Michael Muhammad Knight
Encyclopedia
Michael Muhammad Knight (born 1977) is an American Muslim novelist, journalist, and performance artist. His writings are popular among American Muslim youth. The San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

 described him as "one of the most necessary and, paradoxically enough, hopeful writers of Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

's America." Within the American Muslim community, he has earned a reputation as an ostentatious cultural provocateur.

Biography

Knight's father, Wesley Unger, was the thirteenth of twenty children born to a Pentecostal preacher in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. A participant in outlaw motorcycle club
Outlaw motorcycle club
An outlaw motorcycle club is a type of motorcycle club that is part of a subculture with roots in the post-World War II USA, centered on cruiser motorcycles, particularly Harley-Davidsons and choppers, and a set of ideals celebrating freedom, nonconformity to mainstream culture, and loyalty to the...

 culture, Unger was mentally ill and abusive, causing Knight's mother to escape with him when Knight was two years old. Knight grew up in Geneva, New York
Geneva, New York
Geneva is a city in Ontario and Seneca counties in the U.S. state of New York. The population was 13,617 at the 2000 census. Some claim it is named after the city and canton of Geneva in Switzerland. Others believe the name came from confusion over the letters in the word "Seneca" written in cursive...

, raised by his mother in a Roman Catholic family of Irish descent. Knight's first exposure to Islam came when he was 13 when he discovered Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...

 through the lyrics of the hip-hop band, Public Enemy. After reading Alex Haley
Alex Haley
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an African-American writer. He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the coauthor of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.-Early life:...

's Autobiography of Malcolm X at 15, Knight's study of Islam intensified and he converted to Islam. It was also at 15 that Knight met his father for the first time since he was two years old; when Knight informed Unger that he was Muslim, Unger told Knight that he was a white supremacist. At 17 Knight traveled to Islamabad
Islamabad
Islamabad is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. Located within the Islamabad Capital Territory , the population of the city has grown from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.7 million in 2011...

, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, to study Islam at Faisal Mosque
Faisal Mosque
The Faisal Mosque is the largest mosque in Pakistan and is located in the national capital city of Islamabad.Faisal Mosque is conceived as the National Mosque of Pakistan...

. He came close to making the decision to abandon this course of study to join the war against Russian rule in Chechnya
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...

.

On August 2, 2009, he married Sadaf Khatri in San Jose, California. He obtained a Master's degree from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 and is presently a PhD student at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

.

The Taqwacores

After disillusionment with orthodox Islam, Knight wrote two books, Where Mullahs Fear to Tread and The Furious Cock, which he printed as xeroxed zine
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....

s. In winter 2002 he wrote The Taqwacores
The Taqwacores
Knight originally self-published The Taqwacores in DIY zine format, giving copies away for free until finding distribution with Alternative Tentacles, the punk record label founded by Jello Biafra. After receiving an endorsement from Peter Lamborn Wilson , the novel was published by radical press...

, which told the story of a fictitious group of Muslim punk-rockers living in Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

. Characters included a Straight edge
Straight edge
Straight edge is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs. It was a direct reaction to the sexual revolution, hedonism, and excess associated with punk rock. For some, this extends to not engaging in promiscuous sex, following a...

 Sunni Muslim, drunken mohawk-wearing Sufi punk, burqa
Burqa
A burqa is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic religion to cover their bodies in public places. The burqa is usually understood to be the woman's loose body-covering , plus the head-covering , plus the face-veil .-Etymology:A speculative and unattested etymology...

-wearing riot grrl and Shi'a skinhead
Skinhead
A skinhead is a member of a subculture that originated among working class youths in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, and then spread to other parts of the world. Named for their close-cropped or shaven heads, the first skinheads were greatly influenced by West Indian rude boys and British mods,...

.

Knight originally self-published the novel in a spiral-bound, xeroxed form and gave away copies for free. The book was later picked up for distribution by Alternative Tentacles
Alternative Tentacles
Alternative Tentacles is an independent record label originally based in San Francisco, California and was established in 1979. It was originally used as the label name by the Dead Kennedys for the self-produced single "California Über Alles", and after realizing the potential for an independent...

, the punk record label founded by Jello Biafra
Jello Biafra
Jello Biafra is an American musician, spoken word artist and leading figure of the Green Party of the United States. Biafra first gained attention as the lead singer and songwriter for San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys...

. An encounter with Peter Lamborn Wilson
Peter Lamborn Wilson
Peter Lamborn Wilson , is an American political writer, essayist, and poet, known for first proposing the concept of the Temporary Autonomous Zone , based, in part, on a historical review of pirate utopias...

 led to The Taqwacores being published by Autonomedia
Autonomedia
Autonomedia is one of the main North American publishers of radical theoretical works, especially in the anarchist tradition. For many years, it was linked with Semiotext, one of the major sources for English language translations of post-structuralist literature, especially in the 1980s...

 in 2004.

The Taqwacores was intended as Knight's farewell to Islam, but encouragement from readers caused Knight to reconsider his relationship to the faith. The novel has since inspired the start of an actual taqwacore
Taqwacore
Taqwacore is a subgenre of punk music dealing with Islam, its culture, and interpretation, originally conceived in Michael Muhammad Knight's 2003 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...

 scene, including bands such as the Kominas
The Kominas
The Kominas are a Pakistani-American Desi punk rock band from New York City. The band currently includes Basim Usmani , Imran Ali Malik , Hassan Ali Malik and Abdullah Saeed .- History :...

, Vote Hezbollah, and Secret Trial Five
Secret Trial Five
-Origins:Sena Hussain formed Secret Trial Five with four friends following 9/11, when she became interested in making music with political messages. Secret Trial Five takes its name from a group of Muslims suspected of terrorism currently held without charge in Canada.-History:In fall 2007, Secret...

. Carl Ernst
Carl Ernst
Carl W. Ernst is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Islamic studies at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also the director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations.Ernst received his A.B...

, specialist in Islamic studies at UNC, called The Taqwacores a "Catcher in the Rye for young Muslims." The novel has been taught in courses at Vassar, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, Trinity College, Sarah Lawrence College, Canisius College, Indiana University, and the Ohio State University.

The Taqwacores burqa-wearing riot grrl, Rabeya, and her dialogue from the novel has been adapted in the Rapture Project, an ongoing puppet show regarding religion in American culture and politics. Rabeya, who in one passage of The Taqwacores gives a Friday sermon and leads the mixed gender group in prayer, also influenced author Asra Nomani to organize a mixed gender prayer held March 18, 2005, in New York and led by Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

 scholar Dr. Amina Wadud
Amina Wadud
Amina Wadud is an American scholar of Islam with a progressive focus on Qur'an exegesis . As an Islamic feminist, she has addressed mixed-sex congregations, giving a sermon in South Africa in 1994, and leading Friday prayers in the United States in 2005...

 in support of women as imams
Women as imams
There is a current controversy among Muslims regarding the circumstances in which women may act as imams—that is, lead a congregation in salah...

. Knight worked security at the Wadud prayer.

Blue-Eyed Devil

Knight's travel writing for Muslim WakeUp!
Muslim WakeUp!
Muslim Wake Up was a website founded to promote progressive and reformist ideas within Islam. Their website was cofounded by Ahmed Nassef and Jawad Ali in January 2003. It published articles contributed from affiliated collumnists as well as guests on its main page as well as opinions on its blog...

 led him to write
Blue-Eyed Devil: an American Muslim Road Odyssey, in which he traveled over 20,000 miles by Greyhound bus in 60 days, searching for a true American Islam. Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu is a Romanian-born American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and commentator for National Public Radio. He was Mac Curdy Distinguished Professor of English at Louisiana State University from 1984 until his retirement in 2009....

 hailed the work as "today's
On the Road
On the Road
On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951, and published by Viking Press in 1957. It is a largely autobiographical work that was based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America. It is often considered a defining work of...

...pertinent and suspenseful, a mystery rendered in brilliant detail and gorgeous depth...a masterpiece." In the book Knight attempts to uncover the true identity of W. D. Fard
Wallace Fard Muhammad
Wallace Fard Muhammad was a minister and founder of the Nation of Islam. He established the Nation of Islam's first mosque in Detroit, Michigan in 1930, and ministered his distinctive religion there for three years, before mysteriously disappearing in June 1934. He was succeeded by his follower...

, the mysterious founder of the Nation of Islam
Nation of Islam
The Nation of Islam is a mainly African-American new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930 to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African-Americans in the United States of America. The movement teaches black pride and...

, who was believed by that movement to be Allah in person.

Blue-Eyed Devil also contains narratives of Knight's encounters with various figures of North American Islam, such as Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji is a Canadian author, journalist and an advocate of "reform and progressive" interpretation of Islam. Manji is director of the Moral Courage Project at the Robert F...

, Asra Nomani, and the Hasan family, founders of Muslims for Bush. Knight describes his experience as an original member of the Progressive Muslim Union
Progressive Muslim Union
The Progressive Muslim Union of North America was a liberal Islamic organization. The group officially launched on November 15, 2004 in Manhattan but was disbanded in December 2006...

's board of directors and his disillusionment with the Progressive Islam movement. In
Blue-Eyed Devil, he claims that PMU considered an alliance with Manji, which he witnessed while having dinner with Manji and PMU founder Ahmed Nassef.

Knight left PMU in 2005. While maintaining a blog at ProgressiveIslam.Org, he continued to reject the term "Progressive Muslim."

The Five Percenters

Knight's fascination with Fard led him to research the Five Percenters, aka the Nation of Gods and Earths
The Nation of Gods and Earths
The Nation of Gods and Earths, sometimes referred to as NGE or NOGE, the Five-Percent Nation, or the Five Percenters is an American organization founded in 1964 in the Harlem section of the borough of Manhattan, New York City, by Clarence 13X, a former student of Malcolm X, who left his mosque...

, a movement that broke from the Nation of Islam
Nation of Islam
The Nation of Islam is a mainly African-American new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930 to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African-Americans in the United States of America. The movement teaches black pride and...

 in 1964. After spending time with the movement's white elder, Azreal, Knight was given the name Azreal Wisdom; in the Five Percenters' system of Supreme Mathematics, it means Azreal 2.

Knight wrote the first ethnography of the movement, The Five Percenters: Islam, Hip-hop and the Gods of New York (Oneworld Publications). An excerpt from the book appears in the 90-page booklet included with The 5% Album by Lord Jamar
Lord Jamar
Lord Jamar is an American emcee and actor. He is a member of the hip-hop group Brand Nubian, which formed in 1989. As an actor, he is best known for his role of Supreme Allah on the TV series Oz. He has appeared on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Third Watch, and The Sopranos...

 of Brand Nubian
Brand Nubian
Brand Nubian is an American hip hop group from New Rochelle, New York, consisting of three MC's: Grand Puba , Sadat X and Lord Jamar , and two DJs: DJ Alamo and DJ Sincere...

, which also features members of Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
The Wu-Tang Clan is a hip-hop group from Staten Island that consists of RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa, and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard. They are frequently joined by fellow childhood friend Cappadonna, a quasi member of the group...

 such as the RZA
RZA
Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, better known by his stage name RZA , is an American Grammy-winning music producer, multi-instrumentalist, author, emcee, and occasional actor, director, and screenwriter. A prominent figure in Hip Hop, RZA is the de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan. He has produced almost...

 and GZA
GZA
Gary Grice , better known by his stage names GZA and The Genius, is an American hip hop artist and founding member of the seminal hip hop group the Wu-Tang Clan. He has also appeared on his fellow clan members' solo projects and has maintained a successful solo career...

.

Osama Van Halen

Knight's 2009 novel, Osama Van Halen, features The Taqwacores Amazing Ayyub and Rabeya, who take Matt Damon
Matt Damon
Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...

 hostage and demand that Hollywood depict Muslims in a more positive light, while Damon argues that they are "playing into that same terrorist paradigm and furthering a neo-conservative perception of Islam." Also in the novel, Amazing Ayyub embarks on a mission to rid taqwacore
Taqwacore
Taqwacore is a subgenre of punk music dealing with Islam, its culture, and interpretation, originally conceived in Michael Muhammad Knight's 2003 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...

 of a Muslim pop-punk band, Shah 79. Amazing Ayyub's adventures include encounters with zombies, psychobilly
Psychobilly
Psychobilly is a fusion genre of rock music that mixes elements of punk rock, rockabilly, and other genres. It is one of several subgenres of rockabilly which also include thrashabilly, trashabilly, punkabilly, surfabilly and gothabilly...

 jinns and Knight himself, who appears as a character in the story. At the end of the novel, Knight is decapitated by Rabeya. Laury Silvers of Skidmore College
Skidmore College
Skidmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college with an enrollment of approximately 2,500 students. The college is located in the town of Saratoga Springs, New York State....

, who read the manuscript, wrote at progressiveislam.org:


Don't miss the self-disgust. I have read the whole novel. It is extraordinary. The best he has done yet. It is no mistake that his only woman character who was ever fully portrayed and whom he never saw because of her burqa cuts his head off in the end. The story, the novel, is about the writer coming to terms...He uncovers some pretty terrible layers of himself, the characters he has created, the character of himself that sometimes does his dirty work. He knows exactly what it is and he is saying it.



Impossible Man

Knight's memoir, released March 2009 by Soft Skull Press, tells the story of Knight's "bizarre and traumatic boyhood and his conversion to Islam during a turbulent adolescence."

From the book's catalog description:


Impossible Man follows a boy’s struggle in coming to terms with his father—a paranoid schizophrenic and white supremacist who had threatened to decapitate Michael when he was a baby—and his father’s place in his own identity. It is also the story of a teenager’s troubled path to maturity and the influences that steady him along the way. Knight’s encounter with Malcolm X’s autobiography transforms him from a disturbed teenager engaged in correspondence with Charles Manson to a zealous Muslim convert who travels to Pakistan and studies in a madrassa. Later disillusioned by radical religion, he again faces the crisis of self-definition. For all its extremes, Impossible Man describes a universal journey: a wounded boy in search of a working model of manhood, going to outrageous lengths to find it.


Journey to the End of Islam

Journey to the End of Islam chronicles Knight's 2008 return to Pakistan, subsequent travels to Syria, Egypt, and Ethiopia, temporary relocation to Cleveland for the filming of The Taqwacores, and hajj
Hajj
The Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so...

 in Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...

. Over the course of his travels, Knight compares and contrasts various Islamic interpretations and practices, juxtaposing heterodoxy
Heterodoxy
Heterodoxy is generally defined as "any opinions or doctrines at variance with an official or orthodox position". As an adjective, heterodox is commonly used to describe a subject as "characterized by departure from accepted beliefs or standards"...

 and orthodoxy
Orthodoxy
The word orthodox, from Greek orthos + doxa , is generally used to mean the adherence to accepted norms, more specifically to creeds, especially in religion...

 while also addressing issues of sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...

 and racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 in Islam. While in Mecca, Knight syncretizes traditional Islam with his Five Percenter leanings, and also reconverts to Islam as a Shi'a in a tent of Iranian pilgrims. Publisher's Weekly gave a mostly positive review, comparing the book to "the archetypal American road novel complete with a harrowing episode of cannabis-induced psychosis, a breezy tone...and indifference to whether the reader can follow his references." The review also stated that Knight "probes and prods the boundaries of his faith with unabashed emotion and honesty, even questioning, near the end of his journey, whether he really understands anything about Islam. But the book is most engaging when he turns his gaze outward to make pithy observations on the intersection of religion and global capitalist culture."

Why I Am a Five Percenter

Why I Am a Five Percenter is to be released October 13, 2011 by Tarcher/Penguin publishers. According to Knight's Facebook page, the book will expand on his studies with the Five Percenters, aka Nation of Gods and Earths.

William S. Burroughs vs. the Qur'an

Knight's eighth book, William S. Burroughs vs. the Qur'an will be released on January 10, 2012, by Soft Skull/Counterpoint. The book will cover Knight's changing relationship to his mentor and hero, Peter Lamborn Wilson
Peter Lamborn Wilson
Peter Lamborn Wilson , is an American political writer, essayist, and poet, known for first proposing the concept of the Temporary Autonomous Zone , based, in part, on a historical review of pirate utopias...

, and Knight's literary experimentation with the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

 using the cut-up methods of William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

.

Controversy

Knight is criticized for his participation in woman-led prayer, provocative articles, disrespectful attitude toward leaders of the American Muslim community, open admission of past apostasy (chronicled in his essay "Forget what is and is not Islam" in Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out
Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out
Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out is a book, authored and edited by secularist Ibn Warraq that researches and documents cases of apostasy in Islam.-Synopsis:...

), heretical attitudes, embrace of the Nation of Islam
Nation of Islam
The Nation of Islam is a mainly African-American new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930 to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African-Americans in the United States of America. The movement teaches black pride and...

 and Nation of Gods and Earths and often rebellious treatment of the Prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

.

Knight developed a reputation for his Muslim WakeUp! articles, particularly accounts of the Islamic Society of North America
Islamic Society of North America
The Islamic Society of North America , based in Plainfield, Indiana, USA, is a Muslim umbrella group. It has been described in the media as the largest Muslim organization in North America.-History:...

's annual convention, in which he wrote of giving a "stink palm" to famous imam Siraj Wahhaj and Cat Stevens
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam , commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam....

 and engaging in a romantic encounter with a young Muslim woman.

At the 2005 convention of the Islamic Society of North America
Islamic Society of North America
The Islamic Society of North America , based in Plainfield, Indiana, USA, is a Muslim umbrella group. It has been described in the media as the largest Muslim organization in North America.-History:...

, Knight and the Kominas
The Kominas
The Kominas are a Pakistani-American Desi punk rock band from New York City. The band currently includes Basim Usmani , Imran Ali Malik , Hassan Ali Malik and Abdullah Saeed .- History :...

 fraudulently obtained media passes and sneaked into the press conference of Karen Hughes
Karen Hughes
Karen Parfitt Hughes is the Global Vice Chair of Burson-Marsteller. She served as the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the U.S. Department of State with the rank of ambassador. She resides in Austin, Texas.-Early life:Born in Paris, France, she is the daughter...

, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the U.S. Department of State. They were taken outside and questioned by a State Department agent, but allowed back in by ISNA officials. It was later learned that the ISNA staff was concerned over Knight's jacket bearing the Alternative Tentacles
Alternative Tentacles
Alternative Tentacles is an independent record label originally based in San Francisco, California and was established in 1979. It was originally used as the label name by the Dead Kennedys for the self-produced single "California Über Alles", and after realizing the potential for an independent...

 logo.

Ibrahim Hooper

In a 2003 Muslim WakeUp! article, Knight claimed to have introduced himself to a member of the United Nation of Islam
United Nation of Islam
The United Nation of Islam is a group based in Kansas City, Kansas. It was founded circa 1978 by Royall Jenkins, who continues to be the leader of the group and styles himself Royall, Allah in Person.-History:...

 as "Ibrahim Hooper
Ibrahim Hooper
Ibrahim Hooper , a convert to Islam, is the National Communications Director and spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations , a Washington D.C.-based Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.-Early life:...

," the name of the Communications Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations
Council on American-Islamic Relations
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is America's largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization that deals with civil advocacy and promotes human rights...

. Hooper threatened legal action if the act was repeated. In a later article on his trip to Elijah Muhammad's grave, Knight wrote that he had introduced himself as Ibrahim Hooper at the cemetery's office. Hooper again threatened legal recourses. Knight responded by publicly challenging Hooper to a wrestling match. On June 25, 2006, Knight staged his match against Ibrahim Hooper at a punk show in Lexington, Massachusetts, at the home of the Kominas
The Kominas
The Kominas are a Pakistani-American Desi punk rock band from New York City. The band currently includes Basim Usmani , Imran Ali Malik , Hassan Ali Malik and Abdullah Saeed .- History :...

' singer Basim Usmani. The role of Ibrahim Hooper was played by Grifin Tibbetts, bassist for grindcore
Grindcore
Grindcore is an extreme genre of music that started in the early- to mid-1980s. It draws inspiration from some of the most abrasive music genres – including death metal, industrial music, noise and the more extreme varieties of hardcore punk....

 band Animal Rampage.

Asma Gull Hasan

In October 2007, Muslim Republican author and commentator Asma Gull Hasan
Asma Gull Hasan
Asma Gull Hasan is a Pakistani-American award-winning writer. Her work includes the book Red, White, and Muslim, a biographical view of growing up as an American Muslim...

 filed a defamation suit against Knight and the Kominas, claiming that Blue-Eyed Devil falsely portrayed her as "wealthy, self-absorbed, insensitive and acutely uninformed" and that Knight had influenced the Kominas to write a song depicting her performance of a sex act. "You can't defeat writers by censoring or punishing them, you only defeat writers by outwriting them," Knight stated in a response to The Denver Post
The Denver Post
-Ownership:The Post is the flagship newspaper of MediaNews Group Inc., founded in 1983 by William Dean Singleton and Richard Scudder. MediaNews is today one of the nation's largest newspaper chains, publisher of 61 daily newspapers and more than 120 non-daily publications in 13 states. MediaNews...

. "And she can't do that, so she has to resort to this." In November 2008, the suit was dismissed.

See also

  • Progressive Islam
  • Islam and anarchism
    Islam and anarchism
    Islamic anarchism is based on an interpretation of Islam as "submission to God" which either prohibits or is highly critical of the role of human authority.-Historical anarchist tendencies in Islam:...



External links


Interviews

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