Amazing Ayyub, an Iranian Shi'ite skinhead, and his sidekick Rabeya have hijacked Matt Damon, demanding that Hollywood depict Muslims in a positive light—"just one movie where we're not these two-dimensional al Qaeda stereotypes." But Damon's concerned they're playing into that same terrorist paradigm and furthering a neo-conservative perception of Islam. Meanwhile, Ayyub embarks on a mission to rid taqwacore of a Muslim pop-punk band, Shah 79. Along the way he makes himself invisible, escapes punk-eating zombies in a mosque off the desert highway, runs into some psychobilly jinns, and finds himself face to face with his creator, the author ...a riotous journey of enlightenment. (But not all hilarious: At the end of the novel, Knight is decapitated by Rabeya.)

Michael Muhammad Knight is a novelist, essayist, and journalist. He converted to Islam at 16, after reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X, and traveled to Islamabad at age 17 to study at a madrassa. His first novel, "The Taqwacores," told the story of a fictitious scene of Islamic punk-rockers, and inspired the real-life Muslim punk movement which currently shares their name. With his deeply personal memoir "Impossible Man," and forthcoming road odyssey "Blue Eyed Devil," Knight explores through his own private experience the unique realities of being an American Muslim. His books have been taught at numerous universities, and he is a frequent speaker at colleges and academic conferences. Knight is also the subject of a forthcoming documentary, directed by Omar Majeed, on the "Taqwacore" movement spawned by his first novel.

Five-city author tour: New York, NY; Buffalo, NY; Cleveland, OH; Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA

AMAZING AYYUB VS. THE PSYCHOBILLY JINNS


Michael Muhammad Knight drove to the liquor store (the one on Grant Street with the white wooden horse) so he could cash a check and heard the news that on Herkimer Street that morning, a woman had been found partially cannibalized. The author worried about Amazing Ayyub should he ever come home, and then bought one of those insane vinegar sausage-sticks in an unnaturally bright shade of red. Ayyub used to call them “Ashura for your intestines.” The author took his money and sausage and sat on the curb by the Zul-Jannah. Everyone walking past him into the liquor store looked beaten up and sad.

Amazing Ayyub was using his Ya Sin invisiblity spell to hitch rides on flat-bed trailers, going hundreds of miles at a stretch, holding on for his life. Out there in the open air at upwards of 100 miles per hour, the wind did a terrible number on his skin, dried him right out. Whenever the coked-out trucker stopped to fuel up or rest, Amazing Ayyub would jump off, recuperate and then wait around for another one.

By the will of Allah alone, Amazing Ayyub ended up in Oklahoma City where Al Rukn happened to be lording over a taqwacore house. Al was a half-black, half-Emirati kid who came up in New York hardcore, found Sufism in his late teens and made for a mean drunk Jerrahi. Amazing Ayyub found a payphone and told Al where he was.

Al Rukn came by in a beat-up blue Chevy Celebrity, the rear covered in taqwacore band stickers. They put Amazing Ayyub’s machine gun in the back but had to leave the trunk open for it to fit.

“The taqwacores are coming together in Oklahoma,” said Al as he drove. “It’s slow but we’re building.”

“You got a lot of Muslim punks out here?” asked Ayyub.

“Not Muslim punks,” Al replied. “Taqwacores. We don’t say ‘Muslim punk’ around here because number one, some of this stuff is neither Muslim nor punk, and number two, have you ever seen Afropunk?”

“What’s that?”

“It was a whole documentary about these black punk-rock kids, but my point is that the film sets out on an identity game that we’re not playing. We’re not into the whole ‘minority displaced within another disenfranchised subculture’ angle, that’s not how we define ourselves. We’ve got our own separate scene.”

“That’s A-plus, Al Rukn.”

“How are the Kominas?”

“The zombies killed Shahjehan.”

“Shahjehan? Are you sure?”

“They got him, bro.”

“FUCK!” Al Rukn punched his tacky blue steering wheel.

“Basim cremated him so he wouldn’t turn into a zombie.”

“Well, I guess that was the right thing to do. Shahjehan was a good kid, he had his heart in the right place. We’re all fuck-ups and we have no problem with it, but Shahj, Shahj honestly believed that he was doing right by Islam. You know where those zombies are coming from, right?”

“Fuck no,” answered Amazing Ayyub, “but Basim was killing the shit out of them. You shoulda seen him, he was like blam blam blam!”

“There’ll be more.”

Al Rukn brought Ayyub to the littered lawn and crumbling porch of his taqwacore house and parked his car on the dead grass. Ayyub could hear a three-piece taqwa band in melodic but thrashing rehearsal coming through the walls to greet them.

“Who’s that?”

“My housemates. It’s kind of poppy and skater but they’re good for what they do.” Al and Ayyub walked in the door and Ayyub saw them right there filling the living room with amps and assorted cords, three skinny Malay kids with spiked and dyed hair. He manuevered past them without introductions or even a nod, heading for the couch as though pulled to it by a magnet. The couch was Ayyub’s natural habitat—not any couch in particular but every couch in the world, regardless of its condition. This one looked like it had been found by a curb on garbage day and smelled like it had seen hard times, but did what it had to for a wayfaring bum. Ayyub sank into the beaten cushions and murdered springs, propped his big gun against the couch and watched the band play in front of him. Al Rukn ventured elsewhere in the house to get a beer, came back with two bottles and gave Ayyub one. He took a seat next to Ayyub’s gun and reached around it to shout in Ayyub’s ear, trying to be heard above the song but still taking refuge in its shroud of noise:

“THE DRUMMER’S GOT A SISTER, AMAZING AYYUB...”

“IS SHE HERE?”