William S. Burroughs Vs. the Qur'an

William S. Burroughs Vs. the Qur'an
Title William S. Burroughs Vs. the Qur'an PDF eBook
Author Michael Muhammad Knight
Publisher
Total Pages 276
Release 2012
Genre Philosophy
ISBN 9781593764159

Download William S. Burroughs Vs. the Qur'an Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The author, who converted to Islam at age sixteen, describes how he became disillusioned with his idol Peter Lamborn Wilson and made the startling discovery that he himself had become a similarly-regarded counter-cultural icon.

William S. Burroughs vs. The Qur'an

William S. Burroughs vs. The Qur'an
Title William S. Burroughs vs. The Qur'an PDF eBook
Author Michael Muhammad Knight
Publisher Catapult
Total Pages 289
Release 2012-04-17
Genre Religion
ISBN 1593764154

Download William S. Burroughs vs. The Qur'an Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

When Michael Muhammad Knight sets out to write the definitive biography of his “Anarcho-Sufi” hero and mentor, writer Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey), he makes a startling discovery that changes everything. At the same time that he grows disillusioned with his idol, Knight finds that his own books have led to American Muslim youths making a countercultural idol of him, placing him on the same pedestal that he had given Wilson. In an attempt to forge his own path, Knight pledges himself to an Iranian Sufi order that Wilson had almost joined, attempts to write the Great American Queer Islamo-Futurist Novel, and even creates his own mosque in the wilderness of West Virginia. He also employs the “cut-up” writing method of Bey’s friend, the late William S. Burroughs, to the Qur’an, subjecting Islam’s holiest scripture to literary experimentation. William S. Burroughs vs. the Qur’an is the struggle of a hero-worshiper without heroes and the meeting of religious and artistic paths, the quest of a writer as spiritual seeker.

Tripping with Allah

Tripping with Allah
Title Tripping with Allah PDF eBook
Author Michael Muhammad Knight
Publisher Catapult
Total Pages 179
Release 2013-03-01
Genre Self-Help
ISBN 1593764995

Download Tripping with Allah Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

If Tripping with Allah is a road book, it’s a road book in the tradition of 2001: A Space Odyssey, rather than On the Road. Amazonian shamanism meets Christianity meets West African religion meets Islam in this work of reflection and inward adventure. Knight, the “Hunter S. Thompson of Islamic literature” seeks reconciliation between his Muslim identity and his drinking of ayahuasca, a psychedelic tea that has been used in the Amazon for centuries. His experience becomes an opportunity to investigate complex issues of drugs, religion, and modernity. Though essential for readers interested in Islam or the growing popularity of ayahuasca, this book is truly about neither Islam nor ayahuasca. Tripping with Allah provides an accessible look into the construction of religion, the often artificial borders dividing these constructions, and the ways in which religion might change in an increasingly globalized world. Finally, Tripping with Allah not only explores Islam and drugs, but also Knight’s own process of creativity and discovery.

Journey to the End of Islam

Journey to the End of Islam
Title Journey to the End of Islam PDF eBook
Author Michael Muhammad Knight
Publisher Catapult
Total Pages 260
Release 2009-12-10
Genre Biography & Autobiography
ISBN 1593765525

Download Journey to the End of Islam Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

In Journey to the End of Islam, Michael Muhammad Knight — whose work has led to him being hailed as both the Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson of American Islam — wanders through Muslim countries, navigating between conflicting visions of his religion. Visiting holy sites in Pakistan, Syria, Egypt, and Ethiopia, Knight engages both the puritanical Islam promoted by Saudi globalization and the heretical strands of popular folk Islam: shrines, magic, music, and drugs. The conflict of “global” and “local” Islam speaks to Knight’s own experience approaching the Islamic world as a uniquely American Muslim with his own sources: the modern mythologies of the Nation of Islam and Five Percenters, as well as the arguments of Progressive Muslim thinkers for feminism and reform. Knight’s travels conclude at Islam’s spiritual center, the holy city of Mecca, where he performs the hajj required of every Muslim. During the rites of pilgrimage, he watches as all variations of Islam converge in one place, under the supervision of Saudi Arabia’s religious police. What results is a struggle to separate the spiritual from the political, Knight searching for a personal relationship to Islam in the context of how it's defined by the external world.

The Taqwacores

The Taqwacores
Title The Taqwacores PDF eBook
Author Michael Muhammad Knight
Publisher Catapult
Total Pages 186
Release 2008-12-23
Genre Fiction
ISBN 1593763182

Download The Taqwacores Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

A Muslim punk house in Buffalo, New York, inhabited by burqa-wearing riot girls, mohawked Sufis, straightedge Sunnis, Shi’a skinheads, Indonesian skaters, Sudanese rude boys, gay Muslims, drunk Muslims, and feminists. Their living room hosts parties and prayers, with a hole smashed in the wall to indicate the direction of Mecca. Their life together mixes sex, dope, and religion in roughly equal amounts, expressed in devotion to an Islamo-punk subculture, “taqwacore,” named for taqwa, an Arabic term for consciousness of the divine. Originally self-published on photocopiers and spiralbound by hand, The Taqwacores has now come to be read as a manifesto for Muslim punk rockers and a “Catcher in the Rye for young Muslims.” There are three different cover colors; red, white, and blue.

Why I Am a Salafi

Why I Am a Salafi
Title Why I Am a Salafi PDF eBook
Author Michael Muhammad Knight
Publisher Catapult
Total Pages 157
Release 2015-08-01
Genre Religion
ISBN 1619026317

Download Why I Am a Salafi Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The Salafi movement invests supreme Islamic authority in the precedents of the Salaf, the first three generations of Muslims, who represent a “Golden Age” from which all subsequent eras can only decline. In Why I Am a Salafi, Michael Muhammad Knight confronts the problem of origins, questioning the possibility of accessing pure Islam through its canonical texts. Why I Am a Salafi is also a confrontation of Knight’s own origins as a Muslim. Reconsidering Salafism, Knight explores the historical processes that informed Islam as he once knew it, having converted to a Salafi vision of Islam in 1994. In the decades since, he has drifted away from Salafism in favor of an alternative Islam that celebrates the freaks, misfits, and heretical innovators. What happens to Islam when everything’s up for grabs, and can an anything-goes Islam allow space for reputedly intolerant Salafism? In Why I Am a Salafi, Knight explores not only Salafism’s valorization of the origins, but takes the Salafi project further than its advocates are willing to go, and reflects upon the consequences of surrendering the origins forever.

Blue-Eyed Devil

Blue-Eyed Devil
Title Blue-Eyed Devil PDF eBook
Author Michael Muhammad Knight
Publisher Catapult
Total Pages 246
Release 2009-03-25
Genre Religion
ISBN 1593763514

Download Blue-Eyed Devil Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Michael Muhammad Knight embarks on a quest for an indigenous American Islam in a series of interstate odysseys. Traveling 20,000 miles by Greyhound in sixty days, he squats in run-down mosques, pursues Muslim romance, is detained at the U.S.-Canadian border with a trunkload of Shia literature, crashes Islamic Society of North America conventions, stink-palms Cat Stevens, and limps across Chicago to find the grave of Noble Drew Ali, filling dozens of notebooks along the way. The result is this semi-autobiographical book, with multiple histories of Fard and the landscape of American Islam woven into Knight’s own story. In the course of his adventures, Knight sorts out his own relationship to Islam as he journeys from punk provocateur to a recognized voice in the community, and watches first-hand the collapse of a liberal Islamic dream. The book’s extensive cast of characters includes anarchist Sufi heretics, vegan kungfu punks, tattoo-sleeved converts in hard-core bands, spiritual drug dealers, Islamic feminists, slick media entrepreneurs, sages of the street, the grandsons of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X, and a group called Muslims for Bush.