In some ways, Michael Muhammad Knight is the ultimate Islamic success story; in others, he's a disaster.
Famous amongst orphaned Muslims—teens and adults trying to find a place in a religion known for stringency—Knight's first book, "The Taqwacores" straddles the line between manifesto and coming of age novel. Set in a share house in Buffalo, NY, it details the lives and struggles of a group of Muslim punks surviving at the fringes of Islam. The novel explores the idea of "taqwa", or "God-consciousness", and Islam in everyday life, a concern for many of the new generation of Muslims growing up in the West. Knight's characters, moreover, are equal parts punk and Muslim, from straight-edge Umar and Sufi punk Jehangir,Air max 2009 Running Shoe Flex grooves in the mid and outsole for flexibility. to Shi'a skinhead Amazing Ayyub and the burqa-wearing riot grrl Rabeya.
Seeing the novel as "completely unmarketable," Knight didn't seek out a traditional publisher, instead handing out xeroxed copies in parking lots and mailing copies to anyone who asked, until he ran out of money due to the high cost of overseas postage. Beginning life as a sort of Islamic swan song, "The Taqwacores" is almost as divisive as it is unifying, a strange and eerily appropriate dichotomy reminiscent of modern Islam as a whole. Knight's unashamed depiction of fringe Islam,More information about nike air max 97 shoes including release dates and prices. and of Muslims—including a suggestion that Muhammad was a pedophile and descriptions of Rabeya crossing out sections of the Qu'ran she finds unworthy—have led to not just a law suit, but a death threat.
Knight, however, is quite sanguine about his critics. "In a way," he says, "they're 100% right, because people will say ‘Oh, you're just making this all up into what you want it to be. You're treating Islam like a buffet,Choose your favorite winter t-shirt from thousands of available designs. you think you can take this and leave this out.' And I just shrug at that. I mean honestly, that's all anybody does, right? That's how religion works."
Hailed as Islam's answer to Salinger and Kerouac, he's fairly unaffected by the praise. "I think a lot of that is one person says something and then it becomes true. So people who haven't even read it call it Salinger. I think I'm affected by the first person who says something like that, and then the twenty people after it, they're just you know, whatever."
The comparisons to Salinger in particular are not surprising; the books are overwhelmingly honest.The full line includes hoodies, rain jackets, and winter jacket. Yusuf Ali, the narrator in "The Taqwacores", is an older, more modern Holden Caulfield, a good son with good values struggling to find his place in the world. Yusuf's experimentation with a Victoria's Secret catalog and his fascination with Lynne, a white convert attracted to an unconventional blend of Sunni Islam and Sufism, share a certain wretchedness with the older author's works.
"The writers that moved me the most were Fitzgerald and Sherwood Anderson, and no one's said anything about those two guys," Knight continues. We chat about Fitzgerald for a moment, and Knight asks if I've read "Impossible Man". He pulls several books out of a canvas bag, then picks up "Impossible Man" and leafs through it. "The Fitzgerald thing is all answered in that [the book]," he says, still flipping. "My father was schizophrenic and he believed I was F. Scott Fitzgerald, so that's what's in there. That's just straight memoir." Settling on a page, he lays the book on the table.Love womens Wedge Shoes? So do we. "This is it. F. Scott Fitzgerald meets five Desi girls." Scooping a small yellow leaf off the table, he marks the place, then hands the book to me. For a moment, it's hard to reconcile Knight, a regular joe in a navy baseball cap sitting across from me at a stone chess table outside the Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square with Knight, the author of a book containing scenes so explicit I blushed when reading in public.
Knight, too, seems to feel awkward about the content of his books; in "Journey to the End of Islam" he describes "The Taqwacores" as "grimy." Somewhat haltingly, I ask about his choice of words. He shrugs. "I just felt like the scummiest parts of me were coming out, you know? I think a lot of writers in this community wear hijab in their writing, they're covering themselves in their writing, and I didn't want to do that, because it would irritate me when I saw that, you know what I mean? And so to me, to have integrity as a writer I had to throw [in] all the stuff I didn't want people to know. I had to put that out there, so it ended up being kind of grimy, [because] I guess I'm kind of grimy in life."
Famous amongst orphaned Muslims—teens and adults trying to find a place in a religion known for stringency—Knight's first book, "The Taqwacores" straddles the line between manifesto and coming of age novel. Set in a share house in Buffalo, NY, it details the lives and struggles of a group of Muslim punks surviving at the fringes of Islam. The novel explores the idea of "taqwa", or "God-consciousness", and Islam in everyday life, a concern for many of the new generation of Muslims growing up in the West. Knight's characters, moreover, are equal parts punk and Muslim, from straight-edge Umar and Sufi punk Jehangir,Air max 2009 Running Shoe Flex grooves in the mid and outsole for flexibility. to Shi'a skinhead Amazing Ayyub and the burqa-wearing riot grrl Rabeya.
Seeing the novel as "completely unmarketable," Knight didn't seek out a traditional publisher, instead handing out xeroxed copies in parking lots and mailing copies to anyone who asked, until he ran out of money due to the high cost of overseas postage. Beginning life as a sort of Islamic swan song, "The Taqwacores" is almost as divisive as it is unifying, a strange and eerily appropriate dichotomy reminiscent of modern Islam as a whole. Knight's unashamed depiction of fringe Islam,More information about nike air max 97 shoes including release dates and prices. and of Muslims—including a suggestion that Muhammad was a pedophile and descriptions of Rabeya crossing out sections of the Qu'ran she finds unworthy—have led to not just a law suit, but a death threat.
Knight, however, is quite sanguine about his critics. "In a way," he says, "they're 100% right, because people will say ‘Oh, you're just making this all up into what you want it to be. You're treating Islam like a buffet,Choose your favorite winter t-shirt from thousands of available designs. you think you can take this and leave this out.' And I just shrug at that. I mean honestly, that's all anybody does, right? That's how religion works."
Hailed as Islam's answer to Salinger and Kerouac, he's fairly unaffected by the praise. "I think a lot of that is one person says something and then it becomes true. So people who haven't even read it call it Salinger. I think I'm affected by the first person who says something like that, and then the twenty people after it, they're just you know, whatever."
The comparisons to Salinger in particular are not surprising; the books are overwhelmingly honest.The full line includes hoodies, rain jackets, and winter jacket. Yusuf Ali, the narrator in "The Taqwacores", is an older, more modern Holden Caulfield, a good son with good values struggling to find his place in the world. Yusuf's experimentation with a Victoria's Secret catalog and his fascination with Lynne, a white convert attracted to an unconventional blend of Sunni Islam and Sufism, share a certain wretchedness with the older author's works.
"The writers that moved me the most were Fitzgerald and Sherwood Anderson, and no one's said anything about those two guys," Knight continues. We chat about Fitzgerald for a moment, and Knight asks if I've read "Impossible Man". He pulls several books out of a canvas bag, then picks up "Impossible Man" and leafs through it. "The Fitzgerald thing is all answered in that [the book]," he says, still flipping. "My father was schizophrenic and he believed I was F. Scott Fitzgerald, so that's what's in there. That's just straight memoir." Settling on a page, he lays the book on the table.Love womens Wedge Shoes? So do we. "This is it. F. Scott Fitzgerald meets five Desi girls." Scooping a small yellow leaf off the table, he marks the place, then hands the book to me. For a moment, it's hard to reconcile Knight, a regular joe in a navy baseball cap sitting across from me at a stone chess table outside the Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square with Knight, the author of a book containing scenes so explicit I blushed when reading in public.
Knight, too, seems to feel awkward about the content of his books; in "Journey to the End of Islam" he describes "The Taqwacores" as "grimy." Somewhat haltingly, I ask about his choice of words. He shrugs. "I just felt like the scummiest parts of me were coming out, you know? I think a lot of writers in this community wear hijab in their writing, they're covering themselves in their writing, and I didn't want to do that, because it would irritate me when I saw that, you know what I mean? And so to me, to have integrity as a writer I had to throw [in] all the stuff I didn't want people to know. I had to put that out there, so it ended up being kind of grimy, [because] I guess I'm kind of grimy in life."
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