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

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

Mark Levine, . . Melville House, $13.95 (296pp) ISBN 978-0-307-35339-9

Two books delve into the Middle East's burgeoning youth culture, looking at young people who maintain devotion to Islam and Iron Maiden and grapple creatively with tradition and modernity.

Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam Mark LeVine . Melville House , $13.95 paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-307-35339-9

With a jolting arrangement of images and voices, LeVine powerfully upends received notions about the Middle East by exploring one of the area's least-known subcultures. Interviewing and jamming with musicians from Morocco to Pakistan—including rappers and trip-hop artists as well as metalheads—LeVine (Why They Don't Hate Us ) presents Muslims, Christians and Jews who, in the face of corruption, repression and violence, use their music to speak truth to power and carve out a space for individual expression and a new form of community. The degree of independence the musicians enjoy varies widely—from Israeli band Orphaned Land who are free of restrictions (and widely admired in the Arab metal world) to Egyptian metalheads who fear arrest and possible torture for sporting long hair. Each artist in this book struggles, on some level, for cultural and political reform, and LeVine argues that if these musicians could find a way to cooperate with progressive religious activists and the working class, they could trigger a revolution. This is a tall order, but the author's warm and intelligent examination of a reality few in the West have experienced suggests it may yet be possible. (July 15)