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The success of a punk rock novel by an American-Muslim convert is igniting the emergence of Muslim hardcore-rebellious artists and the search for an "American Islam".
Michael Muhammad Knight, an Irish-Catholic convert to Islam from upstate New York, was disillusioned by the Islam he saw around him. Though pious in his adopted faith, he felt that the Islam he studied in Pakistan was not entirely fulfilling for a Muslim American. Instead of relying on the teachings of contemporary Muslim clerics, Knight turned to those of the Prophet Muhammad [saw]: ignore leaders, destroy deities and follow only Allah.
In that endeavor Mr. Knight wrote "Taqwacores," a novel about Muslim American punk rockers. His characters include a drunk, a pot smoking skater, and a guitar-playing rockess who leads prayers. The novel's message about finding one's own Islam instead of relying on established preachers stroke a cord with many young Muslims in America who are pious in their faith, or at least proud of being Muslim, as much as they are patriotic.
The novel's title combines the Arabic word for piety, "taqwa", with the tail end of hardcore, in reference of punk rock.
The book gathered an underground success among Muslim American youth and upon learning from Mr. Knight that he relied solely on imagination in writing about a Muslim punk rock group because there were none, many readers of the novel ventured out and started their own groups with names like "Vote Hezbollah" to "Secret Trial Five" to "el-Thowra" [the revolution]. Another band, "the Kominas," wrote what The New York Times describes as "Muslim punk rock's first anthem."
Muslim punk rock is a artistic expression against fundamentalist Islam and also against the hostile policy adopted by the Bush administration and exposed by the nation's neo-conservatives toward the Muslim world. This is the way most Muslims feel in America now, opposed to the fanaticism of Bin Ladinite kooks, but discomforted if not angered by the Islamophobia in American culture and the policies of the current administration. And trying to find their own Islam in their new beloved country.
"I’m a Muslim and I’m 100-percent American, so I can criticize my faith and my country. Rebellion? Punk? This is totally American," said Noureen DeWulf, a 24-year old actress.
Ms. DeWulf will be playing the younger rocker in film adaptation of Mr. Knights book. The film is an independent project that will be released next year.
