The Taqwacores

A Muslim punk house in Buffalo, New York, inhabited by burqa-wearing riot girls, mohawked Sufis, straightedge Sunnis, Shi'a skinheads, Indonesian skaters, Sudanese rude boys, gay Muslims, drunk Muslims, and feminists. Their living room hosts parties and prayers, with a hole smashed in the wall to indicate the direction of Mecca. Their life together mixes sex, dope, and religion in roughly equal amounts, expressed in devotion to an Islamo-punk subculture, taqwacore, named for taqwa, an Arabic term for consciousness of the divine. Originally self-published on photocopiers and spiral-bound by hand, The Taqwacores has now come to be read as a manifesto for Muslim punk rockers and a Catcher in the Rye for young Muslims.