Blue-Eyed Devil: A Road Odyssey Through Islamic America

michael muhammad knight

In his quest for an indigenous "American Islam," Michael Muhammad Knight embarked on a series of interstate odysseys. Traveling 20,000 miles by Greyhound in sixty days, he squatted in run-down mosques, pursued Muslim romance, was detained at the U.S.-Canadian border with a trunkload of Shi'a literature, crashed Islamic Society of North America conventions, stink-palmed Cat Stevens, limped across Chicago to find the grave of Noble Drew Ali, and hunted down the truth of the Nation of Islam mystery-man, W.D. Fard - filling dozens of notebooks along the way. In the course of his adventures Knight sorted out his own relationship to Islam on his journey from punk provocateur to a recognized voice in the community, and watched first-hand the collapse of a liberal Islamic dream, the Progressive Muslim Union. Taking a unique perspective on Islam's intersection with race, gender, andAmericanization, Blue-Eyed Devil offers a brutally honest but ultimately compassionate look at the long, strange history of American Islam.

Genres islamnonfictionreligionmemoirhistorytravelbiography memoirliterature

214 pages, Paperback

First published March 1,2007

This edition

Format: 214 pages, Paperback
Published: March 1, 2007 by Autonomedia
ISBN: 9781570271793
ASIN: 1570271798
Language: English

About the author

michael muhammad knight

Michael Muhammad Knight (born 1977) 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.

He obtained a master's degree from Harvard University in 2011 and is a Ph.D. student in islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.