Abul A'la Maududi and Sayyed Qutb on Revolution: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Revolution in terms of a change process has been subject to debate in 
occidental as well as in oriental intellectual and political circles alike. For 
instance, in the modern history, though revolution in terms of an 
instrument of instability was despicable to German philosopher Friedrich 
Hegel owing to a profound influence of Romanticism which in the wake 
of French Revolution, with the philosophical crutches provided by 
Edmond Burk and Hume overshadowed Rationalism but at the same time,
he cherished the idea of revolution in terms of an agent of positive 
development of history on the basis of dialectics.1 He deserves rich 
tributes to present a logical conflict-model of opposite ideas which he 
terms as thesis and anti-thesis resulting in the emergence of a new idea 
which is synthesis of the good qualities of thesis and anti-thesis. In other 
words, he viewed conflict as a positive source of historical development 
and a medium of transferring positive qualities from one phase of history 
to another meaning thereby that conflict finds justification only if it helps 
to develop a better system than the existing one.