Muslim religious identity is ascribed by outsiders, not internal practice

Evidence

The terms Religious and Secular, as I use them in the typologies discussed above, are not intended to be objective descriptors but rather ascriptive terms based on Anglo-Protestant normativity that dominates American culture and race politics at a particular time. For example, a Muslim who wears a headscarf, has a beard, or prays the daily prayers is perceived as religious in mainstream American society today. In contrast, a Muslim who drinks alcohol, engages in premarital sex, or associates exclusively with non-Muslims is perceived as secularized and modern. Whether that person is in fact religious or secular according to Islamic tenets is not what determines where they fall in the Racial Muslim typology. Rather, it is how they are perceived by those doing the racializing. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 90 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Undergirding Fatma’s and Hajja Nur’s critique is a conception of religiosity that discriminates between a religious practice that is part of the larger project of realizing Islamic virtues in the entirety of one’s life, and a practice that is Islamic in form and style but does not necessarily serve as a means to the training and realization of a pious self. Fatma and Hajja Nur are critical of the process by which practices that are supposed to be part of a larger program for shaping ethical capacities lose this function and become little more than markers of identity: such as when people fast because they have learned that this is simply what Muslims do. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 370 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Islam-as-race is a construct independent of actual religious practice. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 36; Islamicization operates independently of actual Muslim belief or visible identity markers — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 316; Conversion does not erase racialized Muslim identity (+16 more)

Broader Connections

• Perceived religiosity among Muslims is decided by outside observers, not actual belief #corroborates (0.95) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 90
• Pious Islamic performance creates identity rather than symbolizing it #contradicts (0.92)
• Pious Muslims distinguish virtue-forming practice from mere identity signaling #complicates (0.80) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 370
• Muslim identity cannot be reduced to religion alone #complicates (0.78) — Fred Halliday, ‘Islamophobia’ Reconsidered, 43