000_The Revival of Islam will take place within Western cultural forms

By Hasan Spiker, @RealHasanSpiker, May 15, 2026^[1]
Original text slightly edited, footnotes by webeditor.

It seems inevitable that the revival of Islam in the latter days will take place within Western cultural forms.

This will surely involve a transformation of the very highest of Western cultural forms^[2], as illuminated by the “Prophetic breeze" foreseen 200 years ago by al-Rawwas. Yes, in a (hitherto insufficiently well-known) visionary experience, the great Rifa'i saint Imam al-Rawwas^[7] saw that at the very height of the West's dominance and enmity towards Islam, an effusion from the Prophetic Presence ﷺ would bring large numbers of Westerners into Islam, who in virtue of that effusion, would be blessed with an extraordinarily profound understanding of the dīn^[8]. More recently, the great Moroccan saint Shaykh Muhammad Ibn al-Habib^[9] also foresaw that the revival of Islam would take place at the hands of individuals from the West.

54_dont-raise-your-voices-above-the-prophet-saws Al-Madina: Al-Muwajaha Al-Sharifa

Much of the Muslim presence in the West has failed. I will seek to avoid inciting defensiveness by mentioning names, but many of the initial forms in which the establishment of Islam was sought in the Western world were some or all of

1 formalistic and legalistic

2 narrow-mindedly ethnocentric

3 subordinate to economic concerns, with "Islamic" observance largely no more than a cocoon employed (despite the almost complete absence of an authentic Islamic worldview) to justify fear of a half-understood host culture, and thereby validate insularity, as well as to establish rigid family control structures.

4 intellectually fideistic^[10] in a manner that ironically played into the hands of default scientism^[11] and positivism^[12]

5 devoid of continuity with the historically normative twofold structure of
- self-mastery and
- purification
leading to inward tasting and illumination.

Thus personally incapable of presenting a profound vision of Islam to our Western hosts, we became the skulking, sullen intruder whose presence makes no sense.^[17] Hence identitarianism^[13], self-ghettoisation, and burning resentment.

To the contrary, to be sufficiently acknowledged by the ascendent cultural hegemon^[14] to be able to begin to transform it, Islam has to make deep, uniquely intelligible^[15] sense as vessel of sanctification^[16], as both the redeemer and liberator of human nature, and as the spiritual, intellectual, and emotional consummator and fulfiller of the human journey through this world, embracing all human types.

Meanwhile, the West of advanced modernity has reached unprecedented heights in developing the apparatuses of techne^[3] capable of serving as multifarious vehicles for this supreme vision of human nature. But it lacks the cohesive, holistic, integral metaphysical worldview able to provide deep-rooted meaning and content to match that highly enriched matter; it lacks content, that is, beyond hedonism^[4] and an ultimately futile and bleak, nihilistic^[5] (but still highly arresting) depiction of the drama of human life.

And yet let's face it, we are utterly mimetically^[6] subordinate to these cultural forms; we cannot see outside them; and we cannot fully see inside them either. Hence our dismal creative weakness and lack of compelling narrative.

What we need most urgently of all as an Umma, is the return to the prioritisation of that Prophetic Presence ﷺ in all things. What could effect this transformation but the Presence of the Perfect Man ﷺ ?

The uniter of all the human types, the full scope of the human experience, mystic, warrior, lawgiver, trader, husband, father, friend? The harmoniser of majesty and beauty in all of those human types, such that the Four Caliphs, the most complete of human beings, were but facets of his perfection ﷺ ?

The many of you who think this impossible, thank you, we don't need you. And if this has proved impossible hitherto, it is thanks to the likes of you.

For those who believe in the transformative power of the revelation to the Last Prophet ﷺ know that all is possible in the One God who sent him.

To be continued, inshaAllah…

We believe that Islam is the truth and the blessed practice, there is no god but Allah (God), the Lord of the universe - no reality other than the reality of the Real (Allah), and Mohammad is certainly His Messenger (may His blessings & peace be upon him).

- Islam - The Way of the Prophets
- Islam the Natural, Easy Religion
- The Sum Of Islam

47h

Living Islam - Islamic Tradition
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Footnotes

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Hasan Spiker:
i.e., the transformation of Western e.g., literary, artistic, musical, institutional, philosophical, and even religious forms.
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Technē, by Tad Brennan
Article Summary
Technē (plural technai) is the ancient Greek term for an art or craft; examples include carpentry, sculpting and medicine. Philosophical interest in the technai stems from their use as a model and metaphor for all aspects of practical rationality, including its perfection in philosophy (the ‘art of living’).

From Socrates onwards, the notion of technē is employed for thinking about the connections between reason, ends and action. Technai are held to possess epistemological virtues (such as coherence and explanatory power) and practical virtues (their delivering of detailed instructions for action) against which other bodies of belief or practical systems can be studied and judged.
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hedonism:
The ethical theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the highest good and proper aim of human life.
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nihilistic:
Rejecting all religious and moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless.

Also
nihilism:
• The rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.
• In philosophy: the belief that nothing in the world has a real existence.
• Historical example: the doctrine of an extreme Russian revolutionary party c.1900 which found nothing to approve of in the established social order.
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mimetical: imitative
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Imam al-Rawwas' Sufi Vision of Islam in the West YouTube, 3min
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dīn
The Meaning of dīn in Islam
Islam is the religion of the fitra, which is the primordial, natural disposition of man.
Islam as a dīn, therefore, also means obedience (taʿah) and humility (dhillah) - i.e. to obey Allah and to submit to Him in humility.
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Peter Sanders:
There is a story that the great luminary Sidi Muhammad ibn al Habib met one of the King's well travelled princesses and asked where she thought Islam might take root in the world. She replied England and Europe. The great saint then prayed that this would become true.

Years later a growing group of English, European and Americans would travel every year, from London, across land to attend Sidi Muhammad ibn al Habib’s yearly gathering in his zawiyya in Meknes in Morocco.
There they would immerse themselves in the spiritual life of the wayfarer, learning first hand, attending the gatherings of remembrance, visiting the sacred spaces of selected tombs, and learning the way of the poor.
This was a very different life to what they were used to but it was transformative.
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Visitors, learning the way of the poor
fideistic:
the doctrine that knowledge depends on faith or revelation.
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scientism:
Excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques.
From an Islamic point of view, for example:

"Nasr is highly critical of modern science’s exclusive attitude towards what it considers legitimate sources of knowledge, namely its wedding to rationalism and empiricism. Nasr highlights that traditionally, man also considered both intellection and revelation to be legitimate means of knowing the world around him."
A Critique of ‘Modern Science’ from the Perspective of Seyyed Hossein Nasr | by Adam Ient | Medium ↩
positivism:
A philosophical system recognizing only that which can be scientifically verified or which is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and therefore rejecting metaphysics and theism.
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identitarianism:
The Identitarian movement or Identitarianism is a pan-European nationalist, ethno-nationalist, far-right ideological movement centred on the preservation of white European identity, which it claims is under existential threat from multiculturalism, immigration, and globalisation.

Rooted in an anti-universalist, anti-globalist, anti-liberal, anti-Islam, and anti-multiculturalist worldview, the Identitarian movement sees ethnic, cultural, and racial identities as fundamental.
Identitarian movement - Wikipedia
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hegemon:
a supreme leader
hegemony:
leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others: Germany was united under Prussian hegemony after 1871.
See also:
Under the Hegemony of This Civilisation, Hasan Spiker 2025-10-04
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intelligible:
able to be understood only by the intellect, not by the senses.
intelligibility:
the capacity of something to be understood or grasped by the intellect, as opposed to the senses
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sanctification:
• the action or process of being freed from sin or purified
• the action of causing something to be or seem(?) morally right or acceptable
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See also:
Participation in non Muslim-majority Societies, Abdal Hakim Murad
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