Security in any civilization derives meaning from that civilization’s ontological, anthropological, and value foundations; therefore, comparing theories of security without comparing these foundations remains incomplete. The main question is: at which layer lies the conceptual gap between the theory of security in Western civilization and Islamic civilization, with emphasis on Alawi thought? The study aims to identify this layer and extract its implications for formulating security. It uses a qualitative comparative-analytical method, with qualitative content analysis and discourse analysis: Nahj al-Balagha and key texts by Hobbes, Morgenthau, Waltz, Kant, and Doyle are coded according to seven categories—security, threat, justice, power, religion, state, and individual—and their answers to four reference questions—referent, threat, means, and end of security—are compared. Findings show that the main gap lies not in the list of security dimensions but in the “position” of security within each system’s causal-teleological chain: in the Hobbesian-realist tradition, security is the state’s founding end and precedes justice; in the Kantian-liberal tradition, it is a product of institutions and conditional on regime type; in Alawi thought, it is the effect of justice and the context for human transcendence. On this basis, justice-centered security creates an “internal limit” for security instruments and can provide a principled foundation for indigenous security doctrines.