Abstract
[...]in presenting the outcomes of these interviews, the article also reflects on the challenges facing secular universities when confronted with heterogeneity in understanding the religious requirements or obligations of the faithful - articulated or unarticulated - in the same religious community on the one hand, and the dilemma of maximum religious accommodation and embrace of religious pluralism versus pragmatism and the limitations of programmatic and budgetary constraints, on the other. [...]in discussing the challenges presented by the students, and their understanding of Islam and its requirements, we use the ideas of Shahab Ahmed (d. 2015) as articulated in his magnum opus, What is Islam? (Ahmed 2016). [...]in locating the responses of our informants within their religio-theological and legal contexts, as well as in the broader world of Islam in social and cultural contexts, we draw attention to the nuanced realities of both textual and lived Islam. Far from being subscribed by doctrine, Islam, like any other religion, is informed by its internal discourses, including religious practices and cultural production. [...]Islam is not constituted solely in its 'fundaments' and doctrinal interpretations but is enacted within cultural products that can alter how these fundaments are understood within any given context (Shaw 2012:32).