Taqwacore

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This article is about the Taqwacore music movement;

For the documentary by Omar Majeed Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, see Taqwacore (film).

For the book The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight, see The Taqwacores.

Taqwacore is a genre of punk music dealing with Islam and its culture, originally conceived in Michael Muhammad Knight's novel, The Taqwacores. The name is a portmanteau of hardcore and the Arabic word Taqwa, which is usually translated as "piety" or the quality of being "God-fearing", and thus roughly denotes fear and love of the divine.

The first bands to use the term taqwacore are The Kominas, Vote Hezbollah and the Sagg Taqwacore Syndicate.^{[citation needed]} Other bands on the scene include Diacritical and Secret Trial Five.

There is not a definitive "taqwacore sound," as artists incorporate various styles, ranging from punk to hip-hop, and musical traditions from the Muslim world; the Kominas describe their sound as "Bollywood punk" , Sagg Taqwacore Syndicate are rap and techno inspired music while Al-Thawra uses the term "raicore", based on Arabic Raï music.^{[citation needed]}

External links

• "Young Muslims Build a Subculture on an Underground Book", New York Times, Dec 2008
• "Islamic Street Preachers: From Boston to Lahore & Beyond", Guardian, April 2007
• Photography by Kim Badawi on Taqwacore, Pangea Magazine
• The Taqwacores (book) webpage at Autonomedia
• "Muhammad Rocked the Casbah by Lydia Craft", "Texas Observer"