What Is a Muslim-Fundamental Commitment and Cultural Identity

What Is a Muslim?
Fundamental Commitment and Cultural Identity Akeel Bilgrami This paper studies the question Whakis a Muslim?' in the dialectic of a conflict arising out of a concern for Islamic reform The conflict is one that arises because of moderate Muslims' fundamental commitment to a doctrine which contains features that are often effectively invoked by the absolutists. If a full analysis of the commitment reveals its defensive function which has disabled Muslims from a creative opposition to the absolutists, and if, moreover, this function of the commitment is diagnosed as itself based on a deep but common philosophical fallacy, it should be possible then for moderate Muslims to think their way out of this conflict and to transform the nature of their commitment to Islam, so that it is not disabling in that way.