Qutb arrived at Colorado State College of Education in Greeley in 1948. He didn’t much like it. “I stayed there six months and never did I see a person or a family actually enjoying themselves,” he wrote. Even gardening drew his contempt: “There is nothing behind this activity in the way of beauty or artistic taste. It is the machinery of organization and arrangement, devoid of spirituality and aesthetic enjoyment.”

But contempt curdled into revulsion when Qutb dropped in on a church dance that followed a service—a shocking juxtaposition in itself: “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.”