Literature: "Progressive Islam vs. the Double-Dong Brothers"

by Michael Muhammad Knight

Introduction:

This story will most likely be my contribution to Mohja Kahf’s forthcoming anthology of American Muslim literature. The first draft was finished in late 2004, around the time that I sat in on a dinner meeting between Ahmed Nassef and Irshad Manji regarding her possible involvement in PMU. Of course, PMU now exists only as a Yahoo discussion group, Asra Nomani has made a joke of herself and the marvellous hype of a New Islam is gone. That whole scene is dead, but it’s alright; the decomposed remnants of PMU’s corpse could serve as compost for another try. Though I’d never use the label for myself, I still see Progressive Muslims as the good guys; if you’re against gender equity in a mosque, what are you for?

“Progressive Islam vs. the Double-Dong Brothers” grew into an unpublished 50,000-word novel in which taqwacore goes pop-punk and Rabeya, my burqa-wearing riot grrl that inspired Asra to consider woman-led prayer, calls me a “phallocentric Orientalist” and then provides a loving critique by chopping off my head in a parking lot. Last month, during my wrestling match with Ibrahim Hooper in Lexington, a burqa-wearing riot grrl whipped me with a giant dildo wrapped in barbed wire. Sometimes our own creations rise up to punish us for our ugly parts.

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