CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of the Study
The term literature has been widely known by many people in the world. The term literature is derived from Latin ‘littera’ which means letter. It refers to the written or printed
words, but literary also can be oral. According to Rhicard Taylor 1981:1, literature like the other arts, is essentially an imaginative act, that is an act of writer’s imagination in selecting,
ordering and interpreting life experience. Literature can be treated as a document in the history of ideas and philosophy, for literary history parallels and reflect intelectual history.
Novel is a part of fiction, which appeared in the 18th century as the further development of Medieval romances. It is kind of prose writing which is very popular in the society. Its
complicated intrique but easy to be read is the main point for its readers to choose a reading in their leisure time. According to Richard Taylor 1981:46, a novel is normally a prose work of
quite some length and complecity which attempts to reflect and express something of the equality value of human experience or conduct. A novel is considered as literary work. In
Dictionary of Etimology, the Origins of American English Words by Robert K. Barnhart 1995, the word ‘novel’ itself comes from Latin ‘novella’ which means something new. Ian Watt in his
book The Rise of the Novel 1995 describes the background of the rise of the novel. In the 18th century some English writers tried to create literary works that did not follow the traditional
ways of writing prose.
The Taqwacores is a novel written by Michael Muhammad Knight in 2003. In this thesis, the writer is going to analyze this novel, which presents story of a Muslim punk house in
Buffalo, New York, inhabited by burqa-wearing riot girls, mohawked Sufis, straightedge Sunnis, Shi’a skinheads, Indonesian skaters, Sudanese rude boys, gay Muslims, drunk Muslims, and
feminists. Their living room is often used to hold parties and prays, with a hole smashed in the wall to indicate the direction of Mecca kiblah. Their life together mixes sex, dope, and religion
in roughly equal amounts, expressed in devotion to an Islamic-punk subculture, ‘taqwacore,’ named for taqwa, an Arabic term for consciousness of the divine.
The taqwacores is story about Yusef, a first-generation Pakistani engineering student who moves to campus with a group of Muslim punks in Buffalo, New York. His new un-orthodox
house mates introduce him to Taqwacore. As the seasons change, Taqwacore influences the house more and more. The living room used as a place to pray during the day, and a place to hold
a party at night. Ultimately, Yusef is influenced by Taqwacore too, as he begins to challenge his own faith and ideologies. The Taqwacores deals with the complexities of being young and
Muslim in modern-day America. The central conflict of the novel is the clash between these differences take on Islam. One
side of this is represented by Jehangir, Rabeya, Fasiq, Muzammil, their friends, and later the taqwacore bands, who know that in many different ways they are outsiders to Islam, but have
developed their own philosophies on the subject. The contrasting perspective is provided by Umar, Yusef’s own doubts about his religion, the occasional appearance or mention of parents
and traditional imams leaders of the prayer; possibly the closest Islam has to religious leaders, and the ultra-fundamentalist band Bilals Boulder
The conflict and philosophies of the novel are more simply defined as inclusiveness versus exclusiveness. Umar, Bilal’s Boulder, and the more traditional values they espouse, reject
what they see as characteristic of kufr an unbeliever or atheist, homosexuality, drink, drugs, sex, failure to observe certain traditions, and so on. They demand a specific adherence to Islamic
teachings. Michael Muhammad Knight born in 1977 is an American novelist, essayist, and
journalist. His writings mostly talk about elements of islamic liberalism. Islamic liberalism is reflected in the characters of his last novel The Taqwacores. Specialist in Islamic studies at
University of North Carolina, called The Taqwacores as Catcher in the Rye for young Muslims”. The novel has been taught in courses at Kenyon College, Vassar College, University
of Arkansas-Fayetteville, Trinity College, Sarah Lawrence College, Canisius College, Indiana University, and the Ohio State University.
In Charles Kurzman’s book Liberal Islam 1998:1, Liberal Islam may sound like a contradiction in terms. For centuries, the west has identified islam with its most exotic elements.
But, Kurzman also does not explain in detail what is meant by a liberal Islam. Adian Husaini and Nuim Hidayat in their book, Islam Liberal : Sejarah, Konsepsi, Penyimpangan, dan Jawabannya
2002:3 state : “....islam liberal sebenarnya tidak beda dengan gagasan islam yang
dikembangkan Nurcholish Madjid dan kelompoknya. Yaitu, kelompok islam yang tidak setuju dengan pemberlakuan syariat islam secara formal
oleh negara, kelompok getol yang memperjuangkan sekularisasi, emansipasi wanita, menyamakan agama islam dengan agama lain
pluralisme teologis, dan memperjuangkan demokrasi Barat”
“....actually liberal Islam is not different with the idea of Islam that developed by Nurcholish Madjid and his group. That is, the Islamic group
that does not agree with the enforcement of Shariah law formally by the
state, the industrious group who fight for secularization, emancipation of women, theological pluralism, and fighting for the Western democracies.”
In this research, some terminologies which are related to the title, are explained by giving precise definition and interpretation. It helps to avoid misunderstandings and ambiguities. It is
also expected to assist the writer in analyzing of the problems that have been determined in this thesis. This analysis is related to the current times, especially in the fields of philosophy, science,
art and culture. Humans are not satisfied with the progress of science and the way of modern thinking. Modernism is considered obsolete and should be replaced with a new paradigm called
postmodernism. Postmodernism allows humans to live more freely. Postmodernism is closely related to the sociology of literature, sociological approach greatly considered in the era of
postmodernism. Basic of philosophical sociological approach is the intrinsic relationship between literature and society.
In the final decades of the twentieth century and even into the new millennium, the term postmodern has appeared to be more casually bandied about than carefully defined. For some it
is a mere moment, while for others it is a more general condition. Some denigrates it to just a style; still others elevates it to a historical period. Literature, the visual arts especially
photography, dance, film, theatre and music classical and popular all define their own postmodernism, as do philosophy, sociology, historiography, psycoanalysis and theology. This
moves from the realm of the arts into what the French call the human sciences is inevitable, given the very close connections between theory and practice in the postmodern. As we shall see,
the impulse of postmodern art both to exploit and then to undermine the conventions upon which it is depended from formalism or a concern for artistic form to mimesis with a focus on the
imitation of nature or life is matched by the urge of poststructuralist theory to call attention to and then deconstruct our unexamined assumptions about basic things like meaning in language
or even human identity. Art and theory clearly have overlapping concerns an at least one common method of operation: that is, looking for and then exposing contradictions in what
appeared at first to be totally unproblematic, coherent and unified whole. In a sense, the conflation of theory and practice came about because of shared responses to common
provocations. The way of Michael Muhammad Knight applies the islamic liberalism in this novel
through the characters fascinated the writer to do a research. In this thesis, the writer wants to conduct an analysis of how the islamic liberalism is reflected in the characters of the novel The
Taqwacores. This topic is important to be discussed, because it is a new issue in literary work that contained religious teaching, especially about islamic liberalism. The community in this
novel, practise islamic teaching but not the real ones. The deviation of religious teachings contained in this novel interests the writer want to analyze the characteristics of islamic
liberalism. The writer uses the Hermeneutical Interpretation theory in doing the analysis. One of the most popular proposers of this theory is Gadamer. Reveal, explain, and translate is the system
of analysis in hermeneutics. Therefore literary criticism also applies this theory as a guide to analyze literary works.
1.2. Problem of the Study