Abdessalam Yassine
November 20, 2025
Western civilization today stands utterly bare, stripped of every value save the material and utilitarian gain—measured in profit and loss, in investment and pursuit of return. Materialism has become the true creed of Western democracies, Christian though in name, just as it is the dogma of communist socialisms, which are atheist by principle. Their shared religion is one of military might, strategic balance, economic self-interest, and the race for geopolitical power.
Within those societies, man descends into a brutish hedonism: to fornication and sodomy, now normalized and even protected by law; to crime and narcotics; to “Art,” and every form of escapism that term now implies. This continues until, having exhausted all that material civilization has brought him—security in his livelihood, every opportunity for pleasure—he turns to suicide in his madness. He kills himself to forget his spiritual void, to forget this brutish bliss against which his very human nature cries out in protest.
Here, I wish to remind myself and my fellow brothers and sisters: as we strive to grasp the state of the world with a discerning eye—a vision unclouded by bigotry, untainted by self-serving desire, we must recognize that this material civilization—atheistic in spirit and direction—still stands strong. The human being who built it still retains many noble virtues which we, of all people, desperately need but sorely lack. There remains, for instance, a remarkable commitment to human rights, and associations where the finest consciences of humanity gather, even within a civilization that seems to lack conscience altogether. To ignore these exceptions, to paint the world in absolute darkness, is to deceive ourselves, to indulge the childish vanity of self-glorification by demonizing others.
From Islam and Secular Nationalism, pp. 65-66