Prayers, Sex, Islam, and Electric Guitars: A Rhetorical Criticism of The Taqwacores

Punk rock Islam may not a common phrase to hear in society, but it is quickly expanding in popularity and in effectiveness. A fiction book entitled The Taqwacores tells the story of faithful Muslims practicing punk rock Islam in their own way. The novel utilizes constittive rhetoric, a concept popularized by Maurice Charland, to create a social movement that is sweeping the world. This paper analyzes the novel using the tenets of constitutive rhetoric and uses social movement theory to understand the implications that a simple book is having upon the world. Punk rock Islam may not be such an uncommon phrase for much longer