Milestones

Milestones (in Arabic, Ma'alim fi al-Tariq, rendered as "Milestones Along the Way" or "Signposts on the Road") is a short book first published in 1964 by the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb, one of the most influential figures in contemporary Islamism. It was written while Qutb was imprisoned on charges of conspiring against the authoritarian regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser, and it marks the culmination of his development from a modernist author and critic into an Islamist activist and, finally, a revolutionary theorist.

In the book, Qutb argues that the Muslim community has been "extinct" for centuries and has fallen back into jahiliyya, the state of ignorance that preceded Islam. The cause, in his view, is that those who call themselves Muslims do not follow the sharia, which he understands in an all-encompassing way: not merely a body of laws but a complete way of life covering beliefs, administration, justice and even the arts. To obey any human authority is, by his reasoning, to worship it, so presidents, parliaments and the statutes of secular states would fall outside the true religion.

The practical proposal of the book centres on a vanguard of believers who, imitating the companions of the Prophet, would separate themselves from jahili society, rejecting its learning and its ties, and would work both through preaching and through organised action to dismantle existing institutions. Qutb maintains that jihad must be offensive and extend across the world, and he urges his followers to accept poverty, sacrifice and even torture and death.

Its reception has been sharply divided. Admirers regard it as an inspiring work by a martyr, since Qutb was executed in 1966. Critics see it as a text that fed modern jihadist ideology and the current known as "Qutbism". The book spread widely across the Arab world, with close to two thousand editions reported by 2001, and it is widely considered one of the most influential Islamist works of the last half century.