The usual object of terror is to draw one’s opponent into repressive blunders, and bin Laden caught America at a vulnerable and unfortunate moment in its history.

Yet Bin Laden and his Arab Afghans believed that, in Afghanistan, they had turned the tide and that Islam was again on the march.

Now they face the greatest military, material, and cultural power any civilization had ever produced.  “Jihad against America?” some of the al-Qaeda members asked in dismay.  “America knows everything about us.  It knows even the label of our underwear.”  They saw how weak and splintered their own governments were - empowered only by the force of America’s need to maintain the status quo.  The oceans, the skies, even the heavens were patrolled by the Americans.  America was not distant, it was everywhere.

“Write my words.” Qutb responded, “My words will be stronger if they kill me.”

Sayyid Qutb was hanged after dawn prayers on August 29, 1966.