It seems like a contradiction in terms but Omar Majeed’s Taqwacore captures the heart of the growing Islamic punk scene.
Taqwacore’s Muslim teens embrace the spirit of punk
Taqwacore for those not well versed in the myriad of punk rock variations is a musical movement that combines the spirit and rebellion of western punk rock with Islam. The term was coined by American Muslim Michael Muhammad Knight whose self-published novel The Taqwacores depicted a fictional house inhabited by a variety of Muslim punk rock kids. While the book has primarily been an underground phenomenon it managed to find its way to pockets of young Muslims many of whom have used it as a guidebook to forming their own scene.
Omar Majeed’s film Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam picks up on that real-life scene. The first half of the film follows the 2007 Taqwacore tour during which Knight and several Taqwacore bands (including Boston’s The Kominas and Vancouver’s all-women queercore Taqwacore band Secret Trial Five) hop on an old bus and tour across the U.S. The tour culminates in an appearance at the very straight-laced Islamic Society of North America convention where the bands excite several innocent-looking hijab-wearing tweens before getting shut down by police. In the second half of the movie Knight follows The Kominas to Pakistan where the band (in addition to smoking a lot of hash) tries to start a punk-rock scene.
Throughout the film both Knight and the bands try to stress what Taqwacore is not: a politically fuelled expression of Islam through punk rock. This is not the Muslim version of Christian rock. These are typical kids who want to rebel against their conservative upbringing via punk rock. Nothing more nothing less. All of the musicians in the film practise varying degrees of faith and political savvy — they do not share a common message. They’re kids playing punk rock and for most of them that very fact is subversive enough.
Even more fascinating than the music is Majeed’s portrayal of Knight. Raised as an Irish-Catholic in America Knight converted to Islam as a teenager after realizing that his estranged father was an abusive white supremacist. The most touching part of the film happens when Knight visits mosques in Pakistan and rediscovers the roots of his faith.
While reading from his novel elsewhere in the film Knight quips “There is a cool Islam. You just have to find it. You have to sift through the other stuff but it’s here.” The same could probably be said about just about any community or religion. This film highlights that truth.
