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" what he perceived as man’s increasing state of isolation and sinfulness.

Qutb blamed Christianity for this state of affairs, but not for the reasons you might guess. Though Christianity and Islam have much in common, Qutb saw that they completely differed in their relationship to government, and, thus, day-to-day life.

Unlike Islam, which brought order to a region of warring tribes, Christianity was born to the Roman Empire – the most powerful and fully mature state yet seen in history. Jesus set a clear example for his followers that his new religion would coexist with, not replace, the secular government. He did this both in word (“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”) and deed (submitting to the authority of Pontius Pilate even though it meant his death).

This recognition of civil authority become a cornerstone of Christian politics throughout its early history and would later give rise in the 17th and 18th centuries to what philosophers alternately call “modernism” and “Liberalism.” Both terms refer to a secular culture based on science, reason, individualism, progress, democracy, and, perhaps most important, the concept of the separation of church and state.

In Qutb’s view, this divorce of the secular and the spiritual had inflicted a “hideous schizophrenia” on modern civilization. And nowhere did he see a more troubling case of this illness than in the United States. Qutb concluded that America’s much-ballyhooed freedom of religion was an illusion. The truth was that America’s secularism had suffocated spirituality to the point where it was nothing more than a Sunday ritual. Americans were self-absorbed with no real connection to their god or even to their fellow man.

The cure for this spiritual illness, he wrote, was Islam, the same medicine that had once before revived man from jahiliyyah:
"This religion is really a universal declaration of the freedom of man from servitude to other men and from servitude to his own desires. It is a declaration that sovereignty belongs to God alone and that He is the Lord of all the worlds”

He envisioned an Islamic society, ruled by the law of the Koran, which would rid itself of the West’s vulgar influences. To use an American phrase, it would be “one nation, under god,” but with an important distinction. Eventually, nations would disappear, leaving the whole world for Allah. “A Muslim has no nationality except his belief,” Qutb wrote.

Qutb’s use of jahiliyyah to describe modern events was something of plan for resurrecting Islamic society that he really broke new ground. A departure from Islamic theology of the day, but it was Qutb's.

First, he took the concept of jihad, which traditionally was largely a defensive concept, and expanded it into an offensive struggle that was the obligation of all Muslims. “Domination should be reverted to Allah alone, namely to Islam, that holistic system He conferred upon men,” Qutb wrote. “An all-out offensive, a jihad, should be waged against modernity so that this moral rearmament could take place. The ultimate objective is to re-establish the Kingdom of God upon earth.”

Second, Qutb made the case that there was more to being a Muslim than simply professing to be one. Consequently, any “Muslim” leader who failed to impose divine law was not, in fact, a Muslim and thus subject to the retribution of jihad."

http://www.5280.com/magazine/2003/06/al-qaeda%E2%80%99s-greeley-roots?page=full

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