The Taqwacores

by Michael Muhammad Knight (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $6.21

  Yusef is living in Buffalo, New York with a group of Muslim punks. A pot-smoking mohawked Sufi called Jehangir plays the rooftop call to prayer on his electric guitar, while debates rage downstairs about the Quranic sources for Iggy Pop songs. With a living-room serving as mosque by day and hosting punk parties by night, and a hole in the wall marking the direction of Mecca, Yusef's friends are all dealing with what it means to be young and Muslim in modern-day America. Amidst all this, Yusef embarks on a fascinating, clumsy journey towards faith and love in this surprising and unsettling read.

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $15.63

  A Muslim punk house in Buffalo, New York, inhabited by burqa-wearing riot girls, 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, an Arabic term for consciousness of the divine.Originally self-published on photocopiers and spiralbound by hand, The Taqwacores has now come to be read as a manifesto for Muslim punk rockers and a Catcher in the Rye for young Muslims. There are three different cover colors; red, white, and blue.