April 12 This week Michael Muhammad Knight presented in Germany his book Taqwarcores, first published in 2004. The author is a converted American Muslim who currently lives in Berlin. The book discusses the birthplace of Punk Islam and the desire of a new generation of Muslims who reject religious ideologies and dogmas. His book reading…
He was a “15-year-old white kid with Dad a diagnosed schizophrenic, rapist and racial separatist and Mom fresh off her second divorce,” Michael Muhammad Knight writes in his 2006 memoir, “Blue-Eyed Devil: A Road Odyssey Through Islamic America.” At home in Rochester, he “listened to a lot of Public Enemy and read ‘The Autobiography of…
The film, directed by Eyad Zahra, is based on a novel by Michael Muhammad Knight about a fictitious Muslim punk scene in the United States. The tale is told through the eyes of Yusef (Bobby Naderi), a preposterously naïve engineering student in Buffalo, whose family is from Pakistan. Yusef moves off campus into a squalid…
An Islamic punk rock scene is emerging as another dimension of life for Muslims in America. “In this so-called war of civilizations, we’re giving the finger to both sides,” says the ‘godfather’ of the Muslim punk movement, Michael Muhammad Knight. “Given punk’s history and values, Muslim punk makes sense,” says the Pakistani-Canadian director of Taqwacore:…
Canadian documentary filmmaker Omar Majeed recently released his newest film, Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam. Taking its name from “Taqwa,” the Arabic word for “higher consciousness,” Taqwacore is a nascent music scene that both celebrates Islam while rebelling, in typical punk fashion, against the social and political constraints of the religion. “Drunk imams, punk…
