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:…
By Evan Serpick In late august, a creaking green school bus with red camels stenciled on its side rolled up to the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo in Ohio. Seventeen exhausted, beer-reeking punks, with mohawks and dyed hair, walked up to the mosque looking for a place to rest. “I was surprised — they totally…
