I recently binged the first season We Are Lady Parts, a Channel 4 comedy about an all-female Muslim punk band which is back for its second season. The American punk (and Muslim), Michael Muhammad Knight, could not have imagined what he was calling into existence when he came up with the name “taqwacore” for his debut novel, The Taqwacores, in 2004.
Knight’s book describes a fictional Muslim punk house in New York: “inhabited by burqa-wearing riot girls, mohawked Sufis, straightedge Sunnis, Shi’a skinheads, Indonesian skaters”. The Taqwacores has since become a catalyst for a new sub-genre, taqwacore.
Taqwacore’s name is derived from the Arabic term taqwa, which pertains to consciousness of the divine, or fear of god. It has become something of a global Islamic punk manifesto. The underground success of the book led to a feature length documentary, an indie film and the growth of international Islamic punk scenes in countries like Indonesia and Syria.
