This din [religion] is a universal declaration of the freedom of man from slavery to other men and to his own desires, which is also a form of human servitude. It is a declaration that the sovereignty belongs only to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds. It challenges all such systems based on the sovereignty of man, i.e., where man attempts to usurp the attribute of Divine sovereignty. Any system in which final decisions are referred to human beings, and in which the source of all authority are men, deifies human beings by designating others than Allah as lords over men.
-Sayyid Qutb, Milestones
The source essay for this quote seems a bit sketchy, with a few strained analogies. I wonder whether the line about "final decisions" can be assumed into Christian warnings against the divinization of the state without doing violence to Qutb's vision. Likewise, there's the possibility that Qutb could endorse forcing others to be freed from their enslavement to desire.
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