"The only religious aspect of Qutb’s thought is his belief that the Koran is the unmediated word of God, a belief that he does not, because he cannot, justify. For him, the will of God is indisputably known without any need of interpretation, and in fact he knows it. It isn’t difficult to see, then, that in the name of the destruction of all political authority and of the lordship of man over man in obedience to God’s will, Qutb thinks he ought to be total dictator, and that he is as obsessed with the here and now as any Marxist.
It is the same old story. As Dostoyevsky said, starting out from limitless freedom, we end up with total despotism," - Theodore Dalrymple in an essay whose title is engraved on Karl Rove's heart, "There Is No God But Politics."