Over Easter weekend I dug into the pile of new books I bought in March, starting with The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight.  Now, I won’t be encountering Islam proper until August, so I don’t want to get too into this, but I really need to say something about the book now, because it really blew me away and I wasn’t expecting that.

The Taqwacores is a fictional account of a group of young punk Muslims living in Boston and their particular take on life and Islam.  The main character, Yusef, is written as a perfect everyman whose struggle was easy to identify with despite the cultural disparity.  You don’t need to know much about Islam to see yourself in his shoes, as he mostly just reacts to the mix of punk rock chaos and various shades of Islam that surround him.  Taqwacore itself is a mixture of the words ‘hardcore’, a genre of punk music, and ‘taqwa’, an Arabic word meaning piety, or to be God-fearing.

It is a gripping yarn, effortlessly stringing together Islam with punk culture which creates a believable portrait of a movement that, for the most part, didn’t actually exist before this book was written, at least not in North America.  Michael Muhammad Knight inspired young Islamic punks to coalesce into a real Taqwacore scene.  This in turn spawned an excellent documentary film called Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam which I had the privilege of watching at last year’s Vancouver International Film Festival, as well as a film adaptation of the novel, which I dearly hope will be making its way here in the near future.

Part of the reason why I enjoyed this book so much is also the reason behind why I like talking about religion in video games, and incidentally why I have a soft spot for modern imaginings of Shakespeare plays.  It’s  the synthesis of the old and the new, the ancient, medieval, and the modern.  I don’t know what it is about this combination, perhaps it’s the impression that the old ways are still practical, perhaps it’s the juxtaposition.  I can’t say that I’m quite certain, but it tickles my fancy, as they say.

I really want to just gush about this book and everything that happens in it, but I want to save that for my month of Islam where I think it would be much more insightful and relevant.  Suffice it to say that I will be actively pursuing Knight’s other work and will be sampling all the Taqwacore bands that I can come August.  But for now I will leave you with these lyrics which open The Taqwacores. Enjoy.

I see Muhammad
down at the corner store
rocking on Galaga
getting the high score

When he delivers sermons
the kids think he’s a bore
but when he smashes idols
everyone cheers for more

Muhammad was a punk rocker
he tore everything down
Muhammad was a punk rocker
and he rocked that town

All the people in Mecca
knew Muhammad’s name
they knew him by his fucked-up hair
and dangling wallet chain

They knew him by his spikes
and said he was insane
but Ali knew better
Uncle wouldn’t play their game

Muhammad was a punk rocker
you know he tore shit up
Muhammad was a punk rocker
Rancid sticker on his pickup truck

When he was in a dumpster by himself
Allah told him crazy things
for Muhammad to share with all of us
on his six holy strings