What Makes a Muslim: Clarification

I responded to a comment from a sister on the previous post detailing what makes a Muslim a Muslim. This was a really important point that I feel needs to be understood quite clearly.

There is so much focus on “identity” and the politics of identity these days. In the comments to the original article on Muslim women in hip-hop, the argument became about people’s right to self-identify as they see fit. In many regards, I happen to agree that people have to be able to self-identify. That is why when I am dealing with anyone who needs to have my ethnicity in their paperwork for any reason, I make sure they aren’t making any assumptions and answering for me without asking. One of the commentors (the one I mentioned in the original post) was quite spot on though when he said there are limits to how you can choose to self-identify. He gave the example that he is Chinese/English and could certainly choose to identify as Black. Sure, that’s his right to do so, but it doesn’t make it true. And it doesn’t mean that other people, and Black people in particular, have to accept it and identify him the same way. In fact, as he mentioned, there’s a good chance that Black people would loudly say he is full of it!

In the same way, Muslims have to be firm about what being a Muslim is. This is not something we get to define for ourselves, it was defined for us by Allah. We may have differing levels of practice, differing interpretations of many things, but there are some basic elements that you either believe and are Muslim, or you don’t believe and are not Muslim. You might like to call yourself a Muslim for whatever reason, but if you don’t accept and believe in the Five Pillars & Six Articles of Faith, you should not be surprised that believing Muslims tell you that you are wrong.

I am reposting my entire comment here, so it is not simply lost in the obscurity of comments, inshaAllah. Another resource that I would like to point people to, because she has compiled such an outstanding lot of resources together into one place, is Umm Zaid’s site Modern Muslima.

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Asalaamu alaikum.This is not my perspective. It is not my place, or anyone else’s, to determine “how Islam is defined, how Muslims are defined”. Allah laid it out clearly in the Qur’an and the hadiths of our Prophet (salalahi alahi wa salaam) gives us further detail and how to actually put it into practice. Neither I nor any scholar created the Five Pillars & Six Articles of Faith.

Now, I know someone is going to say that is me being rigid or whatever. And I’ve already gotten comments telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about to say that some people would of necessity based on their teachings be outside Islam. So I’m sorry if people are hurt, but I am only stating what is clearly laid out in Qur’an and Hadith as to what makes a Muslim a Muslim. I do not want this to be misunderstood as me making something up out of my own head, or based on obscure teachings. This is how Islam is defined by Allah and in His Infinite Mercy He gave us a book with clear guidance. As a Muslim, I have a duty to only spread accurate information, and to not water down our beliefs to make them easier to tolerate or to excuse things that are clearly not part of this deen. I don’t do this as a way of being exclusionary or disrespectful to others who believe differently, but I cannot accept things which are clearly outside of the most basic of our beliefs and say “oh, sure, that’s okay”.

Shaykh Gibril Haddad has explained in very simple terms what makes a person outside of Islam. He says:

“Denial of an obligatorily known article of belief such as qadar or the angels, or denial of the binding nature of a pillar among the five pillars of Islam, or of the binding nature of an obligatorily known injunction or prohibition, such as denial of the fact that something haram is haram, or denial of something that is literally mass-transmitted in the Umma such as a word from the Qur’an or the fact that the grave of our Prophet Muhammad, upon him and his family blessings and peace, is really in the well-known spot people say it is, in Madina.”

For a basic explanation of Islam and the requirement to accept the Five Pillars & Six Articles of Faith, you can also go here:

Islamic Finder
Islam 101
IslamiCity