Blue-Eyed Devil: A Road Odyssey through Islamic America
Michael Muhammad Knight
Michael Muhammad Knight will be in NYC to read from Blue-Eyed Devil on Saturday, March 24 at Bluestockings Bookstore at 7 pm. Please come meet Mike and check out the book.
Blue-Eyed Devil traces a century of American Islam, as well as a 20,000-mile spiritual journey across the U.S., through the perspective of a white convert. Keeping in mind the five permitted purposes of spiritual travel — seeing a holy site, deriving instruction, seeking knowledge, visiting a venerable person, and visiting the tomb of a saint — Michael Muhammad Knight criss-crossed the country in search of a parallel Islamic history, and struggled to understand his own place in that history.
From the remnants of Quranic oral traditions in the Georgia Sea Islands to the coded language of the Five Percenters, from the shrouded origins of the Nation of Islam to the Egypto-Futurist mythology of Malachi York, and from woman-led prayers in West Virginia to Muslim prison populations in northern New York, Blue-Eyed Devil takes a unique perspective on Islam’s intersection with race, gender, and Americanization.
What they're saying about Blue-Eyed Devil
"Michael Muhammad Knight has written today’s On the Road, a powerful picaresque tale about the sorrows of being a seeker in the days of endless simulation. I am certain that in addition to some of the most musically-pleasing prose of recent years, Knight has identified the work of his generation, which is Spirit. His wrestling with Islam is pertinent and suspenseful, a mystery rendered in brilliant detail and gorgeous depth. This book should contribute immensely to retiring the public’s knee-jerk reaction to Islam. Blue-Eyed Devil is a masterpiece." — Andrei Codrescu, author of New Orleans, Mon Amour
"Mike Knight's work is some of the most exciting writing happening in the Muslim literary landscape. He is important not just in the 'small pond' of Muslim American literature (where he is very important), but ought to be valued in the larger scene of American writing." — Mohja Kahf, author of The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf
"When the American Muslim community is finding an identity amid diverse roots in indigenous and immigrant Islam, Michael Muhammad Knight gives us a funny, searing account of his own journey to a place in what we might call the 'mestizo' American terrain. Like Sherman Alexie, Knight writes about his own cultural identity with raw honesty, heartbreaking tenderness, and piercing humor." — Laury Silvers, Professor of Religion, Skidmore College
"A cultural mutant on a Greyhound pilgrimage to find the science that spawned him, Mike Knight's Blue-Eyed Devil helps nudge us all towards our siratul musta-fucking-qeem. Up the taqx!" — Basim Usmani, singer, The Kominas
