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Diacritical is one of about a dozen Islamic punk-rock bands throughout the country, bands with names like Vote Hezbollah, the Kominas (“bastards” in Punjabi) and Al-Thawra (Arabic for “the revolution”). The bands vary in sound, polish and success: the Kominas’ funk-infused Bollywood songs have been on rotation on the BBC, while sounds of explosions and gunfire punctuate Arabic chanting on the MySpace page of Al-Thawra. But they’re alike enough to tour together this summer, ending Labor Day weekend in Chicago at the usually staid Islamic Society of North America‘s annual conference. Muslim punkers call their brand of music taqwacore—a blend of the Arabic word for piety, taqwa, and “hard-core,” the English word for musicians who want to be taken very seriously. “The Prophet Muhammad was all about smashing idols,” says Michael Muhammad Knight, a Muslim convert whose 2003 novel The Taqwacores is a manifesto for the Muslim punk movement. “And what’s more punk rock than that?”
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