"Can one speak meaning- fully of “Islamic violence”? As long as the Muslim actor is making his act of violence meaningful to himself in terms of Islam—in terms of Pre-Text, Text, or Con-Text of Revelation—then it is appropriate and meaningful to speak of that act of violence as Islamic violence. The point of the designation is not that Islam causes this violence; rather it is that the violence is made meaningful by the actor in terms of Islam—just as the prodigious violence undertaken by soldiers of democratic nation-states is made meaningful for them and by them in terms of the nation-state, and may, therefore, meaningfully be called “democratic violence” or “national violence” (or may meaningfully be designated in terms of the particular nation-state as “American violence” or “Israeli violence”).

In the case of violence, as with everything else, one Muslim may disagree with another Muslim over whether his mode of meaning-making is legitimate—that is to say, whether it is coherent with its source—and may on those terms of incoherence deem the professed Muslim actor a non-Muslim (all heresy is ultimately a dispute over coherence) but this is not the point here.  The point here—as everywhere else—is whether the actor makes the act meaningful for himself in terms of Islam."

— Shahab Ahmed, What is Islam? 2016, p. 452