Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam

Film: Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam
Link: Taqwacore


This film is based on a book written by Michael Muhammad Knight.  The book was based on a fictional Muslim punk-rock band, but has inspired the film and real-life muslim punk-rockers.  There are many aspects of punk music and culture that most people, including Muslims, would not associate with Islam.  Knight says about Islam and punk that:
    "they aren't so far removed as you'd think, both began in tremendous bursts of truth and vitality, but seem to have lost something along the way.  The energy, perhaps, that comes with knowing the world has never seen such positive force and fury, and never would again.  Both have suffered from sellouts and hypocrites, but also from true believers whose devotion has crippled their creative drive.  Both are viewed by outsiders as unified and cohesive communities when nothing could be further from the truth."
The film follows a real punk-rock group called "The Kominas" which translates to "the bastards" or "the low-borns" and a green bus full of other muslim punk-rockers as they travel on a cross-country tour.  Along the way, they encounter media representatives who want to interview them and know what "the group" is aiming to achieve; in other words, are political, religious, or some sort of cultural motives behind the tour?
Eventually, members of the band travel to Pakistan where they attempt to begin a punk-rock-Islam movement.  While there, each member discovers his own Islam which sometimes is in conflict with the mainstream, top-down, version of Islam; present in Pakistan as well as the US.   The movie ends by stating that Allah governs all things, and that He doesn't care about not eating certain items, reading certian books, or whatever.  Michael Muhammad Knight says he doesn't believe Islam is that small, or narrow in focus.
I really enjoyed this movie, and will probably go out and read the book because of it.  To me, he summarized how Islam varies from culture to culture, as well as how individualism can work with Islam, despite what many people believe.  It was the perfect movie, with the perfect message, to summarize anything anyone needs to know about how diverse of a religion Islam truly is.