Criticism
Qutb's book was originally a bestseller and became more popular as the Islamic revival strengthened. Islamists have hailed him as "a matchless writer, ... one of the greatest thinkers of contemporary Islamic thought," and compared to Western political philosopher John Locke. Egyptian intellectual Tariq al-Bishri has compared the influence of Milestones to Vladimir Lenin's pamphlet What Is To Be Done?, where the founder of modern Communism outlined his theories of how Communism would be different than socialism. Author Gilles Kepel credits Milestones with "unmasking" the socialist and "nominally" Islamic "faces" of the Egyptian regime Qutb lived under.
Outside the Islamist context, however Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq has been criticized by Muslims for the takfir of "jahili" Muslims, and by non-Muslims for its accusations against same, particularly following the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
Read more about this topic: Ma'alim Fi Al-Tariq
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“To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons.”
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“I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.”
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