Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam

Heavy Metal Islam has ratings and 51 reviews. Leila said: According to historian/metalhead Mark Levine, the Muslim world is full of metal bands (and.
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But they never thought that were doing anything strange. It was the natural thing to do for musicians. The equation actually works the other way around as well: Islam is also present in the deepest roots of American rock, from the music of African slaves which eventually produced blues and gospel music. And, since many of the slaves who sang the melodies that evolved into these styles were West African Muslims, their songs and melodies can be linked to the call to prayer and other African Islamic melodies.

Yet at the same time it was very important for me to produce a work that would be taken seriously as scholarship and would contain both information and analysis that was new, innovative and would be of interest to my colleagues, as well as to policy makers. Finally, I wanted to write a book that Muslims around the world, especially in the countries I discuss, would want to read. So my hope was I could help put a more normal face on the musicians and scenes I discussed within their societies, as many of them still feel very ostracized.

This book is supposed to be positive. I could have written it with the goal, if not of pissing off people, at least of provoking a lot of arguments or starting polemics with various writers or authorities. I wanted to write a book that would work like a great song: Others get annoyed at the idea that anything useful can be gained in the middle of a war on terror from looking at something as seemingly trivial as heavy metal or hip-hop. There was never an alternative title.

I love the cover. But the page photo insert in the middle of the book has enough crowd and concert photos to get the idea across. Discovering these books as a teenager totally changed the direction of my life. He was just so brutally honest and piercing and never backed down from taking intellectual risks, regardless of the cost. He wrote the way Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page played guitar—pure honesty, sometimes a bit sloppy or wandering off in a strange direction, but in the end brilliant and well worth the trip.

Of course in the end Nietzsche went insane. One the one hand, I have to get out a compilation album on EMI, Flowers in the Desert , that features many of the artists profiled in the book. This is a very important thing for me because I really want to allow people to hear the music and to help get greater recognition for the bands.

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A documentary is also in the early stages of filming. As for books, my history of the Oslo peace process, titled An Impossible Peace: And in the end, making or reconnecting with friends in distant places is one of the greatest pleasures of being a scholar. He is the author or editor of over half a dozen books, including Heavy Metal Islam: As a musician he has performed and recorded around the world with numerous artists.

Your email address will not be published. Tags heavy metal hip hop iraq islam music palestine punk violence. J Street and the Future of Israel. He emphasizes examples of the Islamic resistance movements toning down their opposition to cultural innovation, esp. But Levine's primary subject is the metalheads themselves, not their would-be allies or oppressors. So he gives himself a pass to not really delve into the politics of the I. And as for his overall take on this cultural "vanguard" the metalheads , it's value is somewhat limited by what he himself to his credit makes abundantly clear: While he's not so critical about what this means, he gives us the facts we can expand from, right up to the crowning moment of his study and - according to him - heavy metal in the Middle East: Still, an okay quick read, fwiw.

Jun 06, Hagar added it Shelves: Nov 13, Kishwar rated it it was ok. I had a hard time making it through this. It helped that Pakistan - the chapter I was most interested in - was at the end: I am not quite sure what the author's point was. Was it just a recounting of the state of heavy metal in muslim countries? Trying to prove that a link exists between politics and heavy metal?

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That Muslim countries are musically some years behind the west and will outgrow the need for heavy metal? Jun 23, Skut L rated it liked it Shelves: Sep 11, Reeter rated it liked it. An interesting, fast read. The only issue I have, is that this book only goes surface level when it comes to heavy metal and punk rock in Muslim countries and communities. However, this book will get your curiosity going, and if you're like me, you might spend a couple hours looking up articles and videos all about Muslim rockers.

In "Heavy Metal Islam", LeVine commited some haram-s against the most important religion in the world: May Lemmy have mercy upon his soul. May 05, Kevin Pace rated it really liked it. It's always great to hear stories of artists that try to create music and free nations. Jan 11, Tom rated it it was amazing. The protests in Egypt earlier this year led to the downfall of the almost 50 year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. Millions of Egyptians, led by youth and students, took to the streets to demand his departure. Among them may very well have been a number of "metaliens" - fans and creators of metal music in Egypt - interviewed by Levine in this engaging survey of youth, subcultures and politics throughout the region.

How does extreme music interact with oppression? In his journey through the Middle E The protests in Egypt earlier this year led to the downfall of the almost 50 year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. In his journey through the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, Levine explores extreme music as a mode of resistance for young people alienated by dictatorship and conservative culture.

Besides expressing an appreciation for rock, metal and hip-hop throughout the region, he also explores the history of the music there and its relationship with political and cultural forces. The result is a cross-section of the edges of societies he's looking at - in Egypt, for example, he interviews metal bands as well as political dissidents such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and puts them in dialogue with each other.

At the end of the day, he claims, they're all fighting for something similar, although they have some miles to go if they are to come together. The political bent of this book - anti-imperialist, pro-freedom of expression - was pretty solid, and Levine goes out of his way to note the roots of the problems young people in these countries face in both the governments and societies of their countries as well as the US role in supporting these governments.

One thing that struck me about the bands interviewed in the book was their generally middle-class nature. As the author notes, in the US and Europe, metal and hip-hop arose out of working-class roots. However, in the countries examined, these metal scenes have tended towards middle- and upper-class artists. Why this is isn't for sure, although the book suggests openness to Western culture as well as access to the means of getting the music may be a large part of it.

Levine points to the openness and against-the-grain personalities of these privileged young people, as well as a number of opposition parties and movements, as an alternative to conservative morality, militancy, and armed struggle, which appear in the book to be more appealing to poor and working-class youth. The class dynamics of these tendencies deserve greater examination. Jan 17, Vince Darcangelo rated it liked it Shelves: A- Book in a nutshell: As a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of California, LeVine has spent a lot of time in the cradle of civilization and has written three scholarly books about his experiences, including 's Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil.


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But LeVine isn't some stuffy old professor. He's also an accomplished rock guitarist who's played with the likes of Mick Jagger, Chuck D and Ozomatli. Just as there's more to LeVine than academics, in his new book he argues that there's more to Muslim culture than what Americans consume on the nightly news. There are thriving heavy metal, hip-hop and punk rock scenes in places like Egypt, Israel and Iran, and their numbers are growing as Middle Eastern youth listen to musicians as much as mullahs.

LeVine interviews members of this Middle Eastern subculture - people who risk legal prosecution for their musical proclivities - and claims that the success of this cultural movement may be a signifier of hope for democracy in the Middle East. Perhaps peace, he posits, can come through power chords. LeVine does a great job of drawing parallels between American metal in the s - when metal artists were accused of practicing Satanism, promoting suicide and were even the subject of a Senate hearing - and Middle Eastern metal's present.

The author organizes the book by country, and after a while it loses steam as the plights of the artists become too similar. This is an excellent and entertaining read for metalheads or anyone interested in a different look at Mideast culture. Feb 03, Sleepless rated it really liked it. I wanted a positive description of the Islam.

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This was definitely that. It was nice that there was a personal touch to the stories.

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He was friends with the people he talked about and it was great to see. At the same time, he tried to keep an academic approach which led to a confusing reading experience.

Is this an academic study or a book about his experiences? I felt the build was great. I loved how he went country by country and went in depth about the history, culture and vibe. As someone who's a bit ignorant when it comes to Middle Eastern history that doesn't affect Israel , I'm happy that he explained a bit. I do wish he'd get a bit more technical about the music itself but I realize that would be a different book altogether.

The music was also great and now my iPod is full of music in Arabic which is kinda cool. As I'm hoping to become fluent in Arabic in the next few years, I look forward to slowly understanding more and more, to return to this book's bibliography and get more recommendations. I suppose it's an attempt at being neutral but it annoyed me. Israel is an independent and flourishing country, regardless of our issues with the border. Palestine isn't a country yet by the definitions of the UN, I look forward to the day they will be.

Palestine isn't a functioning country. Israeli culture and Palestinian culture are so very different. All in all, this is a great introduction to the Islamic nations and their cultural struggle. The author's friendship with the people described makes this book a great read. Aug 03, Michael rated it liked it. Since I am working for a while in Egypt this is somewhat interesting, but it isn't something someone would read for fun.

I was amused to read, "On the way we passed the local Hardee's - which, as in New Jersey when I was growing up - has become the place for Cairo's metal population to meet after dark. More telling to me than the kids in black T-shirts is all the graffiti they have covered this one ugly building across from Hardee's with. Anyway, I read as much of this as I'm going to read and gave it to some here. It's a good book for what it is. Different chapters cover different countries and I got what I was interested in out of the book easily enough.

It would have been nice if there had been more photographs. At the end there are lists of relevant web sites. Apr 28, Heather rated it really liked it Shelves: So, I went ahead and gave this book 4 out of 5 stars, not because it's particulary well-written but because i love how simply it shatters so many misconceptions about Islam and politics in the countries that so frequently make the headlines, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Israel, etc but that so few know anything about.

I'm also a metal fan, so the idea that thousands of fans many of them Muslim at the Desert Rock concert knew every word to every Iron Maiden song they played warms my heart. Don't loo So, I went ahead and gave this book 4 out of 5 stars, not because it's particulary well-written but because i love how simply it shatters so many misconceptions about Islam and politics in the countries that so frequently make the headlines, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Israel, etc but that so few know anything about.

Don't look to this book for insight regarding the sticky questions of politics and history, even though Levine is an historian, and many of the conflicts seem a bit glossed-over, his focus seems to be on music and the power it has to unite people across lines of faith and politics for good and for bad.

If you're not a metal fan, that's okay, you may get a little lost in the name-dropping, but it's still easy to see why it would attract fans in the war-torn and economically depressed cities Levine highlights. And if you are a metal fan it may be easy to argue with some of Levine's criteria for what constitutes "metal" but in the end the point is the music and how it has given those without a voice a chance to be heard. While it's fun, at best it is an introduction to the varied and complicated world of the countries it highlights. Nov 27, Allyson Shaw rated it liked it. Many reviewers have touched on issues I had with this book, but it was a fascinating look at a micro-culture in Middle Eastern Society.

Being on the receiving end of arguments of cultural appropriation, I found it interesting to read about cultural hybridity and the political implications of music as well as essentialist notions of cultural identity in several Middle Eastern societies-- nothing is as simple as the "cultural appropriation" arguments would have us believe, but I digress!

The idea Many reviewers have touched on issues I had with this book, but it was a fascinating look at a micro-culture in Middle Eastern Society. The idea of rap as a highly portable, flexible medium of musical resistance was compelling. The guitar-and-drums based metal is harder to create, to follow, or even play live in the totalitarian regimes where metal remains the fandom of upper class youths. I would have liked to hear more about the women in these scenes-- the are mentioned briefly and superficially but are perhaps the bravest and most compelling aspect of this topic.

I still don't know what it's like to be an Islamic woman metalhead, even after reading this book-- what a let down. Aug 20, Shannon rated it liked it. I don't know much about the rock scene in America, let alone in these countries. But most of us in the west certainly don't imagine Muslims rocking out to metal. The book was fairly interesting, but would have been more interesting if I were a musician or if I liked heavy metal.

In this book, these musicians tend to be breaking away from that mold, going towards a more Western-style music, or creating a fusion - using ouds for example in rock music. The author travels around the countries and seems to have great connections everywhere. As a man, he also has more freedom than I would have.

Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam

So, for both reasons, he goes places that I could never go. And that's interesting to read about. The book offers a lot of hope for connections between east and west. They aren't all extremists and neither are we. Jul 28, Steve Cran rated it it was amazing. In the Middle East place of despotic and corrupt governments and regimes that limit personal freedoms there is a force calling for change. That force is called music. At the for front there is heavy metal and rapp. Music is away of breaking down the barriers in ethnic conflicts as well as dissemination of ideas across the Middle East. Almost everywhere they are present the metal heads or hounded and scorned both by religious intolerance and paranoid governments.

Mark Levine a musician and PHD in In the Middle East place of despotic and corrupt governments and regimes that limit personal freedoms there is a force calling for change. In some countries lie Egypt they are accused of Devil Worship and mus bee careful where they hold their concert. In Israel it is Orphaned Land singing against war and an unpopular occupation. In Morocco the government has been more lenient but Coca Cola is taking over and making things commercial and in Lebanon Rotana is monopoly On the music s Oct 07, Steven rated it it was amazing.

Levine is incredibly knowledgeable about history, language, music, religion and sociology and he uses it all to create an exciting, deep, and readable overview of the current politics of the Middle East and North Africa. He juxtaposes music not just metal but rap and traditional music against religion, and draws parallels between the current MENA political movements and the revolutions of the Eastern bloc.

Explicitly I suspect left unsaid are the parallels between the current Incredible book!

Explicitly I suspect left unsaid are the parallels between the current MENA and the US, where, in both places, increasing government-sanctioned centralization of wealth has created social and political schisms. Ultimately, I'm not sure if I agree with Levine's theory that musicians both secular and religious and open-minded religious leaders working together can bring about democracy, but it's a fascinating theory to explore. Apr 11, Craig Williams rated it it was ok. I picked up this book on impulse because it seemed like an interesting read. However, my interest began to fade quickly, the book began to bore me.

The writer spends much of his time name dropping bands, and little time really connecting the reader to the bands he talks about. I found it difficult to invest emotion to the plight of the Middle East, or the bands who bravely perform in the face of repressive, theocratic governments. It was neat to look up some of the bands mentioned in the book, a I picked up this book on impulse because it seemed like an interesting read.