Coming to a City Near You

I think I've found some friends for Mr. Hicks and Mr. Lindh.

In 2002, about a decade after [Michael Muhammad Knight] discovered Islam through rap lyrics and Malcolm X biographies, the 25-year-old became disillusioned with dogma. He tried going to college but soon dropped out.

“I was coming to class wearing this Khomeini-sized black turban,” he says. “Kids who were sitting behind me had to move; they couldn't see.”

Working as a night-shift janitor and feeling his time with Islam might be coming to an end, Knight began writing a novel about a Muslim culture he wished existed. The result was The Taqwacores, a fictitious account of Muslim punks in Buffalo.

And from this book he spawned a music genre that attracted numerous other unemployables.

Kourosh [a friend of Knight's] started a band and named it after one of the bands in the book: Vote Hezbollah. Soon came more groups, such as the Boston-based Kominas, whose achievements include penning the catchiest song ever to work the phrase “Suicide-bomb the Gap” into the chorus.

Lovely folks these.

The article explains that there are occassionally some issues because not everyone in the movement adheres to the same brand of Islam. Some challenge "homophobic" Mullahs as well as advocating suicide bombings in Israel.