What I Am Reading: "Osama Van Halen" by Michael Muhammad Knight

This book was a little different from its predecessor. It was much more gonzo and postmodern: a story about the continuing adventures of two of the characters from the first book, blended with the process of Michael Muhammad Knight, both as himself and as a character in the book, dealing with his post-Taqwacores prominence. And, unfortunately, it was not about Rabeya, but was instead about the least-interesting character, Amazing Ayyub.

Ayyub was the most feral of the characters in the previous book, lying around shirtless and living only to party. In this book, he is on a mission from Allah to assassinate a pop-punk taqwacore band, Shah 79. He makes his way from the West Coast to Buffalo in order to do so, having all kinds of wacky hijinks and hyperreal situations involving zombies and psychobilly jinns. Rabeya, meanwhile, makes a brief appearance at the beginning and at the end. She plays an important role (see below), but I was hoping for more of a focus on her. She is the best character in the first book, with her constant feminist asides, her crossing out of Qur’an verses (such as about wife-beating) that she doesn’t need, and suggestion that the narrator try wearing a burqa. Admittedly, in her early appearance she does get to kidnap Matt Damon and hold him hostage for more sympathetic portrayals of Muslims in the media. So that’s something, at least.

Ayyub’s quest is interspersed with Knight’s reflections on the reaction to his book, as young American Muslims form their own Taqwacore scenes (and are then incorporated as characters in the book). He also encounters criticism from feminists, which he embraces by having Rabeya show up again at the end of the book and decapitating him for being “another phallocentric orientalist.” It is clear that he is using this writing to work out some of his identity issues, taking criticism from both his characters and apparently from real people he recounts his encounters with. Mainstream, assimilationist American Islam also comes in for criticism from him and his characters, as do overintellectualizing sympathetic liberals (I resemble that remark). Overall, it is an interesting follow-up, but perhaps more self-indulgent and less coherent than its predecessor.