Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- 1 Islam and the Science-Religion Debates in Modern Times
- 2 Islamic Fundamentalism Reconsidered: A Critical Outline of Problems, Ideas and Approaches
- 3 The Struggle Over the Meaning of Islam
- 4 Appendix: What is Islamism? A Short and Compact Answer
- 5 Appendix: The Takfir Syllogism
- Notes
- Acknowledgements
- Chronological Table of Contents
5 - Appendix: The Takfir Syllogism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 October 2025
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- 1 Islam and the Science-Religion Debates in Modern Times
- 2 Islamic Fundamentalism Reconsidered: A Critical Outline of Problems, Ideas and Approaches
- 3 The Struggle Over the Meaning of Islam
- 4 Appendix: What is Islamism? A Short and Compact Answer
- 5 Appendix: The Takfir Syllogism
- Notes
- Acknowledgements
- Chronological Table of Contents
Summary
One grave consequence of the ruling ideas of contemporary radical Jihadi Islam is “takfir” or “apostazation” of all ruling regimes and governments in Muslim countries, declaring the whole lot as no more than nominally Muslim societies that require urgent re-Islamization.
The following is an attempt at formulating rigorously this far reaching logic of takfiri Islam in the shape of what may be called “The Takfir Syllogism”, using the Muslim Brothers in Egypt as an instance and the thoughts of Sayyid Qutb as a basis:
1) The Muslim Brothers were persecuted and tortured in Egypt when all they were saying was “God is our Lord”, “Islam is our Way”, and “The Koran is our constitution” and when all they were doing was to work for Islam in a supposedly Muslim country and society.
2) Those who carried out the persecution of the Muslim Brothers and inflicted such pain and suffering on them for saying what they were saying and for doing what they were doing cannot be real Muslims and must be Kafirs (apostats). 3) If these agents of persecution and practitioners of torture are Kafirs then the authorities that appoint them and that commanded them to do what they did must be even more Kafirs than those Kafirs.
4) All the elites that do not acknowledge that those authorities are Kafirs are themselves Kafirs as well.
5) Therefore: the popular masses, who obey, applaud and follow these Kafir authorities and their Kafir elites become Kafirs themselves because any approval of Kufr (apostasy) is itself Kufr..
Information
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- Chapter
- Information
- On FundamentalismsCollected Essays on Islam and Politics, pp. 177 - 178Publisher: Gerlach BooksPrint publication year: 2014
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