The Cape Malay identity can be considered the product of a set of histories and communities as much as it is a definition of an ethnic group. Since many Cape Malay people have found their Muslim identity to be more salient than their "Malay" ancestry, people in one situation have been described as "Cape Malay", and in another as "Cape Muslim" by people both inside and outside of the community.
From the early 1970s to the present, some members of this community – particularly those with a political allegiance to broader liberation movements in South Africa – have identified as "black" in the terms of the Black Consciousness Movement. The "Cape Malay" identity was also a subcategory of the "Coloured" category, in the terms of the apartheid-era government's classifications of ethnicity. Like many South Africans, people described in some situations as "Cape Malay" are often the descendants of people from many continents and religions.