The Taqwacores by Michael Knight Read Free Book Online

the only masjid around was regular horseshit-horseshit-takbir-masjid and they had to pretend like they were doing everything right, wiping their asses the way Bukhari tells you to and making the proper du‘a—well I say fuck that and this whole house says fuck that—even Umar, you think Umar can go in a regular masjid with all his stupid tattoos and dumb straightedge bands? Even Umar, bro, as much as he tries to Wahabbi-hard-ass his way around here, he’s still one of us. He’s still fuckin’ taqwacore—”
    That was the first time I heard Jehangir Tabari use that word in reference to anything Buffalo . I looked at his glazed eyes, figuring I had just been privy to the pointless ramblings of yet another dumb kid who in one plastered moment briefly imagined that he had it all figured out. He kept going. “You can run after Life,” he said with a lazy look out to some distance beyond me. “You can
live and fuckin’ love it and still have taqwa bursting out your guts. That’s all it is, bro.”
    The Dropkick Murphys’ “Boys on the Docks” came on and a big Irish kafr put his arm around Jehangir, ripped him away from me and they sang together like stupid drunks do. I just watched, trying to see something behind Jehangir’s face that really explained it all. He almost had me sold on the idea that some advanced Sufi wisdom stood as the thesis upon which these orgies were founded—that if only I’d run upstairs and dive into Mustafa’s Bukharis, I might find the arcane secret to Jehangir dancing with sloppy wasted punks.
    Jehangir did not sing songs when drunk, he yelled them. His new friend seemed to have been cut from the same cloth so I went out on the porch.
    Lynn was in the recliner, sporting a little spaghetti-strap top and full head of dreadlocks.
    “As-salaamu alaikum,” she said as though trying to be cute.
    “Wa alaikum as-salaam,” I replied. “I don’t know if sitting in that chair’s a good idea, it’s been through a lot.”
    “You here to carry out the fatwa?” she asked.
    “What?”
    “You know—I’m an apostate, technically you can kill me.”
    “Really,” I replied with a half-laugh.
    “Give me the Salman Rushdie Special,” she said with arms outstretched and eyes closed.
    “I think that’s only applicable in Muslim countries.”
    “Oh. Phew.” She ran the back of her hand along her forehead to gesture facetious relief.
    “So you really consider yourself an apostate?”
    “Well, when enough people tell you you’re not Muslim,” she replied, “eventually you start to believe it.”
    “Oh.”

    “But until you reach the point when you don’t even care anymore, it’s pretty painful.”
    “You still believe in Allah, right?”
    “I believe we were created, or came from, Something... and that Something has a compassion for us that we are nowhere near comprehending.”
    “That sounds like Islam to me.”
    “Yeah?” she asked with raised eyebrows.
    “The hadiths say, you know, Allah’s Mercy overwhelms His Wrath.”
    “If you eat with your left hand, you’re imitating the devil.”
    “Yeah, there’s that.” I nervously tried to laugh again.
    “It’s hard,” she said. “It’s like there’s some things in Islam that sound so beautiful and make you just... feel it and love Allah so much... and then, then there’s the stupid shit, you know?”
    “Yeah,” I replied, wondering if my confession of Islam having stupid shit made me an apostate as well. “But it sounds like you have tawhid down, that’s the important thing.”
    “I guess.”
    “What about Muhammad, do you believe in Muhammad?”
    “That’s the thing,” she said with a sudden alertness. “What’s the deal with Muhammad? If they don’t make him out to be the Muslim Christ, then why is belief in him so vital?”
    “Well, it’s not so much belief in Muhammad, as—”
    “Besides even that, what am I supposed to believe about a guy who married a six-year-old?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “He