Taqwacore
Taqwacore is a subgenre of punk music dealing with Islam, its culture, and interpretation. Originally conceived in Michael Muhammad Knight's 2003 novel, The Taqwacores, the name is a portmanteau of "hardcore" and the Arabic word "taqwa" (تقوى), which is usually translated as "piety" or the quality of being "God-fearing", and thus roughly denotes reverence and love of the divine. The scene is composed mainly of young Muslim artists living in the US and other Western countries, many of whom openly reject traditionalist interpretations of Islam, and thus live their own lifestyle within the religion or without.
This article is about the music movement. For other uses, see Taqwacore (disambiguation).Taqwacore
1990s, European and American Islamic communities
Controversy[edit]
Knight is criticized for his participation in provocative articles, disrespectful attitude toward leaders of the American Muslim community, open admission of past apostasy (chronicled in his essay "Forget what is and is not Islam" in Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out), heretical attitudes, embrace of the Nation of Islam and Nation of Gods and Earths and often rebellious treatment of Muhammad.
Knight developed a reputation for his Muslim WakeUp! articles, particularly accounts of the Islamic Society of North America's annual convention, in which he wrote of giving a "stink palm" to famous imam Siraj Wahhaj and Cat Stevens and engaging in a romantic encounter with a young Muslim woman.
At the 2005 convention of the Islamic Society of North America, Knight and the Kominas fraudulently obtained media passes and sneaked into the press conference of Karen Hughes, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the U.S. Department of State. They were taken outside and questioned by a State Department agent, but allowed back in by ISNA officials. It was later learned that the ISNA staff was concerned over Knight's jacket bearing the Alternative Tentacles logo.[20]
During the Taqwacore tour that is featured in the documentary film, the group ended at the annual ISNA convention in Chicago. They played on stage using forged media passes at an open mic event. When viewed in the film, many of the younger audience at first were confused, but later cheered for the bands. When the all-female band Secret Trial Five played on stage, security was called and the group was forced off stage. This was due to the ISNA convention rules of "no-female singers". The ragged group gathered outside of the building and broke a guitar on the pavement.
The taqwacore groups also dealt with discrimination on the road of their tour. Other drivers flipped them off, or cursed at them.[6]
The taqwacore groups thus responded to their alienation, both from the Muslim community and from without. The Kominas performed songs with controversial lyrics such as "suicide bomb the gap," and "Rumi was a homo." These were comments on social issues that spread through both the Muslim community and outside of the community in America. The latter was a commentary on an Anti-Gay Imam from Brooklyn. The musicians also started a joke band named "Box Cutter Surprise", referencing the knives used to hijack planes on September 11. Marwan Kamel, from a band on tour called Al-Thawra, Arabic for "revolution," said that the members created the group to shock audiences. These sentiments were also fueled by Knight's original desire to "find what people are pissed about and talk about it".[21]
In academia[edit]
The social movement linked with Knight's novels as well as the musical subculture raised great interest in the academic world. Along with punk, the subgenre has been a subject of cultural studies, religious studies, and more. The novel has allegedly been taught at a number of university courses.
Michael Muhammad Knight also gives public lectures from time to time on the varying subjects of his books, most recently (2011) on his book that deals with the history of the Five Percenters.[22]
Many academic articles, dissertations and masters theses have been written on the topic.
In Heavy metal Islam: rock, resistance, and the struggle for the soul of Islam''[23]
, Mark Levine writes about the relationship of heavy metal and Islam and its history. While not the same specific genre of music, the book covers a wide variety of topics and talks about crowds at shows "dressed in strange combinations of metal, hip-hop, and punk attire." His book addresses the issues that arise with the combination of two seemingly separate cultures, in vivid imagery. He says that "one can see a teenager with green spiky hair and baggy hip-hop style clothing standing next to one in goth makeup, and a few feet away yet another in a black metal T-shirt who’s watching the show with his mother or aunt who may be dressed in a black, full-length abaya." An abaya is a traditional cloak, or over garment worn in the Arab world by women for modesty, and also worn in different styles.
Another paper written by a number of masters students at the Roskilde University write in Looking for Cultural Space Discourses of Identity Formation on the case of Taqwacore,[24] on populations, groups, and individuals belonging in society. They write about a sense of belonging and how identity is formed in relation to the taqwacore movement, stating that "the questions of social inclusion or exclusion have raised new lines of connection within societies" and that this happens more often when individuals "sense of belonging transcends national borders linking to other cultural and social geographies and groupings", which is an essential theme in taqwacore music and the taqwacore movement. Many ideas of belonging to more than one culture is presented in taqwacore music through satire or dark humor.
In Abraham Ibrahim's work on the Queer community of Muslims, "Sodomized by Religion": Fictional Representations of Queer Muslims in the West,[25] he explores different representations of characters that have been systematically oppressed by the orthodox Islamic community. He writes about a few different works, including Michael Muhammad Knight's work "Bilal's Bread" and a film titled A Touch of Pink he writes that "the security concerns about Muslims in the West are remarkably similar to the suspicions about homosexuals: they are not “true” members of the community, and they are quite possibly in league with foreign subversives"
Francis Stewart explores the role of punk in spiritual life in her article "Punk Rock Is My Religion" An Exploration of Straight Edge punk as a Surrogate of Religion.[26]
She questions the role of the Straight Edge music ideology in individuals lives, and how it potentially may relate to the taqwacore movement. As one fictional character in the novel was a Straight Edge rocker, many of the real life musicians involved in the taqwacore scene are as well. She writes about the differences between their lifestyle and traditionally proscribed Islamic lifestyles staying that "as with many within hardcore and Straight Edge the religion that is practiced or found amongst individuals within Taqwacore is not that proscribed by or expected within Islamic dogma." Their lifestyles are personalized, "touring bands do not perform salat five times day and although shows will open with a communal prayer, it is men and women praying together so constitutes haram." Their actions are often the opposite of orthodox Islam. Some may be straight edge, which may be in accordance with traditional Islam, but some "will drink and smoke" and perform other acts that may be considered forbidden or "haram" in Islam, "Yet they still consider themselves Muslim’s and some would even describe themselves as religious Muslims."
In Abdou Mohamad's masters thesis for Queen's University titled "ANARCA-ISLAM",[27] he explores what he considers to be a close knit relationship between Islam, Islamic law, and Anarchism. Anarchism has historically been associated with the punk movement, and is a reoccurring slogan in many punk rock, hardcore, and metal songs. Abdou observes that "as taken from academic texts by non- Muslims, is the recognition that resonances exist between Islam and anarchism." He considers the two as "not identical, but neither are they necessarily incompatible."
John Hutnyk writes more specifically about the band that is considered to be taqwacore by some Fun-Da-Men-Tal in "THE DIALECTICS OF EUROPEAN HIP-HOP: Fun^da^mental and the deathening silence."[28]
In his article, Hutnyk writes about the role of hip-hop and Islam in a political agenda within the musical world. He writes that "The politics of Fun^da^mental is the politics of hip-hop, crossed with a punk Islam" and that the messages that are presented in their music encapsulate many different issues. These include "interventions around race and representation", the historic and recent deciding factor that started "the war of ‘terror’", as well as what he calls "a radical version of human rights activism."
Amil Khan addresses similar issues, but on a wider spectrum in his book titled The Long Struggle: The Seeds of the Muslim World's Frustration.[29]
In his book, he writes, similar to other authors, about the Conversation and relationship between orthodox Islam, westernization, and the results of such. He comments on the orthodox community, arguing that "Even within the most orthodox communities, groups are taking up differing positions on various points, like the use of violence or the interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims", showing that a conversation exists even in what many view as a succinct group. He shows that what some Muslims call the Ummah, or the unified Muslim world, is in fact extremely divided. He says that when Muslims gather at different events, "the audience at any of these events includes the most obviously observant in traditional robes, city workers in neat trim beards, punk rock Muslim teenagers and the merely curious", showing the multitude of lifestyles amongst Muslims.