Walking in the [House Full of Punks]

Although De Certeau is difficult to follow in his intricately woven rhetoric, I think what I took out of his essay Walking in the City is that our systematic destruction of our own physical culture, something which shames us as a society, will lead to the downfall of said society. The shunning of myths, legends, and the misinterpretation of the importance of socially unifying things such as walking are mistakes which are being reinforced by the ability to hide one's eyes at all times behind mirrored windows and the complete avoidance of such vital interactions as window shopping and wandering through the streets of the city.

In a way, the Taqwacores are rejecting this modern mentality of stark avoidance of reality. Rather, they dive into social interactions, pushing their personalities on those around them, and loudly proclaiming their place in society. They are doing what de Certeau surely would approve of; they are following the more primitive instincts to culture and they don't walk with their eyes downcast, but rather with their mohawks upcast and their eyes in search of God. They are the reintroduction of feeling into a culture full of nonfeeling and avoidance of feeling. They are passionate and follow their instincts, like de Corteau's walker following the streets of Paris.

Introductory Introduction

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Punkfighting

As Geertz makes clear in Deep Play: notes on the Balinese cockfight, a culture can be understood through the various “texts,” as he calls them, contained within the culture.

Looking at Tawqacore in this way, the first step would be to identify texts. Two immediately come to mind: from Punk, the Taqwacores’ outlandish clothes and hair, and from Muslim, the daily ritual prayer.

The second step would then be to analyze the emotional meaning of each text.

Quite obvious is the way in which the Taqwacores individualize themselves and separate from the larger society – their image. The very act of wearing a Mohawk or getting a tattoo is a way of expelling oneself from mainstream society. The Taqwacores are essentially breaking off, that is to say, separating themselves not only from non- Taqwacores, but also from each other. Looking at Jehangir next to Yusef, it would probably be hard to imagine that they should have anything in common.

In sharp contrast, prayers embody the spiritual, displaying the self containment and recognition of oneself as a smaller being in a larger universe. Each prayer is a way of bonding oneself not only with Allah, but also with other people. These people may be strangers, as when the many bands camped at the house and held mass-group-prayers, or one’s closest friends, as when the Taqwacores pray together on a daily basis. However, there’s always contained in this act a sense of greater unity.

This simultaneous separation and unification within the Taqwacore culture forms a central mode of being; the two acts balance each other out to create what is uniquely Taqwacore.

Taqwacore/Eliade and Otto

Otto’s discussion about the rationality of God made me wonder a little about whether he would consider the Taqwacores to be worshipping rationally. They seemed to consider Allah as a complete mystery more than giving Him human characteristics. They certainly, however, regarded him as Holy as defined in this essay. The complete mystery, the “mysterium profundum” seemed to often overwhelm the inhabitants of the house, whether because of the electric call to prayer from the roof, or because of the intensity of the relationship between the characters and their daily routines.

Eliade’s idea of the “hierophany” fits in well with the radically different religion as well; again, Jehangir seems to exemplify this, at least for Yusef. As Yusef describes the house in the first chapter, we get a glance at a hierophany of sorts, as Jehangir holds jumaa on page 19:

“He’d stand there by the hole in our wall with brilliant high stripe of hair down the middle of his head, the sides often dark with stubble and whip up something about the Rasullullah, sallallaho alayhe wa salaam, that would send us charging out the door feeling like we could all be the secret heroes who lurked as fantasies in our chests, the Super Mumins, MegaMujahids and Laser-Eyed Shaheeds.”

The whole culture of the house is based on the idea of hierophanies, and the characters live their lives in a constant state of anticipation, waiting for the next divine moment which would illuminate just a little more of what it means to be Taqwacore. Eliade would also agree that the Taqwacores belief system, their religion, is more than just the sum of its parts. It’s not defined by when they pray, or what they eat, but rather by the meaning it holds for each one of them. It’s a far stronger and more personal religion than researchers like Tylor might portray in a report.

Questionable

Although this isn't a response, I believe we were supposed to post our three questions if we weren't going to be in class on Monday. Mine are:

1. Sunni and Shia Islam are practiced side by side in this book, but aren't they a source of quite a bit of fighting in the Middle East? Are most Muslims not concerned by the distinction, or is this just a characteristic of the Taqwacore culture?

2. There are many mentions of differing interpretations of the Qur'an, and it sounds as though other Islamic works are almost important in determining the "rules" of the religion. Is this correct? Is the Qur'an like the Torah, including discussions alongside the text?}

3. How common is it for a Muslim woman to wear a full burqa out of fear, whether of disgrace or of arousing a man? Or is it often a pride in the privacy of their own bodies?