Your Hair Is Haram
I think I may have misinterpreted the whole Muslim thing – I didn’t realize that I had to be baptized by being thrown into a lake and have my girlish long locks hacked into a bob chop fashioned by a police chief to prove my Muslim-ness. 59 guys and 5 girls have been sent to … Read more
Rest In Power Ari
We all struggle with our own personal jihads, She just chose to wear hers inked into skin as her sleeve, That brave contradiction is to be admired/aspired. We are all haramis, struggling searching for taqwa and seeking to live judiciously. But she did it with balls out bravado. This kind of mythology can only be … Read more
Behind the Orange Curtain
Crossposted from Sepia Mutiny. Not really a Taqx story, but a Muslim one that needs to shared. When you hear the words “Orange County,” I’m sure you have an image that comes to your head very much like the ones on television shows “The O.C.” or “The Real Wives of Orange County.” The image I … Read more
Riot Pit in #Egypt
Tahrir Square looks like a mosh pit. At least from what I can see on the Al Jazeera live feed. People chanting, fists in air. The crowd moves, like the crowd in front of a stage. Naturally, you hear Arabic, words of “Allah”, “Inshallah”, “Walahi”, “Yallah”. It is their language. They say other things, things … Read more
Got an Ache in My Gut and My Stomache’s Alight
Crossposted from Touring the Light. Written by Stoney. I will not discredit taqwacore for connecting me with people that now mean a lot to me. I also will not discredit taqwacore for making me think a little bit more about identity and questioning my place in the world. But it started as a fictional novel, … Read more
Hollywood-ification
It was another Taqwacore road trip, from Oakland to Los Angeles. This was strange considering that Los Angeles was home turf, I just happened to move to Oakland rather recently. It seemed like all my Taqwacore adventures revolved around a trip of some sort – there was never a semblance of “home,” which is ironic … Read more
Oaklandistan
Blue skies, potholed streets in Oaklandistan – I was craving halal hot links as I drove by the halal market. It was Friday, and I was stealing some “me” time away from my job on the campaign trail. In my head though I was still working, thoughts preoccupied, stressed about finances and wondering if we … Read more
Ramadan Mubarak, Punk
Confession. I don’t know in what direction to place the prayer mat. It hit me with extreme sadness this evening as I came to that realization. I had been fasting all day for Ramadan and had just broken my fast with a date by myself in the kitchen and I didn’t know what to do … Read more
DarthNader & the Intifada
At last night’s open mic to support Los Angeles divest from Israel’s water issues, I finally met up with a Taqwacore punk – Nader, otherwise known as DarthNader on the twitterverse. I’d been following his tweets for some time, but even though we live in the same region and have attended the same rallies, we … Read more
Taqwacore: An Ismaili Perspective
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 … Read more
