Qutb

American  

[koo-tuhb] / ˈku təb /

noun

Islam.

1. (in Sufism) the highest-ranking saint, the focal point of all spiritual energy.

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Etymology

Origin of Qutb

First recorded in 1895–1900, Qutb is from the Arabic word quṭb literally, axis

Example Sentences

He rejected the teachings of renowned Muslim Brotherhood firebrand Sayyid Qutb, whose support of armed struggle helped give the ideological underpinnings for al-Qaeda, Egypt’s Islamic Jihad and, later, some leaders of the Islamic State.

From Washington Post

“His invalidation of Qutb’s thought on jihad, in making the distinction that individual terrorist attacks are not jihad and that jihad is governed by specific rules, is his greatest legacy,” the veteran Egyptian journalist Abdel Azim Hammad said in an interview.

From New York Times

An earnest, academically gifted youth, he was influenced early in life by one of his uncles, Mahfouz Azzam, an impassioned critic of Egypt’s secularist government, and by the writings of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian author and intellectual who became one of the founders of 20th-century Islamist extremism.

From Washington Post

According to an account by Lawrence Wright in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Looming Tower,” it was the execution of Qutb by Egypt’s government in 1966 that inspired Zawahiri, then 15, to organize a group of young friends into an underground cell devoted to the overthrow of Egypt’s government and the establishment of an Islamic theocracy.

From Washington Post

He was inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb, an Islamist executed in 1966 on charges of trying to overthrow the state.

From Reuters