What Is Islam?

Setting out to define what is Islam, and what it means to be Islamic, is an act of interpretation. It is the history of meaning, of revelation, of text, pretext, and context. Ahmed does a great (albeit scholarly) job of describing this process. How do muslims parse the paradox of seeking Truth and following Law? How can Islam contradict itself while remaining cohesive?

He uses Islamic wine-drinking to illustrate these points and trace distinctions between the many aspects of Islam. Is it Islamic to drink wine? I'm not sure now. I would ask: Is it Vegetarian to eat fish? There is both a law (or at least literal definition) as well as ethos and culture associated with both. Is civil disobedience American? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Can you be an Atheist and truly appreciate Sufi poetry? The aesthetics and revelation are intertwined yet distinct.

As with all cultures and systems of thinking it is a swirling interplay of upholding perceived values, literalism, tradition, and identity. He claims to not fall into the tautology of “Islam is what muslims do/Muslims do what is Islamic” but I'm not so sure at times. It's hard to exhaustively delineate all of this contradiction without some amount of self-reference.

And of course almost all of this hangs on the hook of supernaturalism. I would argue after reading this tome that Islam is not philosophically materialist. A common thread that runs through the religion of Islam, the culture of Islam, the Law of Islam, and views of Islam is a recognition of transcendence. Ali A. Rizvi, author of ‘Atheist Muslim' might disagree, but ‘What Is Islam' seems to make a strong case.