Heft 24: “The Hand that rocks the Cradle is the Hand that rules the World”

Muḥammad Quṭb (b. 1919) is the younger brother of the Islamist ideologue Saiyid Quṭb. Despite his popularity as a writer and thinker in the Islamic world and his influence on the interpretation of the teaching of his brother, his work has received little attention from western scholars. This study examines his thought by focussing on his theory of feminism as a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Islam and the need to counter the threat in order to bring about the rebirth of the religion. It also shows how he develops the teaching of Saiyid Quṭb as well as introducing new concepts not found in the work of his brother. Antonia Bosanquet was born in Newfoundland, Canada in 1979. She obtained a B. A. degree in theology from the University of Cambridge before entering Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, where she majored in Islamic Studies, with minors in Judaic Studies and Politics. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Berlin Graduate School for Muslim Societies and Cultures, where she is researching the contemporary reception of Ibn Qaiyim al-Ğauzīya’s teaching about Jews.