Jordan Peterson argues that modern secular states can be just as susceptible to totalitarian impulses as religious ones if they lack a supreme principle.

“if you have a society a secular society let's say where that highest thing isn't outside the polity in some sense then you have north korea where the leader is elevated to the status of a god and then you have hell”

Mustafa Akyol argues that the modern state has been used by some Islamic movements to enforce totalitarian control, which is a distortion of the classical Islamic tradition.

“these islamic movements came with the passion to grab the modern state and use it in the name of islam which created a deadly mix of medieval jurisprudence and modern totalitarianism”

Radical elements within Islam reject the fundamental tenets of modernity, such as women's equality, despite adopting its technological advancements.

“When it comes to adopting attitudes such as liberating women they recoil from that absolutely they recoil from that because they think that's what's going to take them about that's looking like them or running your societies according to this that time machine that the west does they think that that”