Writer Tanzila Ahmed is at Sundance, America’s premiere festival of indie flicks, held yearly on the snowbound streets of Park City, Utah. From her home base at the Taqwacore house (peopled with those who produced the film of the novel being shown there and the bands that soundtrack it), Ahmed will bring us a daily dose of indie celeb news. Learn more about her and her work here. And read her past blogs here.

Volkan Eryaman

“You played Amazing Ayyub exactly how I pictured it in my head,” I said to Volkan Eryaman.  His character is the wild, tweaking, half naked misfit with a tattoo of “Karbala” around his neck. In the movie he looks like he is constantly on something, and ready to run at a moment’s notice.

“Yeah?” he said smiling back. In real life, he’s a tall sweet guy. He had all the amazing characteristics of Amazing Ayyub, but in a sober, down-to-earth real kind of way. “I kind of approached this role as if it was my last chance at being really punk. You know, because I’m getting older and whatever. So I gave it all the punk attitude that I had.”

“What are you talking about?” I replied with a laugh. “You know once you go punk, there’s really no going back.”

Rasika Mathur

“How did it feel seeing yourself up on the big screen?” Rasika asked me. Rasika Mathur played the role of Fatima in The Taqwacores. She had hung out with me before she went on set so she’d know what it was like to be a Muslim punk girl.

“What?” I responded surprised. “That wasn’t me. That was all you, girl. And you were fantastic.”

“Yeah, it was me,” she replied. “But I got my inspiration for my character from you. That was totally you!”

I smiled and gave her a big hug. She had even worn the button that I had given to her before she went on set. I saw it in the party scene. It said — I’m Muslim and I Vote.

But there were some critics…

“A covered girl like Rabeya would not have done what she had done in the movie. It is wrong.” It was the man that had spoken up during the Q&A portion of the premiere of The Taqwacores. He had said that a woman in niqab would not have acted as Rabeya had at the end of the movie. He was now arguing with Rasika Mathur outside of the theatre. I rolled my eyes as Rasika grabbed my arm and pulled me into the conversation.  “How do you know this?” I asked.

“I am a Muslim and I know that a woman wearing niqab would not have done that.”

“Well, I am a Muslim woman. And I’m saying that you don’t ever really know. You can’t judge.”

“I know that a covered woman would never behave that way.”

“So you are telling me that you, as a Muslim man, are telling me, a Muslim woman, that you know better than I do on how Muslim women behave?” He smiled, patronizingly.

F*ck that bullsh*t. I walked away. I’ll be damned if at The Taqwacores premiere a Muslim man tells me how Muslim women should or should not behave. That was the whole point of why Rabeya did what she did, isn’t it?

What Michael Muhammad Knight thought…

“So, you wrote The Taqwacores so long ago, and in the making of the movie, it was kind of a re-writing process, right? So if you could do it all over again, re-write The Taqwacores, would you change anything?” I was sitting with the Taqwacore posse once again at the pizza place on Main St. talking to Mike Knight. My mind was still reeling from just watching The Taqwacores movie earlier that evening.

He responded saying that when he wrote the book in 2002, he was in his mid-twenties. When he had converted to Islam at the age of 17, he was scared of women. The orthodox Islam he was indoctrinated made him unable to understand girls and women. His response reminded me of his memoir Impossible Man which tracks his youth and conversion into Islam, by far one of my favorite Knight books. His response to my question implied that if he were to re-write The Taqwacores now, that he is in a far more positive space with regards to women. I wondered to myself what that may look like, how women would enter The Taqwacores if he were to rewrite it today.