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
During the last Year of Faith I learned that fasting has a very strong moral component. It really lets you connect with people who don’t have the means to be able to eat everyday. But I’ll get more into that later. There’s probably a spiritual component to it as well- since you aren’t worrying about food or other carnal things there is a lot of time for reading, prayer, and reflection, but I haven’t really gotten to that point either.
Today I really got to appreciate the physiological side of fasting. As your body depletes it’s primary means of energy, glucose, it moves on to glycogen reserves in the liver and muscles before moving on to fatty acids. I’m not quite sure at what point of this process that you begin to get the warm and fuzzies, but I know that at around three or four o’clock I stop feeling hungry and start to feel all full and warm inside. I assume that this is my body burning up my plentiful reserves of backup fat. Feel free to replace the word ‘assume’ in that sentence with ‘hope’ because that’s what I did.
Apparently short term every other day fasting can be pretty healthy for you, as can brief longer term fasts. Anything over a month is bad news, so something like the Nineteen Day Fast is healthy for the soul and the body.
Breaking the fast is fifteen kinds of awesome. The food tastes amazing and I really did appreciate the first meal of the day. In addition to this, the meals you do manage to have at the end of the day take on a whole new meaning. It’s a chance to make dinner into a big deal, a chance to enjoy yourself with friends and family, to celebrate after a difficult experience. It must be quite fulfilling for Baha’i families, to come together for a meal and have it actually mean something. Me? I try to have dinner with my friends, to go out and make a big deal of it, because it is really easy to take something like this for granted, and it deserves celebrating at least once a year for a few days.
I tried and failed to pick up some Baha’i books today, but apparently my local Chapters doesn’t believe in this particular faith market. But I’ll be damned if I leave a bookstore empty-handed, so I picked up some other titles instead.
Dharma Punx by Noah Levine. This is something that I’ve been wanting to read for a while now. It’s the memoir of an ex-punk who did the acid, sex, rock and roll rebellion thing, failed to find any spiritual meaning and found a kind of salvation and direction in Buddhism. Sounds like a good time, and a great addition to my reading list for May.
Against the Stream by Noah Levine. Lessons on Buddhism using personal anecdotes and guided meditations. Levine uses the experiences chronicled in Dharma Punx to teach others how to escape addiction and find freedom from suffering. Looking forward to this one too.
The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight. I have been looking forward to this book ever since I saw the documentary Taqwacore at last year’s Vancouver International Film Festival. It was one of the best films that I have ever seen, and it covers the small but acute counter-culture mismash that is punk Islam, following a band of queer and Muslim punks as they travel accross the states, playing gigs and finding out what Islam means to the youth of today. I should keep this tucked away for my month of Islam, but I may indulge for a few chapters.