Islamists attacked Western secularism because its pluralism posed a real challenge

Evidence

Nor were the Soviets, until very recently, vulnerable to charges of secularism, the other great fundamentalist accusation against the West. Though atheist, they were not godless, and had in fact created an elaborate state apparatus to impose the worship of their gods—an apparatus with its own orthodoxy, a hierarchy to define and enforce it, and an armed inquisition to detect and extirpate heresy. The separation of religion from the state does not mean the establishment of irreligion by the state, still less the forcible imposition of an anti-religious phi­ losophy. Soviet secularism, like Soviet consumerism, holds no temptation for the Muslim masses, and is losing what appeal it had for Muslim intellectuals. More than ever before it is Western capitalism and democracy that provide an authentic and attractive alternative to traditional ways of thought and life. Fundamentalist leaders are not mistaken in seeing in Western civilization the greatest challenge to the way of life that they wish to retain or restore for their people. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1576

Categorization

• XREF: The distinction between state-forced atheism and genuine religious-state separation is a useful mechanism for the broader Islam-West representation cluster, qualifying how ‘secularism’ became an Orientalist accusation.