This paper is a critique of Shahab Ahmed’s reconceptualization of Islam as “hermeneutical engagement with Pre-Text, Text, and Con-Text of Revelation to Mu?ammad” in his What is Islam?: The Importance for Being Islamic. According to this definition; the source of revelation, the text of revelation (the Qur’?n), and all subsequent engagements with the source and text of revelation should be considered as part of Islam. In fact, this tri-partite structure of revelation is the reason for the great amount of contradiction inherent to Islam. Ahmed’s aim is thus to formulate a definition of Islam according to which the internal contradictions of Islam can be made to cohere. As an Islamic tradition which greatly contradicts various Islamic traditions with normative claims, Alevism is a valuable locus for testing Ahmed’s reconceptualization of Islam to see if it can make Alevism cohere with prescriptive/proscriptive Islamic discourses, such as that of Islamic law (in addition to the explorative discourses of the discursive realm Ahmed refers to as the “Sufi-Philosophical Amalgam”). For this coherence to be achieved, Ahmed’s reconceptualization would need to be meaningful from the perspective of Alevism. A comparison with Alevi religious tenets reveals that Shahab Ahmed’s conceptualization based on the concepts of Text, Pre-Text, and Con-Text posits the primacy of the Qur’?n (Text) and Mu?ammad (as the object of Revelation). However, despite the significant place of Sufi discourses in Alevi discourse, neither the Qur’?n nor Prophet Mu?ammad are central in Alevi belief and practice. The Alevis’ egalitarian view of friendship with God (wal?yah) results in the equality of Mu?ammad, Im?ms, and Alevi saints. Revelation is not unique to Mu?ammad, but rather the quality of all speech belonging to Perfect Men. As a result, we cannot speak of a meaningful difference between Text (the Qur’?n) and Con-Text (Ahmed’s category for the texts written by friends of God). Reading Shahab Ahmed’s conceptualization of Islam together with Alevism shows that extrapolating from Sunni sources (and probably one’s own beliefs) definitions of Islam which are claimed to stand for all of Islam is a methodological falsehood. I argue that including cases like Alevism to Islam’s landscape of contradictions (limited to Sunni Islam in Ahmed’s work) not only deconstructs our (in this case, Ahmed’s) existing conceptualizations of Islam, but also serves to reconceptualize Islam.