Abstract
This article is an attempt to provide a very rough outline of the historical interaction between punk rock and the Muslim world. For the most part, the antinomian youth culture of punk rock was relatively slow to reach Muslims outside of Europe and North America. When it did reach Muslim youth (from Europe to Asia to the Middle East), it tended to initially manifest in secular and antireligious terms. Yet by the 1990s, some examples of punk arose that claimed a Muslim identity, and by the year 2005, a scene called “taqwacore” developed. This new scene embraced both religious and nonreligious Muslim punks and others who did not self-identify as Muslim in any way. It’s been called “punk Islam” and has made a place for itself on the fringes of the punk scene and the Muslim world. Finally, this article briefly addresses some ways in which taqwacore can be seen as a theological development within Islam.
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Notes
The “Muslim world” shall here refer to people who are in an active historical and discursive relation to Islam.
There is an entire field of study devoted to “subcultures” that will be ignored here, since it distracts from the article’s focus. Besides, what should one call a subculture of a subculture? Hence, the terms “subculture” and “culture” shall be used rather loosely (for subcultural studies, see Williams 2011).
Taken from the 2004 book The Taqwacores, the term, coined by Knight, is a mix of hardcore (punk) and the Arabic “taqwa” (roughly, “God-consciousness” or “God-fearing”). Although generally capitalized in academic literature (Andersen et al. 2010; Hosman 2009, Murthy 2010), it is not capitalized here to be consistent with related (noncapitalized) terms such as hardcore and punk and to distinguish it from Majeed’s Taqwacore film.
For a distinction between “scene” and “movement,” see Leach and Haunss (2009).
“Punk” as a name became wed to the Sex Pistols by chance. The term had been loosely thrown around by musicians like Frank Zappa (in his 1968 song “Flower Punk”), Suicide (self-described as “punk music” in 1970–1971), and Lenny Kaye (who used the phrase “punk rock” in 1972) and by reviewers like Trixie Balm (Creem) and was the title of a fanzine by Legs McNeil and John Holmstrom that began publishing in the winter of 1975–1976—about the same time that the Sex Pistols started (Rombes 2009).
Several of the “flipped-out beatniks,” such as William Burroughs and Brion Gysin (Geiger 2005), were inspired by the legends of the Assassins and Hassan-i Sabbah (an interest later rekindled by Hawkwind and the anarcho-mystic Peter Lamborn Wilson), as well as the Master Musicians of Jajouka from Morocco (who inspired Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones and industrial band Psychic TV).
For a related summary of the historical encounter between Islam and anarchism (which is what indirectly led to this study), see Fiscella (2009).
The two music cultures indeed have a parallel sound (loud, aggressive music), some common references (i.e., Alice Cooper, death metal, demonization by media), and a parallel history (beginning with proto-metal bands like Black Sabbath) that began to intertwine with punk (through later bands like Venom and Metallica). Yet while punk was rooted in do-it-yourself ethics, anticonsumerist/anticorporate values, dirty/sloppy music, and “civil heresy,” the metal scene tended to focus on technical proficiency, success, clean/tight music, and religious heresy. Like siblings with a manic love–hate relationship, they avoided one another, fought one another, mated with one another, and ultimately produced plenty of inbred, hybrid young (Napalm Death, GWAR, RATM, etc.).
The differences between that book and this article are several: (1) Although LeVine never clearly delineates “heavy metal” from “punk,” he focuses on the former; (2) his work is a contemporary study based on a series of interviews in seven countries from Morocco to Pakistan, while this article is a historical account based primarily on academic and scene literature and a few interviews; and (3) despite its title, LeVine addresses advocates of Islam more through the eyes of sympathetic observers such as Sheikh Anwar al-Ethari and progressive members of the Muslim Brotherhood than through the musicians themselves (who seem, for the most part, to be un-/antireligious, with a few exceptions such as the “Sufi rock” of Junoon and an unnamed Turkish band who recorded the shahadah over a hard-rock track).
There is not space here to give a proper introduction to the Nation of Islam (NOI) and the Moorish Science Temple (MST), yet it should be noted that they were significant influences in the encounter between Islam and punk. The NOI, for example, was an influence on Aki Nawaz (Fun-Da-Mental) and Sean Muttaqi (Vegan Reich/Ahl-i Allah). Later, the NOI, the MST, and the Five Percenters became strong influences on Michael Muhammad Knight (The Taqwacores). All of these groups differ in several respects from traditional Sunni or Shiite Islam (see Turner 1997 for more information). In the case of the Five Percenters, for example, ISLAM is redefined as “I Self Lord and Master,” ALLAH as “Arm, Leg, Leg, Arm, Head,” and members, believing that “the black man is god,” tend to deny being Muslim (Knight 2007: 190, 194).
Even if her specific examples of Istanbul and suburban Iowa might not be true, her point remains valid, since there were huge punk scenes in cities across Asia before rural places like, say, Gloucester, Virginia had a single punk.
Poly Styrene (Marianne Joan Elliot Said, 1957–2011), the half-Somali/half-British singer of X-Ray Spex, was one of the early punk converts to ISKCON and became Maharani Dasi for a period but did not integrate her new religion with punk music.
Jewish punk is probably the most complicated, seeing as how a great number of punk bands from The Dictators to Black Flag, from Bad Religion to NOFX have had Jewish members (see Beeber 2006), and currently open expressions of Judaism in the scene range from the orthodox (Moshiach Oi!) to the inclusive (PunkTorah.org). For more info, see, for example, two documentary films Jericho’s Echo: Punk Rock in the Holy Land (2005) and Punk Jews (2012).
He has apparently inspired meditation groups in 14 cities in North America according to his homepage (accessed December 15, 2011; http://againstthestream.org/about-us/dharma-punx-nation).
In an example of “punk Buddhism,” Warner goes on to write, “Question punk authority . . . Question Zen authority. . . . No matter what authority you submit to—your teacher, your government, even Jesus H. Christ or Gautama Buddha himself—that authority is wrong. It’s wrong because the very concept of authority is already a mistake. Deferring to authority is nothing more than a cowardly shirking of personal responsibility” (2003: 29).
The lesser-known but no less exciting al-Qaynah (an international Danish-based collaboration project) mix their inspirations of (among others) Dead Kennedys, Laibach (industrial art-band), Noam Chomsky, Public Enemy (political hip hop), Dr. Hashem Aghajari (sentenced to death in Iran for heresy), Malalai Joya (dissenting Afghan parliamentarian), and Sheila Chandra (Indian British pop singer) into a blend of “eastern metal.”
The source that lists the old interviews also includes a new one, but, since no names or dates are listed for the new interview, it is hard to substantiate (http://www.anus.com/metal/about/interviews/fearless_iranians_from_hell).
Haas also runs a record label called Tian An Men 89, which publishes vinyl releases of bands off-the-punk-map in places like Madagascar, Saudi Arabia, and Tajikistan. An excellent resource for researchers, the Tian An Men 89 Web site hosts an archive discography of hundreds of punk releases in predominantly Muslim countries from as far back as the late 1970s. Haas has also written a thesis in French that covers the punk scene in Asia up the mid-1990s (see Haas 1994). Maximum Rocknroll’s scene reports from predominantly Muslim countries (often written by Haas) are another rich resource.
There is a huge range of new punk bands in the last 10–15 years in Muslim-dominant countries: from the art punk of Ya Ves´ Zelyonyi (Kyrgyzstan), 127 (Iran), and Sound of Ruby (Saudi Arabia) to the classic punk of Cheshme3vom (Iran), Exiles from Noakhali (Bangladesh), As We Fuck (Algeria), and Suchiy Potrokh (Uzbekistan); from the lo-tech punk-noise of Slum/Trush-Oba (Tajikistan) to the “bourgeois Arab all-girl” metal punk of Mystik Moods (Morocco; LeVine 2008: 46); from the grindcore of the Constipated Sandniggers (Saudi Arabia) to the Street-punk/Oi! band Roots ‘n’ Boots (Malaysia); from the political hardcore of Overkill for Profit (Azerbaijan), Mass Separation (Malaysia), and Multinational Corporations (Pakistan; see Usmani 2011) to death metal bands like Mazhott (Syria) and Soul Exhumation (Libya); from Malaysian indie-punk labels like Cactus, Black Konflik, and Dogma Artistic Guerilla to Indonesian labels like Flatspils, Birthdie, and Riotic. And that is only scratching the surface.
All translations from Indonesian are my own.
Regarding his birth name, one online source writes, “Sean Penn (not the actor; now known as Sean Muttaqi)” (see http://eng.anarchopedia.org/Hardline_movement, accessed May 20, 2012).
MOVE is a small group based primarily in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They state that their religion is “life” and base their practice on the words and example of John Africa, which means that, in principle, they reject technology, civilization, and other manifestations of human (as opposed to “natural”) design. In 1978 and 1985, they had major confrontations with the police (see Wagner-Pacifici 1994).
Fearing a repeat of the death threats against Salman Rushdie, the European edition of Knight’s book was censored by the British publishing company.
To these one could add Citizen Vex, an industrial punk project in the U.K., which Tariq Sheikh started a year before he discovered and identified with taqwacore (interview with author March 3, 2010).
Ray raises a number of interesting points in his debate with fellow commentators of Taz Ahmed’s 2009 article entitled “Taqwacore. Documented. X2” (http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2009/10/13/taqwacore_docum).
In line with Kamal’s logic, the label “taqwacore” has been applied retroactively by scenesters to bands like Fun-Da-Mental.
Quote taken from Secret Trial Five’s MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/secrettrialfive. For those who didn’t see their homepage, they also recorded a track called “We’re not Taqwacore.” Sunny Ali and the Kid tackled the topic more subtly with their quirky 2012 track “Taqwa Whores.”
Small typos (i.e. “obsene”) were corrected here, rather than inserting the textually intrusive [sic].
It could be noted that this exact quote (except for the omission of the second “to moment”) is found on page 159 of Think on These Things by Jiddu Krishnamurti (1970).
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Film
Bilal. (2006). B. Aryaningtyas. (Director). Indonesia. 3 minutes and 42 seconds.
Edge: Perspectives on Drug-Free Culture. (2009). M. Pierschel & M. Kirchner. (Directors).
USA. Produced by compassion | media. 82 minutes. [Deleted scene: Sean Muttaqi Interview]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orvHFoQqPCE. (accessed 31 Aug 2011).
Heavy Metal in Baghdad. (2007). S. Alvi (Director). Produced by S. Jonze. USA & Canada. 84 minutes.
Les Chats Persans. (2009). B. Ghobadi. (Director). Iran. 101 minutes.
Punk in Love. (2009). O. C. Harahap. (Director). Produced by R. Punjabi. Indonesia. 90 minutes.
Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam. (2010). O. Majeed. (Director). USA. Produced by
EyeSteelFilm/ D. Cross & M. Aung Thwin. 80 minutes.
The Taqwacores. (2010). E. Zahra. (Director). USA. Produced by N. Kemmerer. 84 minutes.
Acknowledgements
Dedicated to the memories of Poly Styrene, Adam Yauch, and Hadi al-Alawi. The author would like to greatly thank Luk Haas, Martin Lund, Erik Hannerz, Jonas Otterbeck, Anders Ackfeldt, Bart Barendregt, the reviewers, the other contributors to this volume for their most helpful feedback, and the interviewees, artists in the scene, Carla Lucero and the copy editors, as well as many, many others.