Masjid Taqwacore: Introducing the Kominas

Basim Usmani, frontman for Muslim punk band The Kominas

By Michael Muhammad Knight

Basim Usmani’s most recent trouble started when the singer of Riff Raff (“a bald fat kid with Henry Rollins complex” as Basim put it) jumped off the stage and started pushing people, microphone still in hand. Basim was right in front and when the kid pushed him, Basim pushed back. Then the singer’s brother yelled, “YOU LITTLE BITCH!” and punched him in the head. Basim fell behind a merchandise table and later regained consciousness to the gentle taps and nudges of half a dozen boots. Someone yelled “OI OI OI!” as Basim pulled himself up, noticed that his left arm was flapping around and held it to his chest. He staggered out and drove home, not sure what had happened. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect for Basim, who had a shaheed habit of going to white-power shows with the Pakistani flag painted on his jacket.

These kids weren’t Nazi but straightedge, which left him with an odd concept to explain to his mom: gangs of kafr kids who’d stomp a Muslim because they were opposed to drugs, alcohol and premarital sex.

“They kept me from desecrating my body,” he said.

When he recorded a new album with his band Malice in Leatherland, Basim had to play bass with a dislocated shoulder. He also fronts an all-desi band, the Kominas, with Shah Jahan on guitar and a drum machine named Shaheed 3000. They have a song called “Rumi was a Homo (but Wahhaj is a Fag)” [Download MP3 - 2.5mb] that kills me every time.

Basim still had his arm in a sling when I drove to Lexington, Massachusetts to meet him. He hugged me with his good arm and took me to the campus to pick up Shah Jahan and his friend Nick. They smoked equality in the back seat while Basim drove us around Lowell.

We ended up at Shah Jahan’s house eating keema. Basim told Nick that he couldn’t have any unless he was Muslim (“Say ‘la ilaha illa Allah,’ fucker!”) but it turned out that Nick was vegetarian anyway. I gave Basim a vial of Hamza Yusuf’s sweat that I had purchased at ISNA, to rub on his bad shoulder. In half an hour he was fine; al-hamdulilah.

Basim wanted to hit up a new mosque in Wayland that was still under construction so we piled back into the car. The old Wayland mosque had been visited by six of the 9/11 hijackers. On the way we talked about all the Muslim Punks out there in dark corners of the umma—Omar X up in Winnipeg, Todd Gullion in West Asia, all the bands in Malaysia and I thought of a real jum’aa with all these characters. I had taken Asma Gull Hasan to see Sick of It All, so maybe she’s a Muslim Punk now with her Louis Vuitton purses. Singing along to whatever tapes he played, Basim redid Social Distortion’s “Prison Bound” as “Jehennam Bound” and Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law” as “Pray to Allah” in his best Rob Halford and I laughed so hard it hurt. I could have heard that all night: PRAY TO ALLAH, PRAY TO ALLAH! PRAY TO ALLAH, PRAY TO ALLAH!

The masjid was more or less a huge wooden frame with no character yet, but once inside I spotted the plywood mihrab. Other than that, there was nothing that said “mosque.” No pretty plaques, no wall hangings, no copies of the ISNA mag lying around. We did have buckets of spackle and aluminum ladders. Off to the side I saw what might be the sisters’ entrance, insha’Allah. We took a brief jaunt upstairs and walked past the beginnings of classrooms or offices. Spotted a portable CD player but it turned out to be empty. I wondered what kind of construction-worker guys were building the mosque and what kind of CDs they played—Qari Abdul-Basit, I guessed, or Limp Bizkit. I had worked construction once, at the site of a Levi’s store in an outlet mall. The boss always slapped me on the back and asked if I had eaten any pussy the night before.

Shah Jahan still had his equality and kept elevating, but was respectful enough to step outside to dispose of it. Then the idea hit him to offer the first rakats in the history of the place. We looked around for something to pray on. There were sheets of plywood and one that had “KEEP OUT!” spray-painted on it, but Shah Jahan found a big roll of insulation and unfurled it across the concrete. Basim went to take off his boots but I told him it wasn’t necessary, that was only a tradition with no basis in anything (you can prove or disprove that, if it’s really worth your time). Shah Jahan gave the adhan. I think it was Basim who wanted to pray without an imam, just the three of us going in unison. Sounded alright but we each waited for someone else to start so we could synch up. Shah Jahan took the initiative, said Allahu Akbar and ended up the de facto imam. It felt appropriate, even with him all weeded-up. I wasn’t sure what prayer we were making—it was somewhere in the gray area between Isha and Fajr. Could have gone either way but Shah Jahan stopped at two rakats, greeted the angels on his shoulders and then spouted off a du’a that I had never heard before. I didn’t know what he was saying, and maybe he didn’t either but it was about as sincere a prayer as I can get these days. Basim snatched up a handful of washers to make a necklace.

So then we took our final looks around and walked back through the mud and weeds to Basim’s car, and Basim drove me back to the TJ Max where my Buick was parked, and I left him in his fearless taqwa-punk story—to live Jehennam-bound, start fights at shows, get drunk and defend Islam against the sober. He’s likely to die someday in a pit under the Doc Martens of one gang of idiots or another, and I think he knows it. Whatever the Pen wrote, it wrote; there’s not much else you can do.

Michael Muhammad Knight completed his first book, Where Mullahs Fear to Tread, at the age of 19. He began circulating The Taqwacores by handing them out from the trunk of his car in mosque parking lots. Autonomedia has just re-released his book.