Reddit reply in r/AcademicQuran: what is islam the importance of being islamic by — January 27, 2026 · o229jj8 | Ali Shukri Amin

I think it's ahistorical to claim definitively that Muslims did not make these distinctions. If that were the case, there wouldn't be so much scholarly literature lambasting poets, metaphyiscians, and mystics! Muslim traditional scholarship made a huge deal around determining "authentic" expressions of Islam - in other domains than theological & legal.

Even if we concede that most Muslims throughout most of history do not make this distinction.

There is a large body of literature analyzing the works of ibn Arabi, Rumi, Farabi, ibn Sina, Kindi, Abu Bakr al-Razi, and others to attempt to parse what is "Islamic" and what is not. While the poets, philosophers, and mystics themselves may not have cared - it was certainly a concern. In some places & times more than others for sure. But there was not a universal laissez faire attitude as you seem to be alluding to.

Some of the seminal works of Islam/Islamicate are borne out of a response to perceived un-Islamic influences. Look at Ghazali's Tuhfat al-Falasifa or ibn Taymiyyah's Critique of Greek Logic or Abu Hatim al-Razi's refutation of Abu Bakr al-Razi.

There was a constant dialectic around authenticity. For sure, what is and is not "authentic" changed and there was/is a very wide degree of subjectivity. But it was definitely something Muslims concerned themselves with.

It could even be argued that whenever the line between Islam & Islamicate blurred too much, there was almost always a revivalist movement that attempted to parse the two. Whether Abu Hasan al-Ashari, al-Ghazali, ibn Taymiyyah, Uthman Dan Fodio, Shah WaliAllah al-Dihlawi, Mohammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Rashid Rida, etc.

The puritanical impulse of Sunnism (& to some degree Shi'ism) constantly, on a historical scale, gives birth to movements attempting to excise syncretic elements.