A Muslim is anyone who claims to follow the teachings of Islam.
Moreover, a Muslim is not the embodiment of Islam. He may do the right things but may also err.
A common cultural error among Muslims is the identification of a school of thought they support or even a person they support as being Islam. For example, the current Hanbalis, commonly referred to as Wahhabis, see Ahmad Ibn Hanbal as the embodiment of Islam. Unfortunately, this view is shared by some non-Hanbalis as well.
I dare you test them and say Ahmad Ibn Habbal was wrong about an issue of your choosing.
Simply put, he was a scholar of narrations. He got certain things right and erred in many things.
I do not know what will become of him in the hereafter, just like I do not know what will become of me. May Allah have mercy on us.
There is a lot of positivity about Muslims, like being charitable and being the least consumers of alcohol in the world, and many other things.
They are also highly sensitive to injustice as they suffered a lot at the hand of their own political and religious authorities. But I would venture and say that their lack of practical justice is probably the worst in the world.
All the early scholars who researched the issues of justice were labelled as deviant. They were called Mu’tazila i.e., Isolationists. Certainly, they may have erred on some issues but for sure they got a lot of things right like making it central to their research the issue of justice.
Pick any book of hadith? Do you see a chapter called “Book of Justice”?
Now, look closely again and you will see injustice therein.
The issue of justice is highly spoken of in the Quran so how come it is so absent in the books of hadith?
Let us give an example.
It is clearly understood from the Quran that Allah will judge everyone fairly (see previous post) and that He will not hold you accountable for the wrong doings of others.

“And no bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another.” Quran 35:18

And with that we know that the “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son” verse found in the Bible is from the light of revelation.
Hence, that is Islam.
However, when reading hadith, one must be careful and accept only that which is not rejected by strong evidence. This is a way that stretches back to old times through sound scholarship.
Now, let us see this narration that is found in many books of Hadith (Sahih Muslim, Musnad Ahmad etc.):
” لَا يَمُوتُ رَجُلٌ مُسْلِمٌ إِلَّا أَدْخَلَ اللَّهُ مَكَانَهُ النَّارَ يَهُودِيًّا أَوْ نَصْرَانِيًّا”
As a translation, we propose the following:
“No Muslim man dies but God admits a Jew or a Christian in Hell in his stead.”
This was explicitly rejected by some scholars of old.
Simply put, this is a fabrication and an obvious lie about the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. One can even smell the handy work of the Umayyads in it for it was narrated by their supporters.
As it clearly opposes the Quran, it served the purpose of the early Umayyads.
The Quran can be used to distinguish between Islam and Muslim, between Christian and Injil teachings, between Jew and Torah teachings, and above all between just and unjust.

To be continued.