Muhammad Qutb

Muhammad Qutb, (ˈkʌtəb; محمد قطب;‎ 1919 – April 4, 2014) was a Muslim author, scholar and teacher who is best known as the younger brother of the Egyptian Muslim thinker Sayyid Qutb. After his brother was executed by the Egyptian government, Muhammad moved to Saudi Arabia, where he promoted his brother's ideas. Muhammad Qutb was the second oldest of five children born in the Upper Egyptian village of Musha near Asyut, 13 years younger than his elder brother, Sayyid. When his father died in 1933, his mother moved with her children to live in Helwan near Cairo. He studied English literature at the Cairo University, graduating in 1940, and later obtained diplomas in psychology and education. He was arrested a few days before Sayyid (on July 29, 1965) for his alleged co-leadership along with his brother in a plot to kill leading political and cultural figures in Egypt and overthrow the government. His brother died on the gallows in 1966, but Muhammad's life was spared and he, along with other members of the Muslim Brotherhood took refuge in Saudi Arabia. There he edited and published Sayyid's books and taught as a professor of Islamic Studies at (according to different sources) either Mecca's Umm al-Qura University, and/or King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, and that either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri (al Qaeda's #2 and leading theorist), was a student. Osama bin Laden recommended "Sheikh Muhammad Qutb's" book, "Concepts that Should be Corrected in a 2004 videotape. According to Lawrence Wright, who interviewed Muhammad Qutb and a close friend in college of bin Laden's, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden "usually attended" Muhammad Qutb's weekly public lectures at King Abdul-Aziz University. In addition to making available his brother's work, he worked to advance his ideas by "smoothing away" differences between his brother's radical supporters and more conservative Muslims, particularly other members of the Muslim Brotherhood.