According to “Communication between Cultures” by Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, and Roy, a culture’s deep structure is composed of: “such elements as family (clans), state (community), and religion (worldview), [which] are important because they perpetuate a culture’s most significant beliefs and values.”
So when we discuss Western culture, we are discussing Western family units, Western political structures, and Western religions or worldviews. That is the deep structure and what really composes any culture, not the kinds of food that they like or the clothes that they wear. Those are secondary issues.
Max Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” demonstrates an intellectual lineage from Protestant Christianity to modern capitalist ways of life. He shows how a Protestant perspective of a person’s relationship with God, as something primarily abstract and private – highly individualistic – lead to the formation of modern capitalist society. Calvanism in particular replaced the public communal worship of God with the public communal worship of material wealth, and the personal relationship with Jesus with the personal relationship to any deity which would make you better at worship of wealth.
Talal Asad further demonstrates in “Formations of the Secular” that the idea of secularism as opposed to “religion” is a false dichotomy, and that secularism is as much of a way of life “Din” as is any other way of life. Therefore, the idea that Islam can co-exist alongside secularism is patently false because secularism does not co-exist with any other Din. What secularism does is co-opt other ways of life to great a greater secular capitalist public space and allow token dedication to highly limited versions of those other Adyan in the form of “religion.” Religion is a construct designed to control and subjugate all other ways of life that are not a part of this modern secular religion.
ثُمَّ أَوْحَيْنَآ إِلَيْكَ أَنِ ٱتَّبِعْ مِلَّةَ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ حَنِيفًۭا ۖ وَمَا كَانَ مِنَ ٱلْمُشْرِكِينَ ١٢٣
Then We revealed to you, [O Muḥammad], to follow the Millah of Abraham, inclining toward truth; and he was not of those who associate with Allāh.
[Surah al-Nahl, The Bee (16):123]
Millah could be translated as culture.
قَدْ كَانَتْ لَكُمْ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌۭ فِىٓ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ وَٱلَّذِينَ مَعَهُۥٓ إِذْ قَالُوا۟ لِقَوْمِهِمْ إِنَّا بُرَءَٰؤُا۟ مِنكُمْ وَمِمَّا تَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ كَفَرْنَا بِكُمْ وَبَدَا بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَكُمُ ٱلْعَدَٰوَةُ وَٱلْبَغْضَآءُ أَبَدًا حَتَّىٰ تُؤْمِنُوا۟ بِٱللَّهِ وَحْدَهُۥٓ إِلَّا قَوْلَ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ لِأَبِيهِ لَأَسْتَغْفِرَنَّ لَكَ وَمَآ أَمْلِكُ لَكَ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ مِن شَىْءٍۢ ۖ رَّبَّنَا عَلَيْكَ تَوَكَّلْنَا وَإِلَيْكَ أَنَبْنَا وَإِلَيْكَ ٱلْمَصِيرُ ٤
There has already been for you an excellent pattern in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people, “Indeed, we are disassociated from you and from whatever you worship other than Allāh. We have denied you, and there has appeared between us and you animosity and hatred forever until you believe in Allāh alone” – except for the saying of Abraham to his father, “I will surely ask forgiveness for you, but I have not [power to do] for you anything against Allāh. Our Lord, upon You we have relied, and to You we have returned, and to You is the destination.
[Surah al-Mumtahanah, The Examined Woman (60):4]
Islam requires us to reject and oppose all other Adyan (ways of life) and to join the Millah (culture) of Ibrahim.
