TAQWACORE WEBZINE

by Sadiya Abjani

I am a hated breed. By day one way, by night another. When the sun rises, I put on clothes after morning ablutions and prayer, and make my way to a college campus littered with my kind. I feel entirely alone, but show nothing but a loquacious vibrancy. I employ the day in learning about others like me, but not. I spend the day being out staged by those who are smarter than me, but not. At night, alone in my bed, covered by a veil of secrecy, I listen to music and fly. I have believed, for an excruciatingly inordinate amount of time, that I am alone. Not only am I hated by other Muslims, but I am not well accepted by those like me either. I do not believe that there is a choice, that there are many ways to live my faith. And then one night, I hear The Kominas.

I live two lives, and serve two masters. My ibadaat is spread between Allah, and Steve Jobs. My Zakaat consists of buying Ethos Water at Starbucks, and sending money to the Aga Khan Foundation. Yes I am an Ismaili, and yes I know I am not well accepted, or liked, by the majority of Islam. I’m ok with that. I understand why others hate me, and why my people have some of the bloodiest pasts. We are the Hashashin, the Shi’at al-Ali, labeled the Fatimid Cowards, and the human worshiping kafirun. Al-Ghazali despised us, and Farhad Daftry made us famous again. Living in secret and being hated by brothers in faith does unusual things to a person’s psyche. How does a punk Muslim survive in a faith that is already considered to be on the fringes of acceptability? How does this purple-haired individual stretch the already thin cord of her diin, and not feel like a kafir?
In the Ismaili faith we are taught to keep a balance between diin and dunya, taught to spend an equal amount of time in search of material and spiritual success. So many dualities to live, so many juxtaposed realities: material and spiritual, acceptance and rejection, visibility and secrecy. It becomes impossible to keep ones own secrets, improbably not to be torn in so many opposing directions. Rebellion is instituted as a way of life, but sometimes you forget what you are rebelling against.

I was a muslim all my life, but I became a Muslim in 10th grade. Faith was never forced on me; it was something I accepted when I was ready. I fell in love with my diin, with my people. I went to college, majored in Islamic Studies, working on a Double Bachelors in Islam as I write this. The more I delved into the history and modern perspectives of Islam, though, the more disheartened I became. Modern Islam made no sense to me, an antiquated faith in the 21st century – a macabre comedy of errors resulting in the death of thousands of innocents. I dyed my hair purple, and thoughts of a dragon tattoos swirled in my head, while my professors droned on about how the Arabic root S-L-M meant submission and peace. I stopped going to Jamatkhana on Fridays, stopped paying attention to the words of my Imam. In the deep chasm of my despair, I held on to hope though. I still volunteered at my Jamatkhana, still hoped that the knowledge I gained would help my future Jamat. I wanted to help them avoid the dark secret I had stumbled on to: there is no Islam that is mine, personalized faith is a hoax, and organized religion is a system – one can either be a cog in the machine, or be destroyed in uncertainty.

Broken and spiritually destitute, I discovered Taqwacore. A disgusting and messy collision of material and spiritual; Islam the way it should have been all along. A Taqwacore does not practice his faith; he lives it, knowing that shit happens and that life is messy, but that faith cannot be extricated from the shit. Islam has a future, it does not have to dwell in the glory of the past, and it does not have to espouse western material ideology in order to continue its existence under cover of apologetic sermonizing. Islam can be the proverbial phoenix, rising from the ashes of its past transgressions. In order to do so, though, Muslims must remember that Islam once existed in the public sphere, and it should be so today. Before it was packed up and compartmentalized into the private sphere by the will of western religious norms imposed on eastern society, the Muslim faith existed in each and every moment of life. Islam was once on every breath in a man’s body, no matter where hewas or what he was doing. In hiding our faith, in moving it behind a veil, we no longer live it, and so are torn by dualities; unnatural norms we have trouble understanding and surmounting to find the hidden Truth.

As an Ismaili, I’ve realized that many of my ilk are incredibly apologetic. We walk up members of the Umma and beg for acceptance. It is a useless waste of time. I now walk into Jamatkhana with a revolving door of hair colors, plans for a tattoo, and more knowledge of Islam than anyone knows. I do so not in rebellion, but in complete and utter submission to my diin. I can no longer imagine a faith separate from my modern life, there are no problems joining the two. I am an Ismaili, a Hashahiin, a member of the Shi’at al-Ali, a Fatimid Coward and an alleged kafir, I am a Muslim. I am Taqwacore.