The Road to Peace

countries have Muslim rule and Muslim administration, why is militancy also in evidence there? It is because Muslims in these countries are not following the above universal principle. To illustrate this, I would like to give two examples from the Muslim world. In Egypt, King Farouk’s rule ended in 1952. Then Gamal Abdel Nasser became president. At that time the Muslim Brotherhood took on the role of the opposition to the government. There was a power struggle between these two factions. To settle the matter, the then president Gamal Abdel Nasser, made a good offer to the Muslim Brotherhood. But Sayyid Qutb, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, refused the offer. This fact has been mentioned in The Lives of the Two Revivers – Hasan al-Banna and Syed Qutb: ‘Nasser…tried to persuade Qutb by offering him any position he wanted in Egypt except its Kingship, saying: “We will give you whatever position you want in the government, whether it’s the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Arts, etc.” Qutb refused every offer.’1 Sayyid Qutb was a very important leader of the Arab world and the acceptance of any one of the above proposals would have opened up great opportunities for him. In ancient Egypt, the Prophet Joseph was likewise offered a post in the department of agriculture by the then reigning king. Now, in the same country, Sayyid Qutb was offered the