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The Taqwacores

3.69 of 5 stars 3.69 · rating details · 474 ratings · 117 reviews

THE TAQWACORES vividly depicts day-to-day life in a Muslim punk house in Buffalo, New York. Characters include Rabeya, a burqa-clad riot girl; Umar, a straightedge Sunni; Muzammil Sadiq, who struggles against orthodox Islamic homophobia; and Jehangir Tabari, a drunken Sufi saint who dreams of putting on a Muslim Punk show in Buffalo. Both entertaining and serious, THE TAQW...more

Paperback, 254 pages

Published April 10th 2005 by Autonomedia

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Mar 28, 2013 oriana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2009

This is a really fascinating story of a super-small social niche—Muslim punks—who it never even occurred to me to think existed. The story itself was a little clumsy, the writing & structure a bit amateur-ish, but on the whole very readable and, like I said, fascinating. There's a ton of Arabic (Farsi?) sprinkled through, which jars harshly (as was of course the intention) with punk lyrics and plenty of profanity.

Basically there's this punk house, like any punk house anywhere—walls coated w...more This is a really fascinating story of a super-small social niche—Muslim punks—who it never even occurred to me to think existed. The story itself was a little clumsy, the writing & structure a bit amateur-ish, but on the whole very readable and, like I said, fascinating. There's a ton of Arabic (Farsi?) sprinkled through, which jars harshly (as was of course the intention) with punk lyrics and plenty of profanity.

Basically there's this punk house, like any punk house anywhere—walls coated with posters & fliers, floor roiling with beer bottles and vomit and passed-out people—but everyone who lives there is a semi-devout Muslim. So the opening scene has people stirring on beer-soaked couches and getting up to set up prayer rugs and have a ceremony. Cool, right?

Other than the obvious strangeness of the setting, this is definitely a character-driven novel. And while the characters are a bit caricature-y, they're clearly set up that way so they can have really interesting conversations about Islam, punk, how to pray, whether women should have rights, how literally to take holy texts, etc.

There's a straightedge guy with dozens of Koran tattoos. There's a girl who wears a full burka—which is covered with punk band patches. There's stoners and mohawks and skaters and nerds and all the rest. There're even excerpts from a Muslim sci-fi series, where people are trying to figure out how to convert the Martians to Islam.

Anyway, here is my favorite passage from the book. I think you can replace punk in the below with lots of big-concept "movement"-type words, which is pretty neat.

I stopped trying to define punk around the same time I stopped trying to define Islam. They aren't so far removed as you'd think. Both began in tremendous bursts of truth and vitality but seem to have lost something along the way—the energy, perhaps, that comes with knowing the world has never seen such positive force and fury and never would again. Both have suffered from sell-outs and hypocrites, but also from true believers whose devotion had crippled their creative drive. Both are viewed by outsiders as unified, cohesive communities, when nothing can be further from the truth.

I could go on, but the most important similarity is that like punk as mentioned above, Islam is an open symbol representing not things but ideas. You cannot hold punk or Islam in your hands. So what could they mean besides what you want them to?

Oh! And this edition (which is I think only eight bucks) was put out by the super-fabulous all-volunteer-run Brooklyn collective, Autonomedia. Support them!!(less)

12 likes · like · see review

May 09, 2012 Jacob rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-part-1, fiction-and-literature, i-own

March 2012

"A Muslim punk house in Buffalo, New York, inhabited by burqa-wearing riot grrrls, mohawked Sufis, straightedge Sunnis, Shi'a skinheads, Indonesian skaters, Sudanese rude boys, gay Muslims, drunk Muslims, and feminists. Their living room hosts parties and prayers, with a hole smashed in the wall to indicate the direction of Mecca. Their life together mixes sex, dope, and religion in roughly equal amounts, expressed in devotion to an Islamo-punk subculture, 'taqwacore,' named for taqwa,

...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Imogen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Holy shit, Muslim punk house! This book rules. I mean, I can't really speak to the central message of 'Islam must evolve, maybe,' because I'm not in charge of Islam at all. I CAN speak to the folks who blurbed it The Catcher In the Rye for Muslims, to whom I say: oh, fuck off. You lose a hundred points every time you call a book the catcher in the rye of or for anything. The Catcher in the Rye is about a privileged kid with no tools for dealing with the fact that most of the world isn't as privi...more Holy shit, Muslim punk house! This book rules. I mean, I can't really speak to the central message of 'Islam must evolve, maybe,' because I'm not in charge of Islam at all. I CAN speak to the folks who blurbed it The Catcher In the Rye for Muslims, to whom I say: oh, fuck off. You lose a hundred points every time you call a book the catcher in the rye of or for anything. The Catcher in the Rye is about a privileged kid with no tools for dealing with the fact that most of the world isn't as privileged as he is, and that sucks, but he has no tools to do anything about it so he whines all the time. The Taqwacores is about a kid who doesn't really know which way is up, what to do about it, what he thinks or wants (except that his character development is 1. doesn't masturbate 2. does), but sees all these folks around him who seem like they do. Only he's not sure about how right they are, but thinks probably mostly. Maybe. And doesn't have anything to say about it except 'this is going on' and doesn't end up breaking down and going to a mental hospital- he ends up moving back home, which is hardly the same kind of situation. So I guess it's kind of like the Catcher in the Rye? Except if the narrator were more starry-eyes, had more options, and came from a more precarious position. EG NOTHING LIKE THE CATCHER IN THE RYE.

The Taqwacores is rad because- y'know how Michelle Tea or Mattilda Sycamore Bernstein's novels never really have a plot or anything, and then nothing ever gets resolved but you don't really care because you just wanted to read them talking about stuff that happened? This book isn't really like that- there's a plot, about putting on a show, and a subplot, wherein young Yusef Ali learns to masturbate- but you kind of want it to be. Street poet grody punkers talking about their culture, talking shit, singing along to old punk stuff, and praying four or five times a day, then feeling bad sometimes that it's only four or five times? Gimme some more. So I didn't really care about the plot, I cared about the writing, which I think is the secret to making me like a book a lot.

Somebody else was complaining about all the Islamic in-language and how that made them feel like they weren't allowed in, but it didn't feel that way to me. It felt natural and, like, sure, this is a lot of language I don't know, but it's a story that I *do* know, and it's a good one. So I didn't feel stressed about it. Dude. Plus. Muslim Punk House.(less)

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Mar 18, 2008 Josh rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Punk, Muslims, and people interested in such things.

Recommended to Josh by: AK Press

Shelves: fiction, islam

This book tells the story of a fictional muslim-punk (taqwacore) scene in Buffalo filled with such colorful characters as a tattooed straight-edge fundamentalist, a riot girl in a patch-covered burqa, a pothead sufi, and other slices of the muslim ummah transplanted into slices of the punk scene. It is heavy on the arabic/islamic terms so if one is uninitiated, it would be good to have a reference at hand to clear a few things up.

Knight's book would certainly draw a 1,000 more fatwahs than anyth...more

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Mar 20, 2009 Hedzlyn Helwaty rated it 5 of 5 stars

what i learned from the book:

1. people practise Islam are varying levels, know Islam at different depths....

2. no one can claim to be better than another - everyone is a work-in-progress - being judgemental or critical just breed resentment.

3. the author paints the stark reality of the underbelly of the underbelly of Muslims - many moral issues raised.

4. but what disturbs me about the characters was that everyone thought that they were dead right in they way they lived as Muslims.
It reminds me...more

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Mar 04, 2009 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars

So tedious. I really couldn't wait for this book to end, but I am giving it 3 stars because it exposed me to ideas I hadn't run into before (punk Muslims) and I imagine that 14 year old me would have loved it. However, most of the characters feel more like ideas or sides of an argument than actual people. About 80% of the book is a conversation where someone says to the narrator "Have you ever heard of ..." The narrator says no and then there is pages of one character going on and on punctuated...more

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Mar 11, 2009 Miami University Libraries rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult, emily

I’m not often excited about novels that contain the phrase “coming-of-age” in their description. Too much time spent in high school reading books that featured ancient teenagers worrying about wars and social mores that were generations removed from me. It’s hard to describe The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight without the damning “coming-of-age” phrase, but it is quickly followed by “hardcore Muslim punk rock” and that makes all the difference. The Taqwacores is a novel that focuses on a g...more

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Sep 29, 2009 Sorayya Khan rated it 2 of 5 stars

I read the Taqwacores because of an interview with Michael Muhammad Knight that a friend of mine posted. The novel is a window into a type of Muslim I never even knew existed (although I should have known). The story takes place in a house in Buffalo, New York, and involves a slew of characters, all Muslim, from a burqa wearing Rabeya to a righteous Umar and many others. The house is littered with beer bottles that have to be kicked aside when characters line up to face Qibla (marked with a hole...more

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Feb 18, 2010 Kate Gould rated it 1 of 5 stars

Originally published on photocopiers and distributed from the back of Knight’s car in mosque parking lots, The Taqwacores charts the attempts by Yusef, a punk and convert to Islam at 16, to live entirely by Muslim principles and faith.

Were The Taqwacores a novella, Knight’s continual examinations of Islam and Punk would be interesting and energetic, but at 250 pages the repetitive conversations and contemplations slow the pace and largely supplant plot and character. Yusef prays five times a day...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Hana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: islam-religi

3.5/5

What I dislike about this book:

1. Vehement usage of F word throughout this book. But.. that is the punky-style, I suppose?
2. The obscenity and blasphemy/profanity - even the publisher has removed certain words and replaced them with ***, uneasy feelings still aroused within me while reading *** Muhammad (pbuh) or *** Imam Husayn (r.a). I don't want to pretend I'm okay with it, because (to me) that is absolutely not okay.

What I like about this book (or more likely things that I learnt):

1. B...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Andy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

Man, this was another tough one for me to rate. I'm only passingly familiar with both Islam (I'm not a Muslim) and punk (which I don't particularly have an interest in), but the combination of the two sounded interesting.

In terms of the good: Even though the characters sometimes seemed more like ideas, they also were different and interesting enough to catch my attention. Some were obnoxious, but the others were awesome enough that the cast evened out for me. Even Yusef, who frequently just goe...more

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Feb 19, 2010 Shay Mcallister rated it 4 of 5 stars

This isn't the first time I've read this book, but I love it enough to keep reading it.

It's about Muslim punks living in Buffalo. They use the electric guitar to call the adhan, hold Friday jumaas in their living room (the mihrab was smashed into the wall with a baseball bat), and who drink, smoke dope, and fornicate.

Another key element of the story is taqwacore, which simply put is Muslim punk music. The book is about a "normal," sort of square Muslim named Yusef who moves into a house full of...more

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Sep 03, 2011 Matthew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Few times have I read a book that have forced me to stay up extra late to get "just one more page" in. Michael Muhammad Knight does that expertly with his story of Muslim Punks living in Buffalo. Each character within the story is a different archetype of Islam (from the fundamentalist Umar to liwaticore Muzammil and everything in between), and this works wonderfully to see the interactions and reactions of varying belief systems. Especially engaging was Rabeya, the burqa-wearing feminist who cr...more Few times have I read a book that have forced me to stay up extra late to get "just one more page" in. Michael Muhammad Knight does that expertly with his story of Muslim Punks living in Buffalo. Each character within the story is a different archetype of Islam (from the fundamentalist Umar to liwaticore Muzammil and everything in between), and this works wonderfully to see the interactions and reactions of varying belief systems. Especially engaging was Rabeya, the burqa-wearing feminist who crosses out verses in the Qur'an that promote the inequality of women.

All of this is set against the backdrop of my hometown of Buffalo, New York. Knight uses the setting well to embellish the story, and there were a few times that I thought "This story couldn't have taken place anywhere else." Buffalo becomes something of a character as well -- echoing the moods and thoughts of several characters.

Don't pick up The Taqwacores expecting a glossary defining the Arabic and Islamic phrases/customs. I had my phone next to me while reading just so I could look up terminology as I went along. But this is also a great aspect of the book: Knight doesn't pander to a greater audience. He expects you to come knowing your shit, and if you don't he expects you to learn as you go. It would have taken away from the story to have footnotes or a glossary, and I think that The Taqwacores is far better for leaving out this aspect.

Unfortunately, I think that Knight stumbled a bit at the end. He had set up these amazing characters whose lives were interesting and who I wanted to meet up and hang out with, but near the end focuses more on the sexuality of Yusef, the speaker of the book. There were frequent passages about his masturbation which, after the first time, weren't really necessary. I also wasn't happy with the "wrap-up" chapter at the end. For such a progressive book, I feel like Knight cheapened the blow by drawing things to a close. It's by no means neat (in a way like Austen or Dickens would have written), but it is still taking the reader away from the immediacy of the novel and giving him/her an ending that may not (and did not for me) fit with the character.

I struggled between giving this book a four or a five star rating. In the end, however, I find that the book's merits far outweigh my nitpicking complaints. When I finished the book, I was angry not necessarily at the outcome, but at the fact that my time spent with these characters was over. I'm going to miss my Friday morning jumaa and Friday night punk rawk party at the Taqwacore house.(less)

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Aug 31, 2011 Kellee rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, religion-philosophy

Awesome book. Has value in many ways. First off it gave me a look into a culture I'm less familiar with; it has a wide array of Muslim characters, something missing in a lot of American culture right now. It also has a good solid look at punk culture in it's many manifestations, from straightedge to classic to riot grrl to homocore. Yes, this book has gay Muslim punks in it. And it's leaps like that that lead to the books truly valuable stuff. The "normal" narrator, while as a character I don't...more

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Feb 25, 2010 Wade rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I realize that just because I relate to something doesn't make it universal. However, I found the struggles of these characters to balance peer culture, family history, tradition, faith, spirituality, and lifestyle orientation (this doesn't quite get at what I'm talking about, but it's the only way I can describe the orientation toward living one's life according to one's values) - this struggle felt universal. I'm grateful that the author used situations and traditions that are quite unfamiliar...more

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Oct 13, 2009 Usman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you come from a typical conservative Muslim background, some of the dialog and ideas in this book will probably have your jaw hit the floor, and others will resonate in a way that you've never experienced because no one really put it into words....

This is an extremely unique take on American Punk culture fusing with culturally disenfranchised American Muslim youth resulting in a hybrid movement known as Taqwacore. In essence this is a short narrative about alienation in the Muslim community,...more

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Apr 24, 2010 Johnny B. Rempit rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2010, favorites

If you're a Muslim and you want to read this book, you'll need two things. First, you'll need an open mind. Second, you need to suspend your judgment while reading it. If you don't, you won't even get past the Introduction. Why? Because it's the lyrics to a song called, "Muhammad Was A Punk Rocker". And I'm not talking about your average Muhammad the cab driver or Muhammad the college kid from Pakistan. Get my drift, yes?

That being said, I thought this book was a blast! As fan of punk rock myse...more

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Nov 07, 2012 Shaina Leitch rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club

Really enjoyed this book! It's the first Muslim based novel I've ever read. I learned a lot about Islam and saw a whole side that I never knew about. There is a beauty in the religion. It has it's bad parts but it also has really awesome aspects. And this book is about embracing all that is good in Islam and rejecting the things that aren't right.

Taqwacore is Muslim punk. These kids are raging against the negative while still fully embracing their religion. They appear as any other American pun...more

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Aug 02, 2009 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

I ended up really liking this book though it took a while to grow on me. Knight kind of hammers home his main point over and over, though it is a good point. Basically, he's offering a corrective to the images of Muslims presented in most American media and arguing that Islam can be what you make of it. He seems to be mainly addressing other young American Muslims, trying to push them into challenging their tradition and creating a new, innovative American Islam. His cast of punk misfits are ent...more

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Feb 14, 2011 Zach rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. It's a simple story told simply, in a sometimes shocking setting. I received a crash course in Islam and punk culture at the same time. There's something of the beat generation in these Islamic-American punks. They're fucking up but at the same time spouting a philosophy of doubt. They struggle with their own theology, and while they seem to defile Islam with every act, there is something respectful and reverent in their actions. It's a coming of age story in the face...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Jamie Felton rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is a good example of something greater than the sum of its parts. I don't particularly like Knight's writing style; his dialogue seems forced/contrived and his plots are flimsy relying mostly on candid representations of sex and drugs to get him through. However, this book created a community of people who didn't even realize they existed. He brought them together by writing a sort of poorly written account of a fictional community. And then that community actually happened. Which is a...more

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Jul 26, 2012 Suze Fields rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved reading this book. It was refreshing to get a view of Islam different that the one we are bombarded with every day. It may seem chaotic, and it does overflow with the marks of masculinity of the writer (the better writers are the one that can adopt a gender neutral voice, so it doesn't go closing our any part of the audience), but even the pungent blow to your nose fell well in place. It can rub you wrong, it can make you feel uncomfortable, it can make you want to yell "can't you *prete...more

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May 11, 2012 Alan Myers rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm glad I read this book but I take issue with the author.
Here the author is taking a religion based on certain facts and rules that he finds too strict for him.
So he starts this movement by writing this book that took other Muslim teens & helped them find this new Islam. Which isn't Islam at all.
If you are a Christian or a Muslim there are certain things you have to do.
If you don't do them you are not a Muslim or a Christian. You have created your own religion to suit yourself using th...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Colin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I heard this described as a muslim "Catcher in the Rye". A better comparison would be to Douglas Coupland's "Generation X" though. The characters are bunch of american muslim punks who spend their time philosophising about the tension between religion and culture and the parallels between islam and the punk ethic. Like Gen X, the characters are a bit too articulate to be believable and a bit too self-absorbed to be likeable, but it has energy and a fresh viewpoint, and I like the whole idea of t...more

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Nov 05, 2012 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Alan by: Jacob

Shelves: short-stories, novels, read-in-2012

3.5 really for the writing and story, but an extra star for the fascinating stuff I leant about Islamic punks! Proper review coming...
well not a proper review, just this:
a growing up story really with all the masturbation/girlfriend/boyfriend/what's the point of life elements, but considerably enlivened by the fact it concerns Muslim punks, living in America, coming to terms with their religion and modern, Western life. They remain devout, after a fashion, being called to prayer by an 'electric...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Malcolm rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-contemporary

I quite like the idea of straightedge providing a way to be both punk and (fairly) orthodox Muslim, but on the whole found this quite frustrating. My major gripe is that there is little space for empathy with any of the characters: Knight adopts a gonzo pose where the writing style is pretty flat, and despite some appealing characteristics, they all remain fairly distant people about whom we are not expected to care. More annoying is that despite the smatterings of Arabic – the stuff that isn't...more

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Apr 17, 2011 Laurie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favorites

Wow. What an amazing book. The point of view character is like Candide, walking through the world of Muslim punk rockers: taqwacores. He was brought up as a sheltered Muslim boy in Syracuse, and when he goes to Buffalo for college (Buff State, not UB, from what I can figure from where they mostly hang out), and when he goes to live in a house of Muslims rather than the dorms -- his parents worry about what he would be exposed to there -- he becomes exposed to a whole world, an Islam that include...more

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Mar 19, 2011 Upom rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: religion, islam, fiction, punk, american-dream, music, 21st-century, worth-rereading

This book is shocking, outrageous, ugly, yet somehow beautiful at the same time. Because of its sheer ability to challenge and smash "false idols", it might be one of the only pieces of real literature I've read that was published in the last 10 years. The book combines two unlikely cultures, Islam and punk rock, to construct a fascinating subculture that dreams of an American Islam bigger than anything in existence. Popular Muslim archetypes are reimagined as modern punk rock stereotypes (wahab...more

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Jul 08, 2010 Ubalstecha rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-reads, cbc-radio-books

Yusuf Ali is an engineering student who lives off campus in an all-Muslim house full of the Taqwacores. He lives with Umar, a supposedly the straight-edge Sunni who is covered in tattoos; Rabeya, a burqa-clad riot grrl; and Jehangir, the dope-smoking mohawked Sufi.

Plot wise, not much happens in this book. It is more of a series of charater vignettes leading to Yusuf leaving the house to head home, Yusuf asks questions about the validity of the Islam practiced by he and his housemates. Hardcore f...more

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Sep 21, 2009 Al Billings rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an odd book. One Muslim that I know at school said that Michael Knight is trying to be the John Salinger of Islam but isn't quite pulling it off. That may be the case.

I found the book very interesting. It is a first person tale from the point of view of Yusef, a Pakistani-American college kid who lives in a house composed of Muslim punks. He's the token straight guy. He doesn't drink, do drugs, or fornicate with women (or men!). The same cannot be said of all of his housemates, except on...more

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“Dry-humping, I believe it's called.” — 2 people liked it

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