{"id":478,"date":"2024-10-17T20:35:39","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T20:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/religious-studies\/?p=478"},"modified":"2026-03-30T18:48:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T18:48:02","slug":"michael-muhammad-knight-explores-american-islam-in-seventeen-books-that-traverse-the-genres-of-fiction-memoir-reflection-and-original-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/religious-studies\/2024\/10\/17\/michael-muhammad-knight-explores-american-islam-in-seventeen-books-that-traverse-the-genres-of-fiction-memoir-reflection-and-original-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Muhammad Knight explores American Islam in seventeen books that traverse the genres of fiction, memoir, reflection, and original scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Join us October 24th at 12:15pm<\/p>\n<p>200 Center Bldg Classroom<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-481\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203120\/michaelknightheadshot-238x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"238\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203120\/michaelknightheadshot-238x300.jpeg 238w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203120\/michaelknightheadshot-768x966.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203120\/michaelknightheadshot.jpeg 814w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 238px) 100vw, 238px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Michael Muhammad Knight explores American Islam in seventeen books that traverse the genres of fiction, m<span style=\"font-size: 1.2rem\">emoir, reflection, and original <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1.2rem\">scholarship. Knight&#8217;s writing lives began in 2003 <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1.2rem\">with his self-published novel, The Taqwacores, <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1.2rem\">which told the story of a fictitious Muslim punk <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1.2rem\">rock scene that inspired multiple films and <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1.2rem\">numerous real-life taqwacore artists; from there he <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1.2rem\">wrote memoirs of his conversion to Islam in the <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1.2rem\">1990s and travels throughout American Muslim <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1.2rem\">communities, accounts of new Muslim movements, <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1.2rem\">i<\/span>ntersections between Islam and ayahuasca shamanism, and painful breaks from his mentors, and critical but deeply personal reflections on Islam&#8217;s ongoing construction in the U.S. His academic work spans communities such as the Nation of Islam, Five Percenters, and Nubian Islamic Hebrews, as well as representations of Muhammad&#8217;s body in hadith literature, and reading Islamic traditions through a lens informed by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. In this conversation, Knight discusses movements, tensions, and harmonies between his multiple writing lives.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-479 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203118\/FIb1KufXoAQPEe7-298x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"298\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203118\/FIb1KufXoAQPEe7-298x300.jpg 298w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203118\/FIb1KufXoAQPEe7-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203118\/FIb1KufXoAQPEe7.jpg 594w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 298px) 100vw, 298px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-480 alignleft\" style=\"font-size: 16.8px\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203118\/81C1k6qEAsL-196x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"196\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203118\/81C1k6qEAsL-196x300.jpg 196w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203118\/81C1k6qEAsL-670x1024.jpg 670w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203118\/81C1k6qEAsL-768x1174.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203118\/81C1k6qEAsL-1005x1536.jpg 1005w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203118\/81C1k6qEAsL-1340x2048.jpg 1340w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/10\/17203118\/81C1k6qEAsL.jpg 1636w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 196px) 100vw, 196px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Join us October 24th at 12:15pm 200 Center Bldg Classroom Michael Muhammad Knight explores American Islam in seventeen books that traverse the genres of fiction, memoir, reflection, and original scholarship. Knight&#8217;s writing lives began in 2003 with his self-published novel, The Taqwacores, which told the story of a fictitious Muslim punk rock scene that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/religious-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/religious-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/religious-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/religious-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/religious-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/religious-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":482,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/religious-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions\/482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/religious-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/religious-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/religious-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}