Quotes by Michael Muhammad Knight

About Michael Muhammad Knight:

Michael Muhammad Knight is an American novelist, essayist, and journalist. His writings are popular among American Muslim youth. The San Francisco Chronicle described him as "one of the most necessary and, paradoxically enough, hopeful writers of Barack Obama's America," while The Guardian has described him as "the Hunter S. Thompson of Islamic literature," and his non-fiction work exemplifies the principles of gonzo journalism. Publishers Weekly describes him as "Islam's gonzo experimentalist." Within the American Muslim community, he has earned a reputation as an ostentatious cultural provocateur.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

People say that America has no religion, but it's the opposite: America has every religion, all the old ones, and produces more new ones than anywhere else on earth. America;'s religious life is like the photo mosaic in which a thousand little images...

Michael Muhammad Knight

I remembered the malangs of Shah Jamal, the dirty, shirtless renouncers with ratty beards and dreads and bare chests covered in necklaces of prayer beads, throwing around their arms in Charlie Manson dances and whipping out their old ID cards to say ...

Michael Muhammad Knight

Religion is like an art gallery. One painting will speak to you more than another, and there's no need to explain or defend your taste.

Michael Muhammad Knight

During his hajj, Malcolm [Malcolm X] fell into a new Islam with the same blind faith that he had given to Elijah. Since he lived just a year after his hajj, Mecca became the neatly presented and cinema-friendly conclusion to his lifelong thread of tr...

Michael Muhammad Knight

Radicals have value, at least; they can move the center. On a scale of 1 to 5, 3 is moderate, 1 and 5 the hardliners. But if a good radical takes it up to 9, then 5 becomes the new center. I already saw it working in the American Muslim community. Fo...

Michael Muhammad Knight

I passed by General Zia's tomb and knew that I never would have become Muslim if I was raised in this country [Pakistan]. As a rebellious American adolescent, I had chosen Islam because it was the religion of Malcolm X, a language of resistance again...

Michael Muhammad Knight

If a woman enjoyed sex, or expressed her sexuality outwardly she was automatically a slut with no respect for herself. Sex was a favor you allowed your husband so angels wouldn't curse you until morning.

Michael Muhammad Knight

If you ask Muslim women why they cover up, ninety-nine percent of them will say it's to avoid arousing men. Fuck that, where's your self-accountability?

Michael Muhammad Knight

If Allah wants to send me a message, he'll do so on the faces of my brothers and sisters.

Michael Muhammad Knight

Islam’s all about knowledge, right? Muslims know everything. We seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave. We seek knowledge even if it be in China, Yusef, EVEN IN CHINA! And we’ve reduced our religion to fuckin’ academics. The guy who knows ...

Michael Muhammad Knight

A Muslim just follows Allah. Sunni-Shiah? That's farga, the groups—Allah discourages this in the Quran, you know, never ever form the groups.

Michael Muhammad Knight

If Islam was to be saved, it would be saved by the crazy ones.

Michael Muhammad Knight

They need a deen that's not your uncle's deen.

Michael Muhammad Knight

The jamaat was an almost silly mish-mash of people: Rude Dawud’s pork-pie hat poking up here, a jalab-and-turban there, Jehangir’s big Mohawk rising from a sea of kufis, Amazing Ayyub still with no shirt, girls scattered throughout – some in he...

Michael Muhammad Knight

You know,” said Jehangir, breaking the silence, “it's only Muslims who use the term 'innovation' to mean something bad.

Michael Muhammad Knight

I'm a spiritual person, she said. "I believe in Allah, you know, though I don't always call It 'Allah' and I pray the way I want to pray. Sometimes I just look out at the stars and this love-fear thing comes over me, you know? And sometimes I might s...

Michael Muhammad Knight

The earth isn’t spinning because you told it to do so. Your intestines aren’t digesting by your command. You’re made up of a trillion cells who don’t ask your permission before offering their rakats. And we think submission is applying strict...

Michael Muhammad Knight

Author Bio

  • NameMichael Muhammad Knight
  • DescriptionAmerican novelist, essayist, and journalist
  • Born1977
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJournalist; Novelist; Writer