This paper seeks to juxtapose and contrast two systems of thought: on the one hand, a philosophical movement born in Italy in the early 1980s, which has gained famed in the academia as ‘Weak Thought’ (Pensiero Debole); on the other, a socio-religious trend within Sunni Islam, known as Salafism (Salafiyyah), whose origins are more nebulous, but that has earned prominence roughly from around the same time in various loci of the Muslim world. In establishing this pairing, I wish not to presuppose Weak Thought philosophy as a representative of ‘western’ way of thinking staked against a Salafi ideational system performing as the token ‘eastern’ counterpart. Rather, I intend to frame both of them as instances of reflection on (late) modernity, a time they both inhabit. I submit that this unlikely juxtaposition may in fact reveal parallels and similarities when it comes to common anxieties that (late) modernity aroused in both movements. First, both movements recognize and appraise the progressive erosion, in modernity, of metaphysical grounding. Second, they both veer away from the tools provided by modern epistemology to provide answers to such an issue: Weak Thought by turning to a purely rhetorical and discursive truth, and Salafism by reverting to a revealed truth. And last, they address the past as a repository of potential remedies: Weak Thought by proposing a different attitude towards the past (the idea of ‘pietas’ or ‘compassion’) capable of allaying modernity induced anxieties; Salafism by framing a past golden age to serve as template of virtue for the current times.