Taqwacore, taqwa تقوى being the Arabic word for virtuous fear and awe, is a branch of punk rock that deals with Islam (separate from the Muslim punk scene that originates back to 1979) and was created by Michael Mohammad Knight through his fictional book The Taqwacores in 2003. His book inspired the merge of all the bands that dealt with Islam spread across North America to tour around the country, cultivating Taqwacore into a legitimate genre and picking up any alternative or “degenerate” Muslims along the way.
Islam and punk rock? Complete polar opposites you’d say but think about it for a moment. Punk rock is an outlet for people to let themselves loose in an unapologetic way while Islam, at least in the organized sense requires conformity. This marriage of two ideologies creates a scene for young Muslims to mess around and create music based on their feelings and interpretations of their religion. The Taqwacore started out as a music scene but eventually gained popularity within other sects of art like blogging, visual art, and film making.
Bands like the Kominas, Vote Hezbollah, Secret Trial Five, and the Sagg Taqwacore Syndicate were t
he first to call themselves Taqwacore. They toured around the country together in the green Taqwa bus screaming lines like “Mohammad was a punk rocker. You know he tore shit up!” “Sharia law in the United States!” “Music is haram! (forbidden).” This energy did collect a following of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, but within the crowds were punk hijabi riot girls, skaters, and headbangers all jamming to the music of the bands.
Some of the bands like Secret Trial Five decided to rebel the Taqwacore label because they said it limits them to issues within Islam and has attracted unfavorable attention from the media, which has led to more Islamophobia. They were also irritated with the fact that most of their music was being credited to Michael Knight, the author of a fictional story.
It is true, that these bands were doing everything but preaching Islam, which is why Americans thought they were the “good” Muslims. But in reality, they were saying “f**k you!” to both conservative Islam and whatever American patriotic beliefs that followed ignorant Islamophobes.
The way in which the Taqwacore bands went about touring, screaming sacred words in relation to the profane, undoubtedly gained media attention, much of which was morphing what the bands goal was with Taqwacore- to show that there is not just one kind of Muslim out there. Just like no to human beings are the same, no two Muslims are the same.
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