In some ways, secular kuffar are closer to fitra than many modern Muslims. For example, they accept that it is natural for teenagers to have sexual relationships, while many Muslims these days expect you to finish medical school before even thinking about being sexually active.

This is not to defend degeneracy like abortion, contraception, the emotional destruction of multiple breakups, promiscuity, etc. But the nature of kufr is to reject or “cover” the wisdom of Allah, subhanahu wa t’ala, and try to replace it with human substitutes.

This applies to the rejection of revelation like Quran and Injeel, which they try to replace with human observation and logic, but kufr can also manifest in the rejection of nature. For example, the kuffar believe that “women’s liberation” (which might be more appropriately termed “masculinization” of women) which corrupts the creation is superior to the perfect balance of masculinity and femininity.

Allah made hormones strongest in early adulthood for a reason. It’s a time to be bonding with a partner who you will be “yoked” to economically for life. Beauty is at its peak in youth because the superficial phase of love is the initial phase of bonding. With time, a deeper phase of love sets in, but a lot of people need the beauty to make it there. It’s good to be balanced and have self control, but to normalize completely suppressing sexual desire for up to a decade or more after puberty is rejecting the state in which we were created, and is also unhealthy.

And what is the justification for this harmful way of living? They claim it’s to have financial stability, but this is not the reality. It’s to have unnecessary luxuries and status symbols which have been imposed on us by the kuffar: electric lights, indoor plumbing, Western pharmaceutical medications, cars, planes, trains, television, internet, imported foods, university education, and so forth.

It is possible to work and feed a family and provide them with a simple, healthy home without all this, but those that do are insulted as being “backward.” To insult someone or look down on them for living such a lifestyle is to insult someone for living in harmony with their own nature, which is to insult or look down on Allah’s creation, and exalt perversion and repression of human nature.

How did we get in such a situation where we even care about these unnecessary luxuries, such that we labor and sacrifice and suffer to get things like expensive cars and apartments with marble flooring? It’s because we started to take support and protection (walaya) from the kuffar, and we are afraid of losing that support and protection.

It’s natural to want to be honored and respected by those that you depend upon for your safety and security. The extent to which you are honored and respected by a community is based on your contribution to the community. The more you contribute to a community, the more you will be respected and honored by that community, and the more keen that community will be to protect you. Status symbols are a way of displaying your contribution to a community.

Seeking status within the liberal world order has infiltrated the Muslim community to such an extent that we will be attacked by many Muslims if we try to break this pattern and leave off seeking status symbols like university degrees, Western clothing, cars, and houses with indoor plumbing and electricity. This is the wisdom of keeping a wide distance from the kuffar and showing enmity to them. If we maintain this distance, and avoid taking benefit from friendship with them, we will not be tempted to try to compromise in our religion to seek their approval— and compromising our religion is the only way to gain their approval.

Being surrounded by kuffar means you will continuously get positive feedback for things which go against the laws of Allah or lead you away from the religion, and negative feedback for obedience to Allah. If you try to obey Allah in such circumstances you will become mentally and emotionally exhausted.

The best defense is a good offense. If you look at the kuffar like the wretched, hell-bound creatures they are, and push them to the narrowest part of the road, there will be no room for their distorted and false views to affect you. If you sincerely pity them for the filth that they live in, and wish guidance for them, it will seem absurd to try to take protection or support from them. How can someone who has no protection or support from Allah offer protection or support to anyone else?

One ayah sums all of this up very well.

ٱلشَّیۡطَـٰنُ یَعِدُكُمُ ٱلۡفَقۡرَ وَیَأۡمُرُكُم بِٱلۡفَحۡشَاۤءِۖ وَٱللَّهُ یَعِدُكُم مَّغۡفِرَةࣰ مِّنۡهُ وَفَضۡلࣰاۗ وَٱللَّهُ وَ ٰسِعٌ عَلِیمࣱ

Satan threatens you with poverty and orders you to immorality, while Allah promises you forgiveness from Him and bounty. And Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing.

2:268

And if someone decides to try to live in harmony with both their internal nature and the law of Allah, and marry at an early age, devils will come to them from in front and behind, and from the left and the right threatening them with poverty.

یَعِدُهُمۡ وَیُمَنِّیهِمۡۖ وَمَا یَعِدُهُمُ ٱلشَّیۡطَـٰنُ إِلَّا غُرُورًا

Satan promises them and arouses desire in them. But Satan does not promise them except delusion.

4:120

Here we can see something of the meaning of the ayat:

وَلَا یَخَافُونَ لَوۡمَةَ لَاۤىِٕمࣲۚ

…and they do not fear the blame of the critics.

5:54

Yes, we will marry young, we will fight wars, we will die of plagues, we will suffer hunger and loss of wealth, we will take slaves and they will bear us children, and we will worship our Lord, and this is the nature of this life and the state that we were created in.

If someone doesn’t like it, I would tell them to go create their own universe, but they can’t even create a house fly! This is the reality of all of the work of the kuffar. They think that they are improving the world, or guiding its evolution into something better, when in reality they are only spoiling something that was created by the All Powerful and the Perfectly Wise.

The material consequences of the present order have already caused more destruction and suffering than all Muslims in history, even the worst of us, combined. And it will still cause much more suffering in the future, as the damage being done to maintain wasteful, modern lifestyles will take generations to become manifest, just as it took centuries for Europe to recover from the last cycle of the Roman imperial decadence.

But the material consequences of kufr are insignificant compared to the spiritual consequences, because the real life is yet to come. To offer up one’s life to oppose this evil is truly a great deed; and it is not by accident that Allah promised forgiveness and a great reward to those that do.

May Allah make us from among the shuhada and the siddiqeen, who are not deceived by Satan’s false promises, who follow and deeply love every sunnah of the beloved of Allah ﷺ without alteration or omission, even if the kafirin hate it.