For many Muslims living in the West, the same question keeps coming up, asked by others and sometimes by ourselves: are you Muslim first, or a citizen of your country first? It's usually framed as if you have to pick a side.
A recent academic paper, "Islam and the Question of Identity" by researcher Abdeladim Zehani (International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research, Nov–Dec 2025), takes a closer look at why that question feels so loaded, and why the answer doesn't have to be a choice at all.
Why religion becomes "the" identity
The paper draws on Social Identity Theory, a well-established idea in psychology: our sense of self is shaped largely by the groups we belong to, nationality, profession, faith, and more. For many Muslims, faith tends to sit at the center of that self-concept more than most other affiliations. Part of the reason is the idea of the Ummah, a single global community that connects Muslims everywhere, regardless of where they live or what language they speak day to day.
But the paper is also careful to point out that "Muslim identity" isn't one fixed thing. It's shaped by ethnicity, sect, culture, and country of origin, a Muslim from Morocco and a Muslim from Indonesia may express their faith in visibly different ways, while still holding the same core beliefs.
Multiple identities, held at once
The most useful part of the paper is its discussion of scholar Tariq Ramadan, who has spent years arguing that Muslims in Western countries don't need to resolve their identity into a single label. In his own words, he can be Muslim by religion, a European citizen by nationality, and connected to his heritage by ancestry, all genuinely, all at once, without one canceling out the other.
That framing matters. It pushes back on the idea, pushed by some critics of Islam and, ironically, by some fundamentalist voices within Muslim communities too, that faith and Western life are fundamentally at odds. Ramadan's point is that they aren't. You can pray five times a day and still vote in a general election. You can wear your faith outwardly and still build a career, a family, and a life fully rooted in the country you call home.
Of course, this isn't a settled debate. The paper notes Ramadan draws criticism from multiple directions, some Western commentators see his views as still too traditional, while some Muslims feel he leans too far toward Western modernity. That tension itself says something true: living with more than one identity is rarely simple, but it is possible, and it's something millions of us navigate every day.
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Source: Abdeladim Zehani, "Islam and the Question of Identity," International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research (IJFMR), Volume 7, Issue 6, November–December 2025. Zehani is a Research Doctor at the Faculty of Letters and Humanities, Ibn Tofail University, Kénitra, Morocco, and has taught English at the high school level since 2011.
Full paper: https://www.ijfmr.com/papers/2025/6/59829.pdf
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