and simultaneously appropriate the discourse of modern statehood made Qutb’s position oscillate between legalism and anti-legalism.
Visual graphics for human rights, social justice, democracy and the public good
