Substance?

I know this is from last week’s lecture, but oh well.

By the end of class last week, we were discussing Hassan al-Banna’s Toward the Light and Sayyid Qutb’s Milestones. We concluded that writings like these gave the author’s opinion of what to do, but had no concrete substance. I was just wondering, then, if whether the writer’s reference to the Qur’an was their substance…did al-Banna and Qutb advise the reader to go to the Qur’an and find all the answers there? Is that why they never gave any of their own methods and understandings? But, then again, al-Ghazali and Rumi state their personal methods, in addition to learning from the Qur’an.

An additional point is that aren’t al-Banna’s and Qutb’s texts merely political theories? Their only justification is the Golden Age for Muslims, but that’s it. And What is the likelihood that such a society is possible today? I believe that more than putting their philosophy into practical use, their methodology simply serves to bolster the people’s self-esteems. The authors merely provide utopian statements wihtout a method of applying them practically. But, maybe simply giving people hope is good enough…

I know this is from last week’s lecture, but oh well.

In class last week, we were discussing Hassan al-Banna’s Toward the Light and Sayyid Qutb’s Milestones. We concluded that writings like these gave the author’s opinion of what to do, but had no concrete substance. I was just wondering, then, if whether the writer’s reference to the Qur’an was their substance…did al-Banna and Qutb advise the reader to go to the Qur’an and find all the answers there? Is that why they never gave any of their own methods and understandings? But, then again, al-Ghazali and Rumi state their personal methods, in addition to learning from the Qur’an.

An additional point is that aren’t al-Banna’s and Qutb’s texts merely political theories? Their only justification is the Golden Age for Muslims, but that’s it. And What is the likelihood that such a society is possible today? I believe that more than putting their philosophy into practical use, their methodology simply serves to bolster the people’s self-esteems. The authors merely provide utopian statements without a method of applying them practically. But, maybe simply giving people hope is good enough…