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[Sayyid Qutb] and weakens only if its creed weakens. It is defeated only if its spirit is defeated. Its enemies can achieve nothing against it while it holds fast to the bond of faith, relies upon its support, follows its method, carries its banner, represents its party, belongs to it, and takes pride in that bond alone.

From this it appears that this community’s worst enemy is the person who distracts it from its creed of faith, turns it away from God’s method and path, and deceives it about the true nature of its enemies and their distant aims.

The battle between the Muslim community and its enemies is, before everything else, a battle over this creed. Even when its enemies want to overcome it for land, crops, the economy, and raw materials, they first try to overcome it in its creed. Long experience has taught them that they can achieve none of what they want while the Muslim community holds fast to its creed, adheres to its method, and understands its enemies’ schemes. Those enemies and their agents therefore exert tremendous effort to deceive this community about the true nature of the battle, so that afterward they may win from it all they want through colonial rule and exploitation, safe from the resolve of this creed in people’s hearts.

Whenever the methods used to scheme against this creed, cast doubt upon it, and weaken its bonds advance, its enemies employ those new and advanced methods, but for the same old purpose: “A group of the People of the Book wish that they could lead you astray.”

This is the fixed and hidden aim.

For this reason, the Qur’an first repelled this poisoned weapon. It would hold the Muslim community firm upon the truth it possessed and dispel the doubts and suspicions that

[Later compiler's note 5, continued from printed page 21] = the defeat of 1967 by a matter of weeks!!! Then came the persistent, long-term insistence on keeping Islam away from the question of Palestine, for example.