The Man from Musha

In the 1950s, Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian man, spent two years as an exchange student at a teacher’s college in Greeley, Colorado. During his stay, many aspects of American Life disgusted him. The amount of time people spent mowing their lawn, the shitty barbers, bland American food. But there was one particular thing that disgusted him the most. While at a church dance, he witnessed and I quote:
“The dance hall convulsed to the tunes on the gramophone and was full of bounding feet and seductive legs. Arms circled waists, lips met lips, chests met chests, and the atmosphere was full of passion.”
He also described the lyrics of one song he hated in particular:
“A dialogue between a boy and a girl returning from their evening date. The boy took the girl to his home and kept her from leaving. She entreated him to let her return home, for it was getting late and her mother was waiting, but every time she would make an excuse, he would reply to her with his line: but baby it’s cold outside.”

When Qutb returned to Egypt, he was a changed man, determined to reject the West and embrace a purified version of Islam. He eventually became a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, plotted to assassinate Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, and was executed by hanging in 1966. But his teachings and writings became a primary inspiration for a generation of militant Islamists, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

To me, Baby It’s Cold Outside is not about female empowerment or possible implications of date rape.

It’s about the inception and formation of Al-Qaeda and rise of Islamic fundamentalism.