David Ahntholz for The New York Times<\/p>\n
Michael Muhammad Knight, the author of \u201cThe Taqwacores,\u201d which a college professor has called \u201cThe Catcher in the Rye\u201d for young Muslims.<\/p>\n
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\nBy CHRISTOPHER MAAG
\nPublished: December 22, 2008<\/p>\n
CLEVELAND \u2014 Five years ago, young Muslims across the United States began reading and passing along a blurry, photocopied novel called \u201cThe Taqwacores,\u201d about imaginary punk rock Muslims in Buffalo.
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\nDavid Ahntholz for The New York Times<\/p>\n
Noureen DeWulf and Bobby Naderi, both actors, with Jay Verkamp, center, the sound mixer for the film version of Mr. Knight\u2019s novel. The film was shot in Cleveland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis book helped me create my identity,\u201d said Naina Syed, 14, a high school freshman in Coventry, Conn.<\/p>\n
A Muslim born in Pakistan, Naina said she spent hours on the phone listening to her older sister read the novel to her. \u201cWhen I finally read the book for myself,\u201d she said, \u201cit was an amazing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
The novel is \u201cThe Catcher in the Rye\u201d for young Muslims, said Carl W. Ernst, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Springing from the imagination of Michael Muhammad Knight, it inspired disaffected young Muslims in the United States to form real Muslim punk bands and build their own subculture.<\/p>\n
Now the underground success of Muslim punk has resulted in a low-budget independent film based on the book.<\/p>\n
A group of punk artists living in a communal house in Cleveland called the Tower of Treason offered the house as the set for the movie. The crumbling streets and boarded-up storefronts of their neighborhood resemble parts of Buffalo. Filming took place in October, and the movie will be released next year, said Eyad Zahra, the director.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see these characters that used to live only inside my head out here walking around, and to think of all these kids living out parts of the book, it\u2019s totally surreal,\u201d Mr. Muhammad Knight, 31, said as he roamed the movie set.<\/p>\n
As part of the set, a Muslim punk rock musician, Marwan Kamel, 23, painted \u201cOsama McDonald,\u201d a figure with Osama bin Laden\u2019s face atop Ronald McDonald\u2019s body. Mr. Kamel said the painting was a protest against imperialism by American corporations and against Wahhabism, the strictest form of Islam.<\/p>\n
Noureen DeWulf, 24, an actress who plays a rocker in the movie, defended the film\u2019s message.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a Muslim and I\u2019m 100-percent American,\u201d Ms. DeWulf said, \u201cso I can criticize my faith and my country. Rebellion? Punk? This is totally American.\u201d<\/p>\n
The novel\u2019s title combines \u201ctaqwa,\u201d the Arabic word for \u201cpiety,\u201d with \u201chardcore,\u201d used to describe many genres of angry Western music.<\/p>\n
For many young American Muslims, stigmatized by their peers after the Sept. 11 attacks but repelled by both the Bush administration\u2019s reaction to the attacks and the rigid conservatism of many Muslim leaders, the novel became a blueprint for their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cReading the book was totally liberating for me,\u201d said Areej Zufari, 34, a Muslim and a humanities professor at Valencia Community College in Orlando, Fla.<\/p>\n
Ms. Zufari said she had listened to punk music growing up in Arkansas and found \u201cThe Taqwacores\u201d four years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere was someone as frustrated with Islam as me,\u201d she said, \u201cand he expressed it using bands I love, like the Dead Kennedys. It all came together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The novel\u2019s Muslim characters include Rabeya, a riot girl who plays guitar onstage wearing a burqa and leads a group of men and women in prayer. There is also Fasiq, a pot-smoking skater, and Jehangir, a drunk.<\/p>\n
Such acts \u2014 playing Western music, women leading prayer, men and women praying together, drinking, smoking \u2014 are considered haram, or forbidden, by millions of Muslims.<\/p>\n
Mr. Muhammad Knight was born an Irish Catholic in upstate New York and converted to Islam as a teenager. He studied at a mosque in Pakistan but became disillusioned with Islam after learning about the sectarian battles after the death of Muhammad.<\/p>\n
He said he wrote \u201cThe Taqwacores\u201d to mend the rift between his being an observant Muslim and an angry American youth. He found validation in the life of Muhammad, who instructed people to ignore their leaders, destroy their petty deities and follow only Allah.<\/p>\n
After reading the novel, many Muslims e-mailed Mr. Muhammad Knight, asking for directions to the next Muslim punk show. Told that no such bands existed, some of them created their own, with names like Vote Hezbollah and Secret Trial Five.<\/p>\n
One band, the Kominas, wrote a song called \u201cSuicide Bomb the Gap,\u201d which became Muslim punk rock\u2019s first anthem.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Muslims, we\u2019re not being honest if we criticize the United States without first criticizing ourselves,\u201d said Mr. Kamel, 23, who grew up in a Syrian family in Chicago. He is lead singer of the band al-Thawra, \u201cthe Revolution\u201d in Arabic.<\/p>\n
For many young American Muslims, the merger of Islam and rebellion resonated.<\/p>\n
Hanan Arzay, 15, is a daughter of Muslim immigrants from Morocco who lives in East Islip, N.Y. In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, pedestrians threw eggs and coffee cups at the van that transported her to a Muslim school, she said, and one person threw a wine bottle, shattering the van\u2019s window.<\/p>\n
At school, her Koran teacher threw chalk at her for requesting literal translations of the holy book, Ms. Arzay said. After she was expelled from two Muslim schools, her uncle gave her \u201cThe Taqwacores.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis book is my lifeline,\u201d Ms. Arzay said. \u201cIt saved my faith.\u201d
\nMore Articles in US \u00bb A version of this article appeared in print on December 23, 2008, on page A16 of the New York edition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
David Ahntholz for The New York Times Michael Muhammad Knight, the author of \u201cThe Taqwacores,\u201d which a college professor has called \u201cThe Catcher in the Rye\u201d for young Muslims. * Sign In to E-Mail or Save This * Print * Reprints * Share o Linkedin o Digg o Facebook o Mixx o Yahoo! Buzz o…
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