This is one of the most amazing things I have seen in a very very long time. I just can not tell you how hard I love this, or the message within.
For me, the messages being:
1) You can not judge a book by its cover (which signals the very critical belief within Islam that only Allah is the Judge, as He is the only one who sees into the hearts of wo/man).
2) That all roads lead to Allah.
3) Islam as inclusion rather than exclusion. Which, I believe, is the message of each of the great faith traditions, until they are manipulated at the hands of humanity to meet political, class, gendered, and / or power ends.
That was different!!! I looked into it and it was really interesting that it was an american convert to islam who started this movement writing about a ficticious taqwacore band and then people wanted to hear the music (which did not exist) so they actually created a new genre of “Islamic hardrock” music to bring to life what he wrote about in his book!! life imitating art again!
I am not sure I am comfortable in the hard rock world myself (way too old for that) but I very much appreciated his comment about bid’ah which people very wrongly translate as innovation. Bid’ah is supposed to be a fad .. like he said, innovation is a good thing everywhere and Muslims thrived on innovation in science , art, poetry,.. for the current idiots to use the word innovation in negative connotation shows how stuck they are and explain why others see msulims negatively..
Bid’ah is a fad not an innovation.. innovations good . fads are good..
taht was fun. I always argiued Muslims are diverse . I knew there is a lot of Muslim influence in today’s rap (apparently a lot of Allahu Akbar and other terms in US mainstream black rap) but THIS, I did not expect! Muslims are even more diverse than I thought 🙂
1) “for the current idiots to use the word innovation in negative connotation shows how stuck they are and explain why others see msulims negatively..”
Yes.
2) There is a very lengthy history of Islam within the hip hop genre, due to the African American community’s use of hip hop / rap as a means to self expression and artistic avenue. Where they had nothing else, they had their voices.
There are many many many many artists who use Muslim phrases in their hooks. I have to say that my favourite belongs to the convert Everlast — though he is a rap artist, this he uses not in a rap song but rather in a regular gig: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Put_Your_Lights_On
xxo