Michael Muhammad Knight, whose book Blue Eyed Devil was reviewed in Parabola’s “The New World” issue, has been getting a lot of press lately. In addition to his latest works, Impossible Man and Osama Van Halen, Knight has been working with Eye Steel Films on a documentary about the taqwacore movement, which he had a heavy hand in (un)defining.
Knight is most famous for his first book, The Taqwacores, which was a work of fiction chronicling the lives of a handful of Muslim punks living in typical punk squalor. What for Knight might have been an attempt to create a world where he could feel at home being both a punk and a Muslim, quickly revealed an already existing world of real-life punks of Muslim background.
Before the book was officially published Knight had been selling/handing out stapled photocopies of the book in mosque parking lots. The book circulated with a bit of a cult following and soon enough Muslim punk kids were contacting Knight to alert him to their existence. Thus a movement was born (or more appropriately, given a name): “Taqwacore.” “Taqwa” is Arabic roughly translated as God Consciouness. “–core” is what any self-respecting punk places on the end of any and every hybrid manifestation of hardcore music (grindcore, queercore, Krishnacore, et al).
The most recent trailer for the Taqwacore documentary can be found here. Enjoy!
