freedom displaces virtue

To extreme Islamic thinkers, selective modernization (western technology, eastern culture) is an illusion. In their view, modernity is Western, and they regard as naive the notion that one can import what one likes from America while keeping out what one dislikes. The Islamic argument is that the West is based on principles that are radically different from those of traditional societies. In this view, America is a subversive idea that, if admitted into a society, will produce tremendous and uncontrollable social upheaval. It will eliminate the religious basis for society, it will undermine traditional hierarchies, it will displace cherished values, and it will produce a society unrecognizable from the one it destroyed. 


"Americans have two things on their mind: money and sex."


"Your women are whores."


"In our culture, the parents take care of the children, and later the children take care of their parents. In America, the children abandon their parents."


"Your TV shows are disgusting. You are corrupting the morals of young people."


"We don't object to how you Americans live, but now you are spreading your way of life through the whole planet."

Islam provides the whole framework for Muslim life, and in this sense it is impossible to "practice" Islam within a secular framework. Western institutions are fundamentally atheistic: they are based on a clear rejection of divine authority. When democrats say that sovereignty and political authority are ultimately derived from the people, this means that the people—not God—are the rulers. So democracy is a form of idol worship. Similarly capitalism is based on the premise that the market, not God, makes final decisions of worth. Capitalism, too, is a form of idolatry or market worship.

- Dinesh D'Souza