POPPING THE MARKS
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Michael Muhammad Knight vs. Hamza Yusuf
Over the past few weeks, I’ve had to spend a lot of time thinking about Hamza Yusuf. In a recent academic article, Mahdi Tourage places Hamza Yusuf and myself at opposite ends on the spectrum of white male converts: Yusuf represented the shining white superstar of American Islam, and I was the undesirable asshole. Full story
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The Problem with White Converts
You’d think that two white guys embracing Buddhism and Islam in the age of colonialism could have become champions of antiracism. But no. They treated their new religions like other white men treat entire nations: they marched in and claimed to own it. Full story
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I Tripped with Allah and Wrote a Book About It
Ayahuasca drinkers report experiencing the divine in female form. They choose to interpret this in different ways, depending on their backgrounds. As a Muslim, I decided that I would drink with the intention of having a visionary encounter with Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Muh… Full story
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Remembering Master Fard Muhammad
February 26 is Saviors’ Day, the birthday of the founder of the Nation of Islam. Master Fard Muhammad will probably never get his due for his contribution, but the biggest challenge to fully appreciating him may be that he so effectively escaped history. Full story
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Kanye West in a Kilt Has Lord Jamar So Hard Right Now
If heterosexuality is natural, as Lord Jamar seems to suggests, and Jamar is himself resolutely heterosexual, then seeing Kanye West in a kilt shouldn’t make him want to give blow jobs. Or does it? Full story
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Lifetime’s Assassination of Malcolm X
In the Lifetime Original Movie 'Betty & Coretta,' they present cardboard versions of what I like to call "Early Malcolm" and "Real Malcolm." But Early Malcolm and Real Malcolm are not real. They are both fabrications that serve to oversimplify a complex human being. Full story
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Islamophobes, Go to Sleep
When I agreed to write a column for VICE, I was granted this space, and I am responsible for what happens in this space. Today, I’m going to use this space to rub your racist and bigoted shit in your own faces. Full story
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What I Learned from the Five Percenters
The first lesson I learned from the Five Percent was simple: Fuck white people. I'm not talking about "white" as a biological category. I’m using the term more in the sense of what it means to have privilege in an unjust society. Full story
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How Not to Sound Like an Asshole When Talking About Islam
When non-Muslims operate on the assumption that Islam exists as one singular, absolute, and coherent entity that is understood and experienced by each of the world’s billion-plus Muslims in more or less the same way, they look like total douchebags. Full story
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Being the Muslim at a Christmas Party
As a Muslim from a Christian family, Christmas has historically been complicated for me. Converting to Islam as a teenager, part of what I wanted from my religion was a new identity; the differences between Christians and Muslims held more value for me than the similarities, so I… Full story
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Paris Hilton in Mecca
Paris Hilton’s new store in Mecca is not “poisoning the holy city.” Mecca has been overrunning with assholes long before Islam. If you’re trying to find peace and avoid shitty people, don’t go there for hajj, just go on vacation or smoke blunt. Full story
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Obama = Yazid
I have voted twice for a man who launches drone strikes on innocent civillians and defines what is happening in Gaza right now as "self-defense." As it stands, I have voted for Yazid. Full story
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Queering the Qur’an
Al-Kisa’i al-Kufi is the man who gave us one of the seven canonical readings of the Qur’an in Sunni Islam. He devoted his life to knowing and teaching the Qur’an. Along the way, he apparently fucked dudes. The lips that he used to recite divine scripture touched men. Full story
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Blood and Islam: Between Eid and Ashura
Many people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, would say that spilling blood is disgusting and pain has no place in spirituality. But between these two holy days, Eid al-Adha and Ashura, we remind ourselves of the violence of our own lives—a violence that continues to feed us—and ou… Full story
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The Theological Consequences of Seeing Hulk Hogan’s Penis
Being surprised that Hulk Hogan has a sex tape is kind of like being surprised that there’s a Burger King in Mecca. The “sacred/profane” binary often turns out to be artificial, but sometimes we need to imagine that the binary exists. The time will come when I’ll watch Hogan body… Full story
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Who Will End the Undertaker's Streak at Wrestlemania?
Yes, the Undertaker’s 20-match undefeated streak at WrestleMania, which began back in 1991, needs to be broken. It’s wrestling’s cycle of life. The stars of each new generation must feed on the bones of the generation before them. Full story
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Brother Ali and the Secret Islamic History of Hip-Hop
Meeting Brother Ali after his tour’s stop in Chapel Hill, I didn’t ask him for his “How did you come to Islam?” story, and he didn’t ask for mine, but our shared matrix of references and anecdotes told me that we might have walked similar paths. Full story
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That Muslim Punk Thing, Ten Years Later
Imagine the nastiest, most rebellious things that anyone could say or do with Islam, the kinds of things that supposedly start riots; the fictional Muslim punks of my first book did of them all. It was a sincere and loving blasphemy, I thought. But today, it seems immature. Full story
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The Innocence of White People
As an artist, I support everyone’s right to make shitty, cheap-looking art, and I do not believe that bloodshed is ever an acceptable way of responding to art. But in the big picture, this isn’t really about violent religion vs. nonviolent art; it’s violence vs. violence. Full story
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Confession of a Muslim Psychedelic Tea Drinker
The place of drugs in Islam is much more complicated than most people recognize. Because the Qur’an only speaks specifically of wine, Muslims have had to figure out Islamic positions on other substances, like weed or psychoactive tea made from an Amazonian vine. Full story
Deportee Purgatory
Welcome to Tijuana’s El Bordo
'Leviathan,' I Love You
James Franco at the Movies
Juggalos Are OK, Cupid
Don’t Be a Tumblr Asshole
Get Rich or High Trying
The Coming Age of Corporate Cannabis
Triple Hate - Part 1
The KKK vs. the Crips vs. Memphis City Council
Rave and Hardcore YouTube Comments
They Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity