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Taqwacores: A Novel
Set in a Muslim punk-house in Buffalo, New York, this novel explores the twin identities of punk and Islam in their many varieties and degrees of orthodoxy. The story here is primarily with the characters � Umar, the straight-edge Sunni; Rabeya, the burqa-clad riot grrl; Jehangir, the dope-smoking mohawked Sufi (who plays rooftop calls-to-prayer on his electric guitar) � and their collective articulation of a heresy-friendly, pluralist Islam. Full of punk references (real and invented) and enough Arabic phrases to fully deck out your skateboard, The Taqwacores is a great introduction to the cracks in the surface of mainstream Islam with a peculiarly American face.
256 pages, Paperback
First published April 10, 2005
41 people are currently reading
1,536 people want to read
About the author
Michael Muhammad Knight
31books140followersMichael Muhammad Knight (born 1977) is an American novelist, essayist, and journalist. His writings are popular among American Muslim youth. The San Francisco Chronicle described him as "one of the most necessary and, paradoxically enough, hopeful writers of Barack Obama's America," while The Guardian has described him as "the Hunter S. Thompson of Islamic literature," and his non-fiction work exemplifies the principles of gonzo journalism. Publishers Weekly describes him as "Islam's gonzo experimentalist." Within the American Muslim community, he has earned a reputation as an ostentatious cultural provocateur.
He obtained a master's degree from Harvard University in 2011 and is a Ph.D. student in islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He obtained a master's degree from Harvard University in 2011 and is a Ph.D. student in islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 195 reviews
February 6, 2009
Holy shit, Muslim punk house! This book rules. I mean, I can't really speak to the central message of 'Islam must evolve, maybe,' because I'm not in charge of Islam at all. I CAN speak to the folks who blurbed it for Muslims, to whom I say: oh, fuck off. You lose a hundred points every time you call a book the catcher in the rye of or for anything. The Catcher in the Rye is about a privileged kid with no tools for dealing with the fact that most of the world isn't as privileged as he is, and that sucks, but he has no tools to do anything about it so he whines all the time. The Taqwacores is about a kid who doesn't really know which way is up, what to do about it, what he thinks or wants (except that his character development is 1. doesn't masturbate 2. does), but sees all these folks around him who seem like they do. Only he's not sure about how right they are, but thinks probably mostly. Maybe. And doesn't have anything to say about it except 'this is going on' and doesn't end up breaking down and going to a mental hospital- he ends up moving back home, which is hardly the same kind of situation. So I guess it's kind of like the Catcher in the Rye? Except if the narrator were more starry-eyes, had more options, and came from a more precarious position. EG NOTHING LIKE THE CATCHER IN THE RYE.
The Taqwacores is rad because- y'know how or 's novels never really have a plot or anything, and then nothing ever gets resolved but you don't really care because you just wanted to read them talking about stuff that happened? This book isn't really like that- there's a plot, about putting on a show, and a subplot, wherein young Yusef Ali learns to masturbate- but you kind of want it to be. Street poet grody punkers talking about their culture, talking shit, singing along to old punk stuff, and praying four or five times a day, then feeling bad sometimes that it's only four or five times? Gimme some more. So I didn't really care about the plot, I cared about the writing, which I think is the secret to making me like a book a lot.
Somebody else was complaining about all the Islamic in-language and how that made them feel like they weren't allowed in, but it didn't feel that way to me. It felt natural and, like, sure, this is a lot of language I don't know, but it's a story that I *do* know, and it's a good one. So I didn't feel stressed about it. Dude. Plus. Muslim Punk House.
The Taqwacores is rad because- y'know how or 's novels never really have a plot or anything, and then nothing ever gets resolved but you don't really care because you just wanted to read them talking about stuff that happened? This book isn't really like that- there's a plot, about putting on a show, and a subplot, wherein young Yusef Ali learns to masturbate- but you kind of want it to be. Street poet grody punkers talking about their culture, talking shit, singing along to old punk stuff, and praying four or five times a day, then feeling bad sometimes that it's only four or five times? Gimme some more. So I didn't really care about the plot, I cared about the writing, which I think is the secret to making me like a book a lot.
Somebody else was complaining about all the Islamic in-language and how that made them feel like they weren't allowed in, but it didn't feel that way to me. It felt natural and, like, sure, this is a lot of language I don't know, but it's a story that I *do* know, and it's a good one. So I didn't feel stressed about it. Dude. Plus. Muslim Punk House.
April 15, 2023
Punk rock significa musica deliberatamente volgare, abbigliamento deliberatamente volgare, linguaggio deliberatamente volgare e comportamento deliberatamente volgare. Significa scavarsi la fossa da soli quando si tratta di qualunque aspettativa la società avrà mai nei tuoi confronti, ma continuare ad andarne fiero, amando se stessi e, in qualche modo, creando una comunità con tutti gli altri cazzoni. Musulmani deliberatamente volgari, ma che amavano Allah.
Attratta dal titolo, perché punk ci sono stata e l'islam vorrei cercare di capirlo, ho iniziato ISLAMPUNK.
A parte un sacco di refusi e vabbè passiamo oltre, è stata una fatica leggere questo racconto. Ogni tre parole ne avevi una in arabo e, se volevi capirci qualche cosa, andare alla fine del libro e leggere il glossario. Poi si assomigliano tutte e ricordarle è un pochino complesso.
La storia in sé ricorda molto una qualsiasi casa punk. Ovviamente uno deve averci vissuto o perlomeno bazzicato.
Un centro sociale in piccolo.
Alcol a fiumi, droghe, sesso e bestemmie.
È inutile cercare di capire il punk: a cosa è favorevole, a cosa è contrario. È contrario a qualsiasi cosa cazzo.
Come ogni cultura giovanile ha diverse ideologie:
Straight Edge
stile di vita che prevede l'astinenza dall'uso di tabacco, alcol, e droghe, e dai rapporti sessuali occasionali, rifiutando tutto ciò che ritenevano essere un veleno materiale e psichico imposto dalla società capitalista
Taqwacore
non è un genere musicale, ma unicamente un termine da attribuire a quelle band dalle sonorità punk rock che introducono appunto tematiche riferite alla religione islamica. Non esiste perciò uno stile ben preciso ed i gruppi della scena presentano sonorità che, seppur rientranti nella categoria della musica punk, possono essere molto diverse tra loro.
STREET PUNK
il movimento che si proponeva come continuo della corrente punk britannica fondata dai Sex Pistols, sia nel look con creste multicolori, borchie e giubbotti di pelle, generalmente molto vistosi e curati, sia nell'attitudine, spesso e volentieri libera da ogni influenza politica e votata esclusivamente al disordine, caos e all'ubriacarsi.
Questa era la mia cricca.
Concerti, creste colorate, birra, fumo oi divertimento.
Mi ha ricordato un sacco di gruppi a cui non pensavo da anni.
Skiantos , Wretched, Negazione e Impact.
A parte farmi rivivere i miei fottuti 15 anni questo libro mi ha lasciato poco. Non ci ho capito una mazza.
Du stelle perché punk vuol dire "da due soldi" !!!
Attratta dal titolo, perché punk ci sono stata e l'islam vorrei cercare di capirlo, ho iniziato ISLAMPUNK.
A parte un sacco di refusi e vabbè passiamo oltre, è stata una fatica leggere questo racconto. Ogni tre parole ne avevi una in arabo e, se volevi capirci qualche cosa, andare alla fine del libro e leggere il glossario. Poi si assomigliano tutte e ricordarle è un pochino complesso.
La storia in sé ricorda molto una qualsiasi casa punk. Ovviamente uno deve averci vissuto o perlomeno bazzicato.
Un centro sociale in piccolo.
Alcol a fiumi, droghe, sesso e bestemmie.
È inutile cercare di capire il punk: a cosa è favorevole, a cosa è contrario. È contrario a qualsiasi cosa cazzo.
Come ogni cultura giovanile ha diverse ideologie:
Straight Edge
stile di vita che prevede l'astinenza dall'uso di tabacco, alcol, e droghe, e dai rapporti sessuali occasionali, rifiutando tutto ciò che ritenevano essere un veleno materiale e psichico imposto dalla società capitalista
Taqwacore
non è un genere musicale, ma unicamente un termine da attribuire a quelle band dalle sonorità punk rock che introducono appunto tematiche riferite alla religione islamica. Non esiste perciò uno stile ben preciso ed i gruppi della scena presentano sonorità che, seppur rientranti nella categoria della musica punk, possono essere molto diverse tra loro.
STREET PUNK
il movimento che si proponeva come continuo della corrente punk britannica fondata dai Sex Pistols, sia nel look con creste multicolori, borchie e giubbotti di pelle, generalmente molto vistosi e curati, sia nell'attitudine, spesso e volentieri libera da ogni influenza politica e votata esclusivamente al disordine, caos e all'ubriacarsi.
Questa era la mia cricca.
Concerti, creste colorate, birra, fumo oi divertimento.
Mi ha ricordato un sacco di gruppi a cui non pensavo da anni.
Skiantos , Wretched, Negazione e Impact.
A parte farmi rivivere i miei fottuti 15 anni questo libro mi ha lasciato poco. Non ci ho capito una mazza.
Du stelle perché punk vuol dire "da due soldi" !!!
March 28, 2013
This is a really fascinating story of a super-small social niche—Muslim punks—who it never even occurred to me to think existed. The story itself was a little clumsy, the writing & structure a bit amateur-ish, but on the whole very readable and, like I said, fascinating. There's a ton of Arabic (Farsi?) sprinkled through, which jars harshly (as was of course the intention) with punk lyrics and plenty of profanity.
Basically there's this punk house, like any punk house anywhere—walls coated with posters & fliers, floor roiling with beer bottles and vomit and passed-out people—but everyone who lives there is a semi-devout Muslim. So the opening scene has people stirring on beer-soaked couches and getting up to set up prayer rugs and have a ceremony. Cool, right?
Other than the obvious strangeness of the setting, this is definitely a character-driven novel. And while the characters are a bit caricature-y, they're clearly set up that way so they can have really interesting conversations about Islam, punk, how to pray, whether women should have rights, how literally to take holy texts, etc.
There's a straightedge guy with dozens of Koran tattoos. There's a girl who wears a full burka—which is covered with punk band patches. There's stoners and mohawks and skaters and nerds and all the rest. There're even excerpts from a Muslim sci-fi series, where people are trying to figure out how to convert the Martians to Islam.
Anyway, here is my favorite passage from the book. I think you can replace punk in the below with lots of big-concept "movement"-type words, which is pretty neat.
I stopped trying to define punk around the same time I stopped trying to define Islam. They aren't so far removed as you'd think. Both began in tremendous bursts of truth and vitality but seem to have lost something along the way—the energy, perhaps, that comes with knowing the world has never seen such positive force and fury and never would again. Both have suffered from sell-outs and hypocrites, but also from true believers whose devotion had crippled their creative drive. Both are viewed by outsiders as unified, cohesive communities, when nothing can be further from the truth.
I could go on, but the most important similarity is that like punk as mentioned above, Islam is an open symbol representing not things but ideas. You cannot hold punk or Islam in your hands. So what could they mean besides what you want them to?
Oh! And this edition (which is I think only eight bucks) was put out by the super-fabulous all-volunteer-run Brooklyn collective, Autonomedia. Support them!!
Basically there's this punk house, like any punk house anywhere—walls coated with posters & fliers, floor roiling with beer bottles and vomit and passed-out people—but everyone who lives there is a semi-devout Muslim. So the opening scene has people stirring on beer-soaked couches and getting up to set up prayer rugs and have a ceremony. Cool, right?
Other than the obvious strangeness of the setting, this is definitely a character-driven novel. And while the characters are a bit caricature-y, they're clearly set up that way so they can have really interesting conversations about Islam, punk, how to pray, whether women should have rights, how literally to take holy texts, etc.
There's a straightedge guy with dozens of Koran tattoos. There's a girl who wears a full burka—which is covered with punk band patches. There's stoners and mohawks and skaters and nerds and all the rest. There're even excerpts from a Muslim sci-fi series, where people are trying to figure out how to convert the Martians to Islam.
Anyway, here is my favorite passage from the book. I think you can replace punk in the below with lots of big-concept "movement"-type words, which is pretty neat.
I stopped trying to define punk around the same time I stopped trying to define Islam. They aren't so far removed as you'd think. Both began in tremendous bursts of truth and vitality but seem to have lost something along the way—the energy, perhaps, that comes with knowing the world has never seen such positive force and fury and never would again. Both have suffered from sell-outs and hypocrites, but also from true believers whose devotion had crippled their creative drive. Both are viewed by outsiders as unified, cohesive communities, when nothing can be further from the truth.
I could go on, but the most important similarity is that like punk as mentioned above, Islam is an open symbol representing not things but ideas. You cannot hold punk or Islam in your hands. So what could they mean besides what you want them to?
Oh! And this edition (which is I think only eight bucks) was put out by the super-fabulous all-volunteer-run Brooklyn collective, Autonomedia. Support them!!
July 5, 2021
March 2012
If you were expecting more than that, sorry, I don't have the words. I know very little about Islam and even less about punk culture, so anything I have to say will either be hopelessly ignorant, incredibly stupid, possibly offensive, or a combination of the three. Check out instead. Then read this book. Because honestly, after reading that cover summary above, how could you not?
"A Muslim punk house in Buffalo, New York, inhabited by burqa-wearing riot grrrls, mohawked Sufis, straightedge Sunnis, Shi'a skinheads, Indonesian skaters, Sudanese rude boys, gay Muslims, drunk Muslims, and feminists. Their living room hosts parties and prayers, with a hole smashed in the wall to indicate the direction of Mecca. Their life together mixes sex, dope, and religion in roughly equal amounts, expressed in devotion to an Islamo-punk subculture, 'taqwacore,' named for taqwa, an Arabic term for consciousness of the divine."Godless country bumpkin from Wisconsin reads about Muslim punks in New York. ŷ really doesn't get any better than this.
If you were expecting more than that, sorry, I don't have the words. I know very little about Islam and even less about punk culture, so anything I have to say will either be hopelessly ignorant, incredibly stupid, possibly offensive, or a combination of the three. Check out instead. Then read this book. Because honestly, after reading that cover summary above, how could you not?
October 14, 2009
If you come from a typical conservative Muslim background, some of the dialog and ideas in this book will probably have your jaw hit the floor, and others will resonate in a way that you've never experienced because no one really put it into words....
This is an extremely unique take on American Punk culture fusing with culturally disenfranchised American Muslim youth resulting in a hybrid movement known as Taqwacore. In essence this is a short narrative about alienation in the Muslim community, the fear of ostracizing due to self-perceived character flaws, the constant faliure to conform to an ideal of purity, and the extreme fringes of characters that are generated in this struggle. This book is a literary and spiritual mosh pit, with neurotic and conflicted characters clearly monologuing their punked out interpretations of Islam and divinity, but never arriving at a sustainable peace with themselves.... You will be pondering a lot after this read.
This is an extremely unique take on American Punk culture fusing with culturally disenfranchised American Muslim youth resulting in a hybrid movement known as Taqwacore. In essence this is a short narrative about alienation in the Muslim community, the fear of ostracizing due to self-perceived character flaws, the constant faliure to conform to an ideal of purity, and the extreme fringes of characters that are generated in this struggle. This book is a literary and spiritual mosh pit, with neurotic and conflicted characters clearly monologuing their punked out interpretations of Islam and divinity, but never arriving at a sustainable peace with themselves.... You will be pondering a lot after this read.
July 29, 2015
Michael Muhammad Knight's "The Taqwacores" invents a world at the intersection of Islam and youthful America, of religious observance and college (with all its energy and wonder and lust), of prayer and, hardest of all to believe, a Muslim punk movement. And yet somehow Knight makes it work. The locus is a house in the college section of Buffalo, where a collection of young people, not all of them necessarily students, gather to live, pray and party. The house is a place for Muslims to live together away from the dorms, although not free from the temptations that dorms represent. There are no fewer than two Mohawk haircuts, and both the Indonesian and the Sudanese (who adopts the patois of the Caribbean) are serious consumers of marihuana. There is a woman in full burka who nevertheless leads prayer and has a very sharp tongue for what she identifies as the misogyny of her religion. They are largely Sunni, with one token, wild Iranian Shia. One of the residents is a tattooed, hulking conservative, bewildered by all the anarchy. The narrator is a Pakistani engineering student who cannot decide whether he truly sides with these young Muslims who see themselves as punk or with a more traditional take on his religion. But the guiding genius of the movement is the eloquent, tragic Jenhangir, owner of a Mohawk, devotee of punk, and passionately convinced the American Islam can create a modern, pluralistic religion free of what he views as local cultural prejudices. These are Muslims who wonder endlessly about what is prohibited and what is not (including drugs), who puzzle over sutras about the goes to Heaven or the virgins who await there as a reward, who listen to punk bands with names like Osama Bin Laden's Tunnel Diggers. What they are not is any kind of Muslim who shows up in mass media, where along with Latin American cartels and European gangsters, they perform the role that witches and ogres played in fairy tales. All of the Muslims in the novel, including the conservative, are wildly original and human. Jehangir's dream is a victim of its own pluralism. But Knight triumphs: in writing this tale, he creates characters who are fresh, human and, despite the wildness of his conception, credible, and he performs one of the most important tasks of modern literature: he opens our eyes.
April 30, 2009
I wanted to like this book, but couldn't. I guess I had higher expectations - these characters were just typical college students who just wanted to party and behave irresponsibly, just give in to their desires, and didn't want to follow any 'rules' - Islamic or otherwise.
There were plenty of complaints about the Qu'ran, the Prophet (s), hadiths, hell and heaven, ICNA conferences, imam and mosques and MSAs, Islam's treatment of women, etc. While I was sympathetic towards a good number of their complaints, reading the same angry rants over and over got very repetitive and tiresome - especially since I didn't find any of the characters appealing, or the plot interesting.
Now, maybe that's because I don't like punk music.
I was expecting much more of a political slant - how about throwing rotten sandwiches at the gleaming car of that corporate executive? How about spitting in the face of that slimy politician, or harassing that military recruiter? Where were the complaints about the unfairness of the global economy? Where was the concern for human rights? And the anger against lies and hypocrisy we are fed on a daily basis by the media?
Na, these kids were totally focused very much on themselves, which is why they won't cause any real changes - within Islam or without. Most likely, they'll grow out of their 'punk' state and become responsible citizens (horror of horrors!!). If not, they will just waste away in irrelevance.
There were plenty of complaints about the Qu'ran, the Prophet (s), hadiths, hell and heaven, ICNA conferences, imam and mosques and MSAs, Islam's treatment of women, etc. While I was sympathetic towards a good number of their complaints, reading the same angry rants over and over got very repetitive and tiresome - especially since I didn't find any of the characters appealing, or the plot interesting.
Now, maybe that's because I don't like punk music.
I was expecting much more of a political slant - how about throwing rotten sandwiches at the gleaming car of that corporate executive? How about spitting in the face of that slimy politician, or harassing that military recruiter? Where were the complaints about the unfairness of the global economy? Where was the concern for human rights? And the anger against lies and hypocrisy we are fed on a daily basis by the media?
Na, these kids were totally focused very much on themselves, which is why they won't cause any real changes - within Islam or without. Most likely, they'll grow out of their 'punk' state and become responsible citizens (horror of horrors!!). If not, they will just waste away in irrelevance.
March 20, 2009
what i learned from the book:
1. people practise Islam are varying levels, know Islam at different depths....
2. no one can claim to be better than another - everyone is a work-in-progress - being judgemental or critical just breed resentment.
3. the author paints the stark reality of the underbelly of the underbelly of Muslims - many moral issues raised.
4. but what disturbs me about the characters was that everyone thought that they were dead right in they way they lived as Muslims.
It reminds me to seek God's guidance and help in everything. We never know when we may drop the ball as Muslims.
1. people practise Islam are varying levels, know Islam at different depths....
2. no one can claim to be better than another - everyone is a work-in-progress - being judgemental or critical just breed resentment.
3. the author paints the stark reality of the underbelly of the underbelly of Muslims - many moral issues raised.
4. but what disturbs me about the characters was that everyone thought that they were dead right in they way they lived as Muslims.
It reminds me to seek God's guidance and help in everything. We never know when we may drop the ball as Muslims.
July 25, 2011
I quite like the idea of straightedge providing a way to be both punk and (fairly) orthodox Muslim, but on the whole found this quite frustrating. My major gripe is that there is little space for empathy with any of the characters: Knight adopts a gonzo pose where the writing style is pretty flat, and despite some appealing characteristics, they all remain fairly distant people about whom we are not expected to care. More annoying is that despite the smatterings of Arabic � the stuff that isn't explained/translated is for the most part fairly ordinary conversational elements, mainly greetings and parts of ritual � Knight assumes we know nothing about Islam. (If we don't understand the ritual exchanges, for the most part it doesn't matter.) Knight never really distances himself as author or his central character � Yusef Ali � from being outside the Islamo-punk subculture being explored, with the effect that he never steps away from or takes us away from the reading position of anthropologist/ethnographer. This problem is enhanced by his tendency to have characters explain issues and debates to each other (this is where Yusef's outsiderness becomes its most obvious plot device): the use of Arabic is then a red herring, it doesn't assume insiderness but obscures the assumption that the audience does not know much about Islam � the two significant, non-ritual parts of Arabic text are translated.
So, it is a good book, not a great book, and pretty frustrating but with some cultural assumptions and characters that unsettle outsider's views of Islam as a monolithic singularity: all in all, worth a go.
So, it is a good book, not a great book, and pretty frustrating but with some cultural assumptions and characters that unsettle outsider's views of Islam as a monolithic singularity: all in all, worth a go.
March 4, 2009
So tedious. I really couldn't wait for this book to end, but I am giving it 3 stars because it exposed me to ideas I hadn't run into before (punk Muslims) and I imagine that 14 year old me would have loved it. However, most of the characters feel more like ideas or sides of an argument than actual people. About 80% of the book is a conversation where someone says to the narrator "Have you ever heard of ..." The narrator says no and then there is pages of one character going on and on punctuated by the narrator saying "awesome" or "uh-huh" or "wow." Knight lets us know how great and likable the hero of the book is because we are constantly told how great and likable he is and the burka wearing feminist's act of ultimate punkrockedness was pretty ridiculous.
March 20, 2016
So, this is one of my fave books. I read it twice in June of '05, and then I lent it to a good friend who was teaching anarchist/alternative politics at the time, and he lent it to one of his dumpster-diving, freight-hopping, tree-planting, vegan, *amazing* students (no really, I loved those kids. they were fucking awesome) and I didn't end up getting it back. But, I recently picked up a new copy with a better cover, and I plan on reading it again soon.
My take is... well, have an open mind. It's a great book. The documentary floating around called The Taqwacores is worth a look too.
My take is... well, have an open mind. It's a great book. The documentary floating around called The Taqwacores is worth a look too.
September 16, 2010
Congratulations. You have just come across the most vital work of fiction of the new millennium.
But first, you are going to have to check your anti-Muslim biases, your western-centric points of view, your right-wing or pro-Christian rhetoric, your music snobbery, your squeamishness and your deeply rooted beliefs of American Exceptionalism at the door. Because according to Michael Muhammad Knight, it isn't the best of us that will bring the world together, it is the worst of us. The fringes of two cultures coming together to form something completely new, punk rock and wayward Islam clashing to form Taqwacore. And this is where Western meets Middle Eastern and Southern Asian to form the basis of something similar to a working society, even if it is based on very loose rules.
You will have to stop what you're reading several times to look stuff up. You will have to try to put certain points of view and phrases into the proper context and that isn't easy to do as you are trying to absorb the story. But you have to do this to grasp the scope of what the author is doing here. He is telling you an epic parable through two seemingly incompatible lenses and the results are amazing.
Knight first demonstrates how to the outsider (that's you, dear reader) both movements seem independent and completely incongruent. But then, he explains how the exact opposite is actually true, how Islam and Punk Rock appear on the surface to be completely fractured and factioned, but they do in fact come together under broad headings at the end of the day. And in doing so, Knight is able to bring you out of your Western biases and give you entry to these seemingly exclusive worlds.
But, what makes these social forces reconcile in the end? Knight shows you that as well by helping you understand that the values which the adherents ascribe to their respective movements are really all that truly matter in the end. And that all that differentiates one group of Punks from the other or one sect of Islam from another is how they intend to practice within that loose framework of values that end up being all-encompassing and remarkably similar.
Then Knight introduces you to his visionaries that get the message, a household full of dreamers, wastoids, hard-assed social dysfunctional straight-edgers, feminist burka-wearing punk chicks, wannabe-Rastas, skaters, and one person to chronicle the entire carnival, Yusef (the straight man).
One point though that I would like to make is that the comparisons with The Catcher In The Rye are completely ridiculous. Catcher in the Rye is about an outsider railing against the class structure of society. The Taqwacores is a story about an insider to a group of outsiders, being the ultimate inside man allows the main character to bear witness to the birth of something unique and possibly earth-shatteringly dangerous in its implications, because one wonders which will absorb the other, Punk Rock or Islam. The question is never really answered even as Jengahir Tabari brings the crowd to a frothy boil-over in the book's final scenes. The narrative from Yusuf Ali is not one to tear down an existing society like Holden Caufield's, but rather to build up something that has never been seen before and may never be seen again but that is amazing and honest and filled with the possibility of inclusion, because if Islam is great enough to accept punk, then there is hope. And if there is room in punk rock for this cast and crew then anyone can find a home.
If you have the wits to take this on and the courage to leave behind the things that you think you know, you will meet a group of individuals too fantastic to have been made up. You will wish that you had a true friend like Yusef, that you could know an Amazing Ayyub and count him among your friends, you will sympathize with an Umar and wish that you could show him that tolerance and fairness tempers the most faithful soul, you will wish you had someone as smart and outspoken and committed to their beliefs as Rabeya (no matter how edgy they may be, or how grounded). And you will definitely wish that you knew someone like Jengahir Tabari.
Because it is the optimists who are the true believers and people like Jengahir are the ones who change the world. The ones who aren't afraid to say, I'm going to take things that should not be together and force them into something new, the ones who aren't afraid to take a skateboard and ride it down a 100 foot long stair rail because they have no fear of falling, the ones who know deep down that they have flaws but accept them and still go on to do amazing things in spite of them.
I'm fairly certain that there is not a Jengahir Tabari in your life as I know there is not one in mine.
And meeting him makes reading this book worthwhile.
But first, you are going to have to check your anti-Muslim biases, your western-centric points of view, your right-wing or pro-Christian rhetoric, your music snobbery, your squeamishness and your deeply rooted beliefs of American Exceptionalism at the door. Because according to Michael Muhammad Knight, it isn't the best of us that will bring the world together, it is the worst of us. The fringes of two cultures coming together to form something completely new, punk rock and wayward Islam clashing to form Taqwacore. And this is where Western meets Middle Eastern and Southern Asian to form the basis of something similar to a working society, even if it is based on very loose rules.
You will have to stop what you're reading several times to look stuff up. You will have to try to put certain points of view and phrases into the proper context and that isn't easy to do as you are trying to absorb the story. But you have to do this to grasp the scope of what the author is doing here. He is telling you an epic parable through two seemingly incompatible lenses and the results are amazing.
Knight first demonstrates how to the outsider (that's you, dear reader) both movements seem independent and completely incongruent. But then, he explains how the exact opposite is actually true, how Islam and Punk Rock appear on the surface to be completely fractured and factioned, but they do in fact come together under broad headings at the end of the day. And in doing so, Knight is able to bring you out of your Western biases and give you entry to these seemingly exclusive worlds.
But, what makes these social forces reconcile in the end? Knight shows you that as well by helping you understand that the values which the adherents ascribe to their respective movements are really all that truly matter in the end. And that all that differentiates one group of Punks from the other or one sect of Islam from another is how they intend to practice within that loose framework of values that end up being all-encompassing and remarkably similar.
Then Knight introduces you to his visionaries that get the message, a household full of dreamers, wastoids, hard-assed social dysfunctional straight-edgers, feminist burka-wearing punk chicks, wannabe-Rastas, skaters, and one person to chronicle the entire carnival, Yusef (the straight man).
One point though that I would like to make is that the comparisons with The Catcher In The Rye are completely ridiculous. Catcher in the Rye is about an outsider railing against the class structure of society. The Taqwacores is a story about an insider to a group of outsiders, being the ultimate inside man allows the main character to bear witness to the birth of something unique and possibly earth-shatteringly dangerous in its implications, because one wonders which will absorb the other, Punk Rock or Islam. The question is never really answered even as Jengahir Tabari brings the crowd to a frothy boil-over in the book's final scenes. The narrative from Yusuf Ali is not one to tear down an existing society like Holden Caufield's, but rather to build up something that has never been seen before and may never be seen again but that is amazing and honest and filled with the possibility of inclusion, because if Islam is great enough to accept punk, then there is hope. And if there is room in punk rock for this cast and crew then anyone can find a home.
If you have the wits to take this on and the courage to leave behind the things that you think you know, you will meet a group of individuals too fantastic to have been made up. You will wish that you had a true friend like Yusef, that you could know an Amazing Ayyub and count him among your friends, you will sympathize with an Umar and wish that you could show him that tolerance and fairness tempers the most faithful soul, you will wish you had someone as smart and outspoken and committed to their beliefs as Rabeya (no matter how edgy they may be, or how grounded). And you will definitely wish that you knew someone like Jengahir Tabari.
Because it is the optimists who are the true believers and people like Jengahir are the ones who change the world. The ones who aren't afraid to say, I'm going to take things that should not be together and force them into something new, the ones who aren't afraid to take a skateboard and ride it down a 100 foot long stair rail because they have no fear of falling, the ones who know deep down that they have flaws but accept them and still go on to do amazing things in spite of them.
I'm fairly certain that there is not a Jengahir Tabari in your life as I know there is not one in mine.
And meeting him makes reading this book worthwhile.
July 25, 2017
3.5/5
What I dislike about this book:
1. Vehement usage of F word throughout this book. But.. that is the punky-style, I suppose?
2. The obscenity and blasphemy/profanity - even the publisher has removed certain words and replaced them with ***, uneasy feelings still aroused while reading *** Muhammad (pbuh) or *** Imam Husayn (r.a). I don't want to pretend I'm okay with it, because (to me) that is absolutely not okay.
What I like about this book (or more likely things that I learnt):
1. Blatant honesty from the author. It is thought-provoking too. If you're a Muslim, you'll be very familiar with all characters. Every single character represents us, the whole ummah. Most of us (including yours truly) today are so busy with ourselves (self-obsession?), correcting others, highlighting errors and differences, rather than finding similarities towards unity.
2. To me this book is a wake up call especially for those non-preachy type.
3. Each one of us is having our own battle until the day we die. While knowledge is important, the struggles to improvise ourselves matter the most.
4. Being judgmental toward others won't do any good, just like an old Islamic saying: If you see something you don’t like in a brother/sister, try to find 70 excuses for him/her. And if you can't, say ‘There might be an excuse, but I don’t know it.' Try to understand him/her, but not to condone.
All in all, I still encourage everyone (especially the Muslims) to read this book.
What I dislike about this book:
1. Vehement usage of F word throughout this book. But.. that is the punky-style, I suppose?
2. The obscenity and blasphemy/profanity - even the publisher has removed certain words and replaced them with ***, uneasy feelings still aroused while reading *** Muhammad (pbuh) or *** Imam Husayn (r.a). I don't want to pretend I'm okay with it, because (to me) that is absolutely not okay.
What I like about this book (or more likely things that I learnt):
1. Blatant honesty from the author. It is thought-provoking too. If you're a Muslim, you'll be very familiar with all characters. Every single character represents us, the whole ummah. Most of us (including yours truly) today are so busy with ourselves (self-obsession?), correcting others, highlighting errors and differences, rather than finding similarities towards unity.
2. To me this book is a wake up call especially for those non-preachy type.
3. Each one of us is having our own battle until the day we die. While knowledge is important, the struggles to improvise ourselves matter the most.
4. Being judgmental toward others won't do any good, just like an old Islamic saying: If you see something you don’t like in a brother/sister, try to find 70 excuses for him/her. And if you can't, say ‘There might be an excuse, but I don’t know it.' Try to understand him/her, but not to condone.
All in all, I still encourage everyone (especially the Muslims) to read this book.
April 24, 2010
If you're a Muslim and you want to read this book, you'll need two things. First, you'll need an open mind. Second, you need to suspend your judgment while reading it. If you don't, you won't even get past the Introduction. Why? Because it's the lyrics to a song called, "Muhammad Was A Punk Rocker". And I'm not talking about your average Muhammad the cab driver or Muhammad the college kid from Pakistan. Get my drift, yes?
That being said, I thought this book was a blast! As fan of punk rock myself, all the punk rock references really brought back a lot of fond memories for me.
However, it may be a bit difficult for non-Muslims to read though, because Michael Muhammad Knight (MMK) throws in a lot of Islamic terms and concepts. He even transliterates whole suras and prayers. But if you go through the book, I think it's worth your time.
In the end, I think the book isn't really a collection of blasphemous heresies and 'Oh My, did he really WRITE that?' shock sentences. I think this book is really about how modern day Muslims, and not just those living in the West, look at themselves and define themselves. It's just that in this book, MMK uses the punk metaphor to convey his views on this matter. That is the BIG question these days, right? How Muslims define themselves in a modern, post 9/11 world.
That being said, I thought this book was a blast! As fan of punk rock myself, all the punk rock references really brought back a lot of fond memories for me.
However, it may be a bit difficult for non-Muslims to read though, because Michael Muhammad Knight (MMK) throws in a lot of Islamic terms and concepts. He even transliterates whole suras and prayers. But if you go through the book, I think it's worth your time.
In the end, I think the book isn't really a collection of blasphemous heresies and 'Oh My, did he really WRITE that?' shock sentences. I think this book is really about how modern day Muslims, and not just those living in the West, look at themselves and define themselves. It's just that in this book, MMK uses the punk metaphor to convey his views on this matter. That is the BIG question these days, right? How Muslims define themselves in a modern, post 9/11 world.
March 18, 2008
This book tells the story of a fictional muslim-punk (taqwacore) scene in Buffalo filled with such colorful characters as a tattooed straight-edge fundamentalist, a riot girl in a patch-covered burqa, a pothead sufi, and other slices of the muslim ummah transplanted into slices of the punk scene. It is heavy on the arabic/islamic terms so if one is uninitiated, it would be good to have a reference at hand to clear a few things up.
Knight's book would certainly draw a 1,000 more fatwahs than anything Rushdie ever did if this book took off, which is unlikely due to its combination of anti-secular, anti-conservative islam, sexual, and drug use themes. A very interesting read and a potential introduction to an understanding of islam for people more familiar with punk, or vice versa.
Knight's book would certainly draw a 1,000 more fatwahs than anything Rushdie ever did if this book took off, which is unlikely due to its combination of anti-secular, anti-conservative islam, sexual, and drug use themes. A very interesting read and a potential introduction to an understanding of islam for people more familiar with punk, or vice versa.
January 19, 2023
3.5/5 stars.
The Taqwacores introduces a new concept to me - punk rock alt muslims - and blows me away with some of the themes explored and language used. It's a vast contrast to the sanitised version of religion I grew up with, and the violent version presented in media, sitting in the grey area. It forces the reader and our main character to really consider what religion is and isn't, and reconcile how we live in the gap between: "most of us fall somewhere in that big grey void between.
I enjoyed most of the novel. Yusuf speaking about the amalgamation of South Asian culture and religion and them being so intertwined rung so true to me; "I can't separate spirituality from my family, my heritage, my identity as a South Asian; it's inextricably connected." The novel also spoke about aspects of religion I hadn't considered, and like our main character I had to reconcile differences between what I knew about practicing religion and how expressing spirituality varies person to person. It gave me so much to think about and really ponder about the nuances of Islam.
The last ~30% of the novel included a lot more graphic language than I expected and it felt to veer off-course. Though I know that this was related to Yusuf falling harder into the big grey void, it started to just sound like college boys acting recklessly and was being very repetitive.
I have... mixed feelings about the ending. It felt very sudden, especially since so much of the chapters leading up to it had been repetitive and just uncouth. However, the very aspect of Yusuf admitting that above all else and his shortcomings, he is still a human being, was enough to tie a bow at the end.
"had I really reasoned above so much of my religion, or merely sold out for the path of least resistance?"
The Taqwacores introduces a new concept to me - punk rock alt muslims - and blows me away with some of the themes explored and language used. It's a vast contrast to the sanitised version of religion I grew up with, and the violent version presented in media, sitting in the grey area. It forces the reader and our main character to really consider what religion is and isn't, and reconcile how we live in the gap between: "most of us fall somewhere in that big grey void between.
I enjoyed most of the novel. Yusuf speaking about the amalgamation of South Asian culture and religion and them being so intertwined rung so true to me; "I can't separate spirituality from my family, my heritage, my identity as a South Asian; it's inextricably connected." The novel also spoke about aspects of religion I hadn't considered, and like our main character I had to reconcile differences between what I knew about practicing religion and how expressing spirituality varies person to person. It gave me so much to think about and really ponder about the nuances of Islam.
The last ~30% of the novel included a lot more graphic language than I expected and it felt to veer off-course. Though I know that this was related to Yusuf falling harder into the big grey void, it started to just sound like college boys acting recklessly and was being very repetitive.
I have... mixed feelings about the ending. It felt very sudden, especially since so much of the chapters leading up to it had been repetitive and just uncouth. However, the very aspect of Yusuf admitting that above all else and his shortcomings, he is still a human being, was enough to tie a bow at the end.
December 18, 2024
Amazing. Incredible. Ground breaking. Philosophically intense. Also, disgusting and crude and explicit and oh so violent. The Taqwacores, as it says on the tin, is a Muslim Punk novel- an intriguing enough premise, because you know, isn’t Islam all legalistic and punk rock, like, not that? Yes, Knight says, gently taking your hand, let’s explore that!
More tangibly: the book had no plot, per se, instead following the various inhabitants of a Muslim Punk house in Buffalo, NY. They get drunk, go to class, pray, put on shows, fight, skateboard- and, between all this, question internally and externally what it means to be a Muslim and a Punk. You will laugh, you will cry, you will shoot your fist through drywall screaming “tear it all down!� and, the next moment, wake up and think “was that really a good idea?� A flurry of emotions, expertly written, in a tone that’s totally unique to the author.
People criticize this book for being inaccessible to non-Muslims, given the number of specific terms and references unique to Islam. While I can’t say this is the best introduction to the religion, I think non-Muslims (like me!) can get a lot out of it. The themes here are engaging and useful to everyone, of all religions or none. Approach with an open mind, a clear head, and a capacity to withstand the most vulgar of punk-bullshiteries. It’s not a light read, but still a unique and important one. Long live Taqwacore!
More tangibly: the book had no plot, per se, instead following the various inhabitants of a Muslim Punk house in Buffalo, NY. They get drunk, go to class, pray, put on shows, fight, skateboard- and, between all this, question internally and externally what it means to be a Muslim and a Punk. You will laugh, you will cry, you will shoot your fist through drywall screaming “tear it all down!� and, the next moment, wake up and think “was that really a good idea?� A flurry of emotions, expertly written, in a tone that’s totally unique to the author.
People criticize this book for being inaccessible to non-Muslims, given the number of specific terms and references unique to Islam. While I can’t say this is the best introduction to the religion, I think non-Muslims (like me!) can get a lot out of it. The themes here are engaging and useful to everyone, of all religions or none. Approach with an open mind, a clear head, and a capacity to withstand the most vulgar of punk-bullshiteries. It’s not a light read, but still a unique and important one. Long live Taqwacore!
January 27, 2014
I would never have heard of The Taqwacores were it not for a story in The New York Times in December which referenced it. The book has an underground reputation as an Islamic “Catcher In the Rye,� and at times it reads like just that. The title comes from the mixing of the word hardcore with Taqwa - an Arabic word meaning “fear of the Divine.�
The book’s narrator, Yusef Ali, is a Pakistani-American college student living in Buffalo, N.Y. in a house full of Muslim punk rockers. Yes, you read that correctly - Muslim punk rockers. Burqa-wearing feminist Muslims. Gay Muslims. Hardcore punk rock mohawked Muslims. Muslims who wear the Star of David just as Sid Vicious wore the Swastika 30 years before - to provoke. The language is hardcore - profanity and obscenity on virtually every page, drug use, graphic sex. There are passages that are funny but most of them are obscene, even if you’re not a Muslim, and profane if you are.
The plot of the book basically revolves around the interaction of the characters to Yusef, who comes from a much more conservative Muslim background than his friends and fears his interaction with these characters - Rude Dawud, Amazing Ayyub, and Jehangir Tabari, the tragic character who comes back from “Khalifornia� with tales of hardcore Muslim punks and how they will remake the face of Islam:
“I stopped trying to define Punk around the same time I stopped trying to define Islam. They aren’t so far removed as you’d think. Both began in tremendous bursts of truth and vitality but seem to have lost something along the way - the energy, perhaps, that comes with knowing the world has never seen such positive force and fury and never would again.�
The book reads sometimes a little too much like a copy of Salinger’s legendary tale of “phonyism.� In fact, Muslim punk bands like Osama bin Laden’s Tunnel Diggers and Bilal’s Boulder didn’t exist until the novel began making the rounds of young Muslims across America. But the familiar story - a detached narrator viewing various mixed-up young lives as they riff on the system they both love and despise, an idealistic loner who dreams of something new “out West� - will end all too familiarly for anyone who’s read “Catcher,� “On the Road,� and various other works of this stripe.
What sticks out most in the characters� discussions of Islam are its boundaries, and the endless questions that followers have about what they are allowed and what is forbidden - whether it be food, or tattoos, or alcohol, or drugs, or contact between the sexes, or thoughts. Rather than a positive expression of God’s love through action, the characters seem obsessed by a more negative pursuit, namely, what is permissible - how much can I get away with and still be submissive to the will of Allah? That leads to discussions, such as this one between the novel’s narrator, Yusef Ali, and Jehangir, about the how men and women interact within Islam. Yusef asks if men can really be innocent around women, the basis for separation of the genders:
“Maybe, maybe not, who knows. But if you believe that you can’t, and you live like you can’t, it messes you up inside.�
“What do you mean?�
“The more you accept man’s intrinsic weakness, the easier it is to hate girls. Suddenly all your bad thoughts are their fault since they should be known how weak you are and not take advantage of it…�
And much of the novel is caught up in this question of whether these people really are Muslims, by either their definition or the one Yusef learned in his home.
I found myself remembering a quote from Pope Benedict XVI, on why he believed there might never be a Muslim Reformation:
“God has given His word to Muhammad, but it’s an eternal word. It’s not Mohammed’s word. It’s there for eternity the way it is. There’s no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it, whereas in Christianity, and Judaism, the dynamism’s completely different, that God has worked through his creatures...there’s inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations.�
The author, an Irish Catholic convert to Islam, spends a great deal of time on the sins that his Muslim characters commit, but not much time on why they are doing these things - other than “man’s intrinsic weakness.� What I dwelt on, as I read it, was the mixing of Western culture with Islam, which at times bordered on simply finding an excuse, looking for how far one can go. As with much in life and literature, that question - how far can we go? - is couched in the positive but finds application in the negative. We don’t necessarily want to get any closer to God. We want to talk about it while we get further away from Him in spirit.
And what happens when we get there? How do we get closer to God? The idea of submission to Allah somehow gets lost in the submission part. When one character calls Islam not a religion but a perfect system of life, one longs for a whiff that one can even approach God. One longs for grace.
Alfred Kazin, in his 1997 study “God and the American Writer,� observed:
“Starting from embattled lonely beginnings, each church in America was separate from and doctrinally hostile to others. The individual on his way to becoming a writer was all too conscious that it was his ancestral sect, his early training, his own holiness in the eyes of his church that he brought to his writing. He became it’s apostle without having forever to believe in it, in anything - except the unlimited freedom that is the usual American faith.�
If Knight truly believes, as one of the characters says, that Islam will find its true voice in America in the nation’s mixing of cultures, races and thoughts, then its worth noting that Christianity at the same moment is, in large part, doing the same thing: trying to tailor its message to a shifting culture that puts a premium on blurring lines. But the only way Christianity can maintain itself, and its appeal, is by remaining different, by remaining itself. It’s interesting that this requires an act of faith, and trusting that Jesus will be sufficient to draw all to Him. History shows He has been more than sufficient.
The book’s narrator, Yusef Ali, is a Pakistani-American college student living in Buffalo, N.Y. in a house full of Muslim punk rockers. Yes, you read that correctly - Muslim punk rockers. Burqa-wearing feminist Muslims. Gay Muslims. Hardcore punk rock mohawked Muslims. Muslims who wear the Star of David just as Sid Vicious wore the Swastika 30 years before - to provoke. The language is hardcore - profanity and obscenity on virtually every page, drug use, graphic sex. There are passages that are funny but most of them are obscene, even if you’re not a Muslim, and profane if you are.
The plot of the book basically revolves around the interaction of the characters to Yusef, who comes from a much more conservative Muslim background than his friends and fears his interaction with these characters - Rude Dawud, Amazing Ayyub, and Jehangir Tabari, the tragic character who comes back from “Khalifornia� with tales of hardcore Muslim punks and how they will remake the face of Islam:
“I stopped trying to define Punk around the same time I stopped trying to define Islam. They aren’t so far removed as you’d think. Both began in tremendous bursts of truth and vitality but seem to have lost something along the way - the energy, perhaps, that comes with knowing the world has never seen such positive force and fury and never would again.�
The book reads sometimes a little too much like a copy of Salinger’s legendary tale of “phonyism.� In fact, Muslim punk bands like Osama bin Laden’s Tunnel Diggers and Bilal’s Boulder didn’t exist until the novel began making the rounds of young Muslims across America. But the familiar story - a detached narrator viewing various mixed-up young lives as they riff on the system they both love and despise, an idealistic loner who dreams of something new “out West� - will end all too familiarly for anyone who’s read “Catcher,� “On the Road,� and various other works of this stripe.
What sticks out most in the characters� discussions of Islam are its boundaries, and the endless questions that followers have about what they are allowed and what is forbidden - whether it be food, or tattoos, or alcohol, or drugs, or contact between the sexes, or thoughts. Rather than a positive expression of God’s love through action, the characters seem obsessed by a more negative pursuit, namely, what is permissible - how much can I get away with and still be submissive to the will of Allah? That leads to discussions, such as this one between the novel’s narrator, Yusef Ali, and Jehangir, about the how men and women interact within Islam. Yusef asks if men can really be innocent around women, the basis for separation of the genders:
“Maybe, maybe not, who knows. But if you believe that you can’t, and you live like you can’t, it messes you up inside.�
“What do you mean?�
“The more you accept man’s intrinsic weakness, the easier it is to hate girls. Suddenly all your bad thoughts are their fault since they should be known how weak you are and not take advantage of it…�
And much of the novel is caught up in this question of whether these people really are Muslims, by either their definition or the one Yusef learned in his home.
I found myself remembering a quote from Pope Benedict XVI, on why he believed there might never be a Muslim Reformation:
“God has given His word to Muhammad, but it’s an eternal word. It’s not Mohammed’s word. It’s there for eternity the way it is. There’s no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it, whereas in Christianity, and Judaism, the dynamism’s completely different, that God has worked through his creatures...there’s inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations.�
The author, an Irish Catholic convert to Islam, spends a great deal of time on the sins that his Muslim characters commit, but not much time on why they are doing these things - other than “man’s intrinsic weakness.� What I dwelt on, as I read it, was the mixing of Western culture with Islam, which at times bordered on simply finding an excuse, looking for how far one can go. As with much in life and literature, that question - how far can we go? - is couched in the positive but finds application in the negative. We don’t necessarily want to get any closer to God. We want to talk about it while we get further away from Him in spirit.
And what happens when we get there? How do we get closer to God? The idea of submission to Allah somehow gets lost in the submission part. When one character calls Islam not a religion but a perfect system of life, one longs for a whiff that one can even approach God. One longs for grace.
Alfred Kazin, in his 1997 study “God and the American Writer,� observed:
“Starting from embattled lonely beginnings, each church in America was separate from and doctrinally hostile to others. The individual on his way to becoming a writer was all too conscious that it was his ancestral sect, his early training, his own holiness in the eyes of his church that he brought to his writing. He became it’s apostle without having forever to believe in it, in anything - except the unlimited freedom that is the usual American faith.�
If Knight truly believes, as one of the characters says, that Islam will find its true voice in America in the nation’s mixing of cultures, races and thoughts, then its worth noting that Christianity at the same moment is, in large part, doing the same thing: trying to tailor its message to a shifting culture that puts a premium on blurring lines. But the only way Christianity can maintain itself, and its appeal, is by remaining different, by remaining itself. It’s interesting that this requires an act of faith, and trusting that Jesus will be sufficient to draw all to Him. History shows He has been more than sufficient.
July 25, 2021
Pretty good. I wish I had read this when I was younger. Reading it in my late thirties, it’s hard to not find the characters� philosophical/theological monologues annoying. But part of that is embarrassment over seeing my younger self in them.
They are clearly stand-ins for different ways of approaching Islam. But Knight does a good job of humanizing them and keeping them from being two-dimensional.
Some other reviews complained that the Arabic phrases peppered throughout felt alienating. I was already familiar with most of them so i found it added depth. And I enjoyed looking up the ones whose meaning I wasn’t sure about. I think it would have been weird to write a book about Muslim punks with a Muslim narrator and avoid using any Arabic.
One complaint is that the book isn’t very kind to its female and gay characters. Rabeya gets to articulate some pretty good feminist readings of the Qur’an and Muzammil and Rabeya both have some pointed retorts to Umar’s homophobia. But for the most part the female characters are just sex objects for the boys. Also the final scene is pretty dramatic but also totally unbelievable and I guess is some weird male fantasy that I don’t get.
They are clearly stand-ins for different ways of approaching Islam. But Knight does a good job of humanizing them and keeping them from being two-dimensional.
Some other reviews complained that the Arabic phrases peppered throughout felt alienating. I was already familiar with most of them so i found it added depth. And I enjoyed looking up the ones whose meaning I wasn’t sure about. I think it would have been weird to write a book about Muslim punks with a Muslim narrator and avoid using any Arabic.
One complaint is that the book isn’t very kind to its female and gay characters. Rabeya gets to articulate some pretty good feminist readings of the Qur’an and Muzammil and Rabeya both have some pointed retorts to Umar’s homophobia. But for the most part the female characters are just sex objects for the boys. Also the final scene is pretty dramatic but also totally unbelievable and I guess is some weird male fantasy that I don’t get.
April 22, 2021
This was an interesting concept with good representation and going into the beginning, I thought that it would be a solid read. As I kept reading though, the same ideas kept being repeated over and over again. For a book this short, it’d be nice for a tiny bit of variety.
September 3, 2011
Few times have I read a book that have forced me to stay up extra late to get "just one more page" in. Michael Muhammad Knight does that expertly with his story of Muslim Punks living in Buffalo. Each character within the story is a different archetype of Islam (from the fundamentalist Umar to liwaticore Muzammil and everything in between), and this works wonderfully to see the interactions and reactions of varying belief systems. Especially engaging was Rabeya, the burqa-wearing feminist who crosses out verses in the Qur'an that promote the inequality of women.
All of this is set against the backdrop of my hometown of Buffalo, New York. Knight uses the setting well to embellish the story, and there were a few times that I thought "This story couldn't have taken place anywhere else." Buffalo becomes something of a character as well -- echoing the moods and thoughts of several characters.
Don't pick up The Taqwacores expecting a glossary defining the Arabic and Islamic phrases/customs. I had my phone next to me while reading just so I could look up terminology as I went along. But this is also a great aspect of the book: Knight doesn't pander to a greater audience. He expects you to come knowing your shit, and if you don't he expects you to learn as you go. It would have taken away from the story to have footnotes or a glossary, and I think that The Taqwacores is far better for leaving out this aspect.
Unfortunately, I think that Knight stumbled a bit at the end. He had set up these amazing characters whose lives were interesting and who I wanted to meet up and hang out with, but near the end focuses more on the sexuality of Yusef, the speaker of the book. There were frequent passages about his masturbation which, after the first time, weren't really necessary. I also wasn't happy with the "wrap-up" chapter at the end. For such a progressive book, I feel like Knight cheapened the blow by drawing things to a close. It's by no means neat (in a way like Austen or Dickens would have written), but it is still taking the reader away from the immediacy of the novel and giving him/her an ending that may not (and did not for me) fit with the character.
I struggled between giving this book a four or a five star rating. In the end, however, I find that the book's merits far outweigh my nitpicking complaints. When I finished the book, I was angry not necessarily at the outcome, but at the fact that my time spent with these characters was over. I'm going to miss my Friday morning jumaa and Friday night punk rawk party at the Taqwacore house.
All of this is set against the backdrop of my hometown of Buffalo, New York. Knight uses the setting well to embellish the story, and there were a few times that I thought "This story couldn't have taken place anywhere else." Buffalo becomes something of a character as well -- echoing the moods and thoughts of several characters.
Don't pick up The Taqwacores expecting a glossary defining the Arabic and Islamic phrases/customs. I had my phone next to me while reading just so I could look up terminology as I went along. But this is also a great aspect of the book: Knight doesn't pander to a greater audience. He expects you to come knowing your shit, and if you don't he expects you to learn as you go. It would have taken away from the story to have footnotes or a glossary, and I think that The Taqwacores is far better for leaving out this aspect.
Unfortunately, I think that Knight stumbled a bit at the end. He had set up these amazing characters whose lives were interesting and who I wanted to meet up and hang out with, but near the end focuses more on the sexuality of Yusef, the speaker of the book. There were frequent passages about his masturbation which, after the first time, weren't really necessary. I also wasn't happy with the "wrap-up" chapter at the end. For such a progressive book, I feel like Knight cheapened the blow by drawing things to a close. It's by no means neat (in a way like Austen or Dickens would have written), but it is still taking the reader away from the immediacy of the novel and giving him/her an ending that may not (and did not for me) fit with the character.
I struggled between giving this book a four or a five star rating. In the end, however, I find that the book's merits far outweigh my nitpicking complaints. When I finished the book, I was angry not necessarily at the outcome, but at the fact that my time spent with these characters was over. I'm going to miss my Friday morning jumaa and Friday night punk rawk party at the Taqwacore house.
March 13, 2014
Nenne fünf Worte, die dir zu dem Begriff Islam einfallen!
Wetten, dass darunter garantiert nicht Punk, Haschisch, Oralsex, Alkohol oder ähnliches nicht als halal (erlaubt) Definiertes auftauchen? Dafür aber in diesem Buch.
Der Autor, selbst zum Islam konvertiert, beschreibt das Leben in einer WG, die ausschließlich von Muslimen bewohnt wird, darunter Punks, eine Burka tragende Feministin und auch völlig 'normale' Bewohner wie der Ich-Erzähler Yusef. Alle ringen damit, auf ihre Art den richtigen Glauben zu leben obwohl sie aus der Sicht der rechtgläubigen Muslime ständig gegen alle Gebote verstoßen. Doch statt wie die meisten Mitglieder der Umma (weltweite islamische Gemeinschaft) nur streng die islamischen Gesetze und Vorgaben zu befolgen, hinterfragen die WG-Bewohner alles, was sich nicht mit ihrer Lebensauffassung scheinbar vereinbaren lässt und kommen immer wieder zu erstaunlichen Erkenntnissen. Gespräch zwischen den jungen Männern: "..Plötzlich sind alle deine schmutzigen Gedanken ihre (die der Mädchen) Schuld, weil sie hätten wissen müssen, wie schwach du bist, und das nicht hätten ausnutzen dürfen....Wenn die schmutzigen Gedanken der Männer das Problem sind, warum stehen wir dann nicht hinter der Trennwand (in der Moschee)?"
Es sind größtenteils recht durchgeknallte Gestalten, um die man im realen Leben vermutlich einen großen Bogen machen würde. Doch je mehr man von ihnen liest, desto symphatischer werden sie. Obwohl sie einen so unkonventionellen Lebensstil pflegen, leben sie ihren Glauben wahrscheinlich aufrichtiger als so viele Andere. Ich schätze, Allah hätte seine Freude an ihnen :-)
Was mir die Lesefreude allerdings etwas verringert hat, ist das Fehlen einer richtigen Geschichte. Letzten Endes sind es 300 Seiten Beschreibung eines (für mich) ungewöhnlichen Alltages, an den ich mich allerdings spätestens nach ca. der Hälfte gewöhnt hatte. Und da doch ein nicht unwesentlicher Teil der Gespräche in der Art verläuft "Hej, cool!", "Scheiße", "Wow", wird es zeitweise doch etwas zäh. Dennoch: Für diese Einblicke, die man in den Islam erhält, kann man darüber hinwegsehen.
Wetten, dass darunter garantiert nicht Punk, Haschisch, Oralsex, Alkohol oder ähnliches nicht als halal (erlaubt) Definiertes auftauchen? Dafür aber in diesem Buch.
Der Autor, selbst zum Islam konvertiert, beschreibt das Leben in einer WG, die ausschließlich von Muslimen bewohnt wird, darunter Punks, eine Burka tragende Feministin und auch völlig 'normale' Bewohner wie der Ich-Erzähler Yusef. Alle ringen damit, auf ihre Art den richtigen Glauben zu leben obwohl sie aus der Sicht der rechtgläubigen Muslime ständig gegen alle Gebote verstoßen. Doch statt wie die meisten Mitglieder der Umma (weltweite islamische Gemeinschaft) nur streng die islamischen Gesetze und Vorgaben zu befolgen, hinterfragen die WG-Bewohner alles, was sich nicht mit ihrer Lebensauffassung scheinbar vereinbaren lässt und kommen immer wieder zu erstaunlichen Erkenntnissen. Gespräch zwischen den jungen Männern: "..Plötzlich sind alle deine schmutzigen Gedanken ihre (die der Mädchen) Schuld, weil sie hätten wissen müssen, wie schwach du bist, und das nicht hätten ausnutzen dürfen....Wenn die schmutzigen Gedanken der Männer das Problem sind, warum stehen wir dann nicht hinter der Trennwand (in der Moschee)?"
Es sind größtenteils recht durchgeknallte Gestalten, um die man im realen Leben vermutlich einen großen Bogen machen würde. Doch je mehr man von ihnen liest, desto symphatischer werden sie. Obwohl sie einen so unkonventionellen Lebensstil pflegen, leben sie ihren Glauben wahrscheinlich aufrichtiger als so viele Andere. Ich schätze, Allah hätte seine Freude an ihnen :-)
Was mir die Lesefreude allerdings etwas verringert hat, ist das Fehlen einer richtigen Geschichte. Letzten Endes sind es 300 Seiten Beschreibung eines (für mich) ungewöhnlichen Alltages, an den ich mich allerdings spätestens nach ca. der Hälfte gewöhnt hatte. Und da doch ein nicht unwesentlicher Teil der Gespräche in der Art verläuft "Hej, cool!", "Scheiße", "Wow", wird es zeitweise doch etwas zäh. Dennoch: Für diese Einblicke, die man in den Islam erhält, kann man darüber hinwegsehen.
June 30, 2013
As you may already know, this is a fictional story about a punk house in Buffalo filled entirely with Muslim punks. While reading this book, I also watched the documentary Taqwacore which is about the author getting a few Muslim punk bands together and touring the US. I recommend watching the documentary in addition to reading the book because I think it adds some insight into the author's motivations. The documentary comes across a little like, "White Guy Discovers Islam, Writes a Book." I was surprised though at how some of the people he meets in bands kind of resemble characters in the novel.
I think that the novel could have used a little more brutal editing. Specifically, I think the first two-thirds are very good and have expanded my viewpoint about what a punk house could look like with different cultural parameters. What if punk prayed five times a day? What if there was suddenly a female housemate? What if a gay Muslim started hanging out?
Once the protagonist discovers masturbation however, it's all over. I really did not have to hear this much about the guy's penis. For real. The ending is horrible, and the only reason I'm giving it three whole stars is because of the first part of the book.
I do recommend it however to punks. And it's funny, it doesn't feel like it's written for non-Muslim punks. I appreciate the fact that Muslim terms are not defined; you have to either figure it out in context or look it up.
Maybe just put the book down after the first masturbation scene.
I think that the novel could have used a little more brutal editing. Specifically, I think the first two-thirds are very good and have expanded my viewpoint about what a punk house could look like with different cultural parameters. What if punk prayed five times a day? What if there was suddenly a female housemate? What if a gay Muslim started hanging out?
Once the protagonist discovers masturbation however, it's all over. I really did not have to hear this much about the guy's penis. For real. The ending is horrible, and the only reason I'm giving it three whole stars is because of the first part of the book.
I do recommend it however to punks. And it's funny, it doesn't feel like it's written for non-Muslim punks. I appreciate the fact that Muslim terms are not defined; you have to either figure it out in context or look it up.
Maybe just put the book down after the first masturbation scene.
October 2, 2014
Check out the documentary Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam --It's fantastic. This book . . . not so much.
It's a coming of age story, but it never quite escapes from the juvenile. Through one of the central prophet-type punk characters, who is supposedly super-charismatic, Knight romanticizes the drunken philosophizing anyone can hear in college, romanticizes living in filth, smoking pot, breaking sh*t, listening to your favorite bands, yelling swear words at random strangers, and general adolescent restlessness. "F*ckin' epic," right? Oh, and by night, the characters get drunk and dream of creating an Islam that embraces the devout, but also the self-destructive, the profane, and the punk-rawk, man.
One redeeming quality of this book is that it can show Westerners the diversity within Islam. Through our American lens, we sometimes see certain aspects of Islam as repressive, so the view of Islamic culture from the U. S. seems to be that even though Muslims come from different countries, they must all practice exactly the same way, right? Wrong. There are a variety of interpretations of the Koran and the hadiths, and, just as with Western religions, people will shape it to fit their needs. Not all Muslims fast, and not all pray 5 times a day. There are gay Muslims, feminist Muslims, mystic Muslims, etc.
If this sounds intriguing, again, watch the documentary.
It's a coming of age story, but it never quite escapes from the juvenile. Through one of the central prophet-type punk characters, who is supposedly super-charismatic, Knight romanticizes the drunken philosophizing anyone can hear in college, romanticizes living in filth, smoking pot, breaking sh*t, listening to your favorite bands, yelling swear words at random strangers, and general adolescent restlessness. "F*ckin' epic," right? Oh, and by night, the characters get drunk and dream of creating an Islam that embraces the devout, but also the self-destructive, the profane, and the punk-rawk, man.
One redeeming quality of this book is that it can show Westerners the diversity within Islam. Through our American lens, we sometimes see certain aspects of Islam as repressive, so the view of Islamic culture from the U. S. seems to be that even though Muslims come from different countries, they must all practice exactly the same way, right? Wrong. There are a variety of interpretations of the Koran and the hadiths, and, just as with Western religions, people will shape it to fit their needs. Not all Muslims fast, and not all pray 5 times a day. There are gay Muslims, feminist Muslims, mystic Muslims, etc.
If this sounds intriguing, again, watch the documentary.
September 29, 2009
I read the Taqwacores because of an interview with Michael Muhammad Knight that a friend of mine posted. The novel is a window into a type of Muslim I never even knew existed (although I should have known). The story takes place in a house in Buffalo, New York, and involves a slew of characters, all Muslim, from a burqa wearing Rabeya to a righteous Umar and many others. The house is littered with beer bottles that have to be kicked aside when characters line up to face Qibla (marked with a hole in the wall made by a baseball bat) at prayer time. The narrator is Yusef, who describes life in the house which he absorbs from a bit of distance -- he's still figuring out how his position toward Islam might fit in (or not) with the chaos that is his temporary home. The novel culminates with a Muslim Punk Rock concert that a housemate engineers. The book is filled with Muslim references and language which make the story oddly familiar even as its subject matter is not. The book is fascinating as a window into an entirely different lifestyle. As a novel, it doesn't succeed--there are problems all around, including narrative drive, arc of the story, plot and character development, point of view, and a rather unfulfilling ending. Yet, the characters stay with me and I'm even right now wondering what they are up to!
August 24, 2013
SPOILER FREE
It was an excellent book! I really enjoyed every moment while I was reading it. It was hilarious, informative, eye opening, well written and really interesting.
Though I have to point out that this would be a slightly challenging book for those who don't come from Muslim communities or are Muslim because a lot of the references are pretty "in depth" within Islam and its' culture. This is not the book to read when wanting to explore or know more about Islam because this book is as pro-Islam as it is against Islam, much like the taqwacore movement. It has a lot of questions regarding Islam and it really makes you think. I liked how it had all kinds of Muslims in it, and as a Shia, I personally was very amused by all the Shia references, as crazy as they made us sound.
This book can kind of shake your perspective surrounding Islam if you've never questioned it, but can serve as a comfort if you have.
I just really enjoyed reading this book, it has made me laugh a lot and got me into thinking deeply about many things in Islam.
A+ book, highly recommend it to those searching for a different view regarding Islam, however would like to point out that it has a LOT of swearing and highly inappropriate scenes.
And I have never said this regarding a book before, but I HATED the ending.
I look forward to reading more from Michael Muhammed Knight!
It was an excellent book! I really enjoyed every moment while I was reading it. It was hilarious, informative, eye opening, well written and really interesting.
Though I have to point out that this would be a slightly challenging book for those who don't come from Muslim communities or are Muslim because a lot of the references are pretty "in depth" within Islam and its' culture. This is not the book to read when wanting to explore or know more about Islam because this book is as pro-Islam as it is against Islam, much like the taqwacore movement. It has a lot of questions regarding Islam and it really makes you think. I liked how it had all kinds of Muslims in it, and as a Shia, I personally was very amused by all the Shia references, as crazy as they made us sound.
This book can kind of shake your perspective surrounding Islam if you've never questioned it, but can serve as a comfort if you have.
I just really enjoyed reading this book, it has made me laugh a lot and got me into thinking deeply about many things in Islam.
A+ book, highly recommend it to those searching for a different view regarding Islam, however would like to point out that it has a LOT of swearing and highly inappropriate scenes.
And I have never said this regarding a book before, but I HATED the ending.
I look forward to reading more from Michael Muhammed Knight!
April 19, 2014
When I'm reading, I usually keep track of certain moments of the book, and reactions to them, so I can build the review as the book progresses. This one stumps me. I had so many quips that now that were wiped out by the ending. The book raises questions of religious identity, and optics... sure. The book is so jam packed with references from political discord, oppression, religious studies, punk rock and even the Eisenhower highway system, that at times my head was spinning more than the vinyl hotly debated in the 2nd half of the book. And I was listening to the audio book, so I was bombarded by drunken philosophical ramblings, juicy personal drama and sex - lots of sex - somewhere between the I-5 and 580.
This book is amazing, let me make that clear. It is well crafted, with characters as light hearted and boy-next-door as you'd expect, if you live next door to a Muslim punk household. The rhythm had a few hiccups in my opinion, but overall had a flow of thoughts that made me want to read non-stop. Aside from still being blown away by the ending (not sure if that's a good or bad blown away...) I really loved this book.
It really should be the next Great American Novel.
This book is amazing, let me make that clear. It is well crafted, with characters as light hearted and boy-next-door as you'd expect, if you live next door to a Muslim punk household. The rhythm had a few hiccups in my opinion, but overall had a flow of thoughts that made me want to read non-stop. Aside from still being blown away by the ending (not sure if that's a good or bad blown away...) I really loved this book.
It really should be the next Great American Novel.
July 11, 2009
Please click here for my Examiner review:
Now with LARGER TYPE and LINKS TO TAQWACORE BANDS!
Click here for my interview with the author:
This novel about a fictional Islamic punk rock subset (crash pads with anarchy symbols on Saudi flags, holes smashed in the wall to indicate the direction of Mecca) which later became a reality (whether as a result of this book or not I can't say, though that's part of its hype) reads well. The voice goes back and forth from English to Arabic terminology in rendition of the characters' adventures, but the book lacks a glossary. Maybe Knight wants his readers do some research, which is only fair. I just started another book by him called "Impossible Man" which has a very different tone but also reads well.
Now with LARGER TYPE and LINKS TO TAQWACORE BANDS!
Click here for my interview with the author:
This novel about a fictional Islamic punk rock subset (crash pads with anarchy symbols on Saudi flags, holes smashed in the wall to indicate the direction of Mecca) which later became a reality (whether as a result of this book or not I can't say, though that's part of its hype) reads well. The voice goes back and forth from English to Arabic terminology in rendition of the characters' adventures, but the book lacks a glossary. Maybe Knight wants his readers do some research, which is only fair. I just started another book by him called "Impossible Man" which has a very different tone but also reads well.
February 26, 2010
I realize that just because I relate to something doesn't make it universal. However, I found the struggles of these characters to balance peer culture, family history, tradition, faith, spirituality, and lifestyle orientation (this doesn't quite get at what I'm talking about, but it's the only way I can describe the orientation toward living one's life according to one's values) - this struggle felt universal. I'm grateful that the author used situations and traditions that are quite unfamiliar to me in his portrayal of this struggle. I also deeply appreciated the ways that these characters remained true to their own truth in a quest to experience the sparks of truth within their religion. I'm copying a few passages to keep for inspiration as I look at my own quest to connect my values orientation, spiritual experience, and articulation of faith - in a tradition that is equally as unfriendly (on the surface) to me as Islam seems to be unfriendly to punk.
It works.
It works.
February 7, 2011
I was told that this book is remarkable not for its writing, but what it stands for. The idea of it, the people it created, was at first incredibly provocative to me. But then I started reading. And I dealt, in not equal proportions, some of each of the following sentiment:
1. Exasperation over another published writer who needs to show more, tell less.
2. Disturbance of the level of blasphemy it gets to at times.
3. A pretentiousness that irks. It does not prevail throughout, but when it does arise, it is gag-worthy.
4. A chuckle of understanding, and a feeling of connectedness, in the book's very, very rare good moments.
I respect creative license and this work by extension, but I don't don't understand why Muslims raise such hell over Satanic Verses and remain ignorant of this. Oh well. That's just the world we live in.
For all its flaws, I'm glad I bought this book and supported it. It needs to exist.
1. Exasperation over another published writer who needs to show more, tell less.
2. Disturbance of the level of blasphemy it gets to at times.
3. A pretentiousness that irks. It does not prevail throughout, but when it does arise, it is gag-worthy.
4. A chuckle of understanding, and a feeling of connectedness, in the book's very, very rare good moments.
I respect creative license and this work by extension, but I don't don't understand why Muslims raise such hell over Satanic Verses and remain ignorant of this. Oh well. That's just the world we live in.
For all its flaws, I'm glad I bought this book and supported it. It needs to exist.
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