Available From UC Press

Heavy Metal Islam

Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam

Mark LeVine

This updated reissue of Mark LeVine’s acclaimed, revolutionary book on sub- and countercultural music in the Middle East brings this groundbreaking portrait of the region’s youth cultures to a new generation. Featuring a new preface by the author in conversation with the band The Kominas about the problematic connections between extreme music and Islam.

An eighteen-year-old Moroccan who loves Black Sabbath. A twenty-two-year-old rapper from the Gaza Strip. A young Lebanese singer who quotes Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” Heavy metal, punk, hip-hop, and reggae are each the music of protest, and are considered immoral by many in the Muslim world. As the young people and subcultures featured in Mark LeVine’s Heavy Metal Islam so presciently predicted, this music turned out to be the soundtrack of countercultures, uprisings, and even revolutions from Morocco to Pakistan.

In Heavy Metal Islam, originally published in 2008, Mark LeVine explores the influence of Western music on the Middle East and North Africa through interviews with musicians and fans, introducing us to young people struggling to reconcile their religion with a passion for music and a thirst for change. The result is a revealing tour de force of contemporary cultures across the Muslim majority world through the region’s evolving music scenes that only a musician, scholar, and activist with LeVine’s unique breadth of experience could narrate. A New York Times Editor’s Pick when it was first published, Heavy Metal Islam is a surprising, wildly entertaining foray into a historically authoritarian region where music reveals itself to be a true democratizing force—and a groundbreaking work of scholarship that pioneered new forms of research in the region.

Mark LeVine is a Guggenheim-winning musician who has recorded and toured with acclaimed performers, including Mick Jagger, Chuck D, Dr. John, Ozomatli, Hassan Hakmoun, Seun and Femi Kuti, and other leading Middle Eastern and African artists. His recording on Ozomatli’s album Street Signs won a Grammy in 2005. He is also Professor of Middle Eastern and African Histories at the University of California, Irvine. His many books include Twilight of Empire, coedited with Viggo Mortensen. He is also author of Overthrowing Geography and coeditor of One Land, Two States. His newest book, We’ll Play till We Die, is an expansive sequel to Heavy Metal Islam, covering the revolutionary era that began soon after this book was first published.

"Quicker than you can whistle 'Rock the Casbah,' [Mark LeVine is] on the trail of Western-influenced underground music movements that have blossomed under authoritarian regimes across the Middle East and North Africa. Heavy Metal Islam offers the hit-and-run pleasures of a lively road trip. Practicing a first-person brand of shuttle diplomacy as he moves between countries and cultures, musicians and Islamic activists, LeVine manages to unpack enough cross-cultural incongruities to mount his own mosh pit follow-up to 'You Don't Mess with the Zohan.'"—New York Times Book Review

"A fascinating social phenomenon. . . . [LeVine's] material is rich, as he mingles scenes of conflict with surprising moments of understanding."—Los Angeles Times

"There's something irresistible about the idea that LeVine . . . not only interviewed rock and rap artists from all over the Middle East and North Africa, but also put down the notepad and got up on stage to jam with them."—Slate.com

"A deeply felt, informed volume that's both hopeful and emotionally honest. . . . LeVine does a remarkable job, sketching not only the surprising realities of the musicians, but also providing excellent historical background and terrific detail. . . . Anyone—regardless of musical preference—who wants an eye-level glimpse into the Middle East should pick up Heavy Metal Islam."—Paste magazine

"Using music as a prism to observe social relations, [LeVine] expertly describes the political upheaval and social confusion in the Middle East that Westerners ignore or seldom understand. This examination of the changing and evolving cultures in a key global region is highly recommended."—Library Journal

"Alternatively inspiring and disheartening—a solid work of cross-cultural analysis."—Kirkus Reviews

"Heavy Metal Islam is a powerful account of Muslim youth culture in the twenty-first century, tracing how young Muslims from Morocco to Pakistan forge music in the fires of empire and dictatorship. Mark LeVine is a witty, pissed-off audiohead who crisscrosses the Muslim-majority world, leaving no musical stone unturned."—Hisham Aidi, author of Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture, winner of the 2015 American Book Award

"When LeVine wrote Heavy Metal Islam, he imagined a day when the youth of the Middle East would rise up with one voice—channeling the ethos of rock and roll and hip hop music that gives pulse to the region—and transform their world for better or worse. Now that we have seen that day come and go, LeVine's deeply personal examination of how music has given voice to both the despair and the hope of this youth generation is even more relevant than it was a decade ago."—Reza Aslan, author of God: A Human History

"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."—Publishers Weekly

"Heavy Metal Islam is a fun read, and an important one. As an American, Islam has been portrayed as the boogie man. I don't know much about the culture or musical influences. As a musician I can relate to the struggles [of] trying to write and record songs and the difficulty of finding hard rock records where they don't exist. So this was a pleasant surprise that these young artists and fans from such a different culture can enjoy the same soundtrack of my youth. I guess Lemmy is God in all languages." —Gilby Clarke, former guitarist for Guns N' Roses

228 pp.6 x 9Illus: 17 b/w photos

9780520389397$95.00|£80.00Hardcover

Sep 2022