Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Frankly I am baffled by the reviewers who described this book as dry, academic, and/or boring. To them I say, You haven't read much academic writing lately. Readers would be hard-pressed to find publications of any university press which match this title for sheer readability. LeVine does not inject much social theory into this book, nor does he write for a primarily academic audience.

To be sure, "HEAVY METAL ISLAM" is an imperfect text with its share of errors. (My personal favorite: the author thinks the French word for dockworkers--"dockers"--is actually a reference to the preppie American clothing line of the same name, and thus misinterprets a Moroccan poster to signify common cause between rockers and preppies. D'oh!) But assuming you have at least a high school education and care about topics beyond whether Cliff Burton or Jason Newstead was the best Metallica bassist, you may find that this book provides engaging food for thought despite such passing mistakes.

If there's a major flaw to "HEAVY METAL ISLAM," it has to do with its title and framing which are just a tad misleading. LeVine's analysis in fact extends to various Middle Eastern musicians (rappers, hip-hop artists, rockers and others) who have little or no connection to heavy metal. But I suspect the author made metal the book's titular focus for two reasons: one, he's clearly an aficionado of the genre, and two, he wanted to amp up the paradoxical, unexpected nature of his subject matter for potential readers ("Metalheads in the Middle East? Who knew?"). I used the same gimmick in titling this review.

And LeVine is fully aware that the cultural scene he documents in this book remains marginal, both in its popular appeal and its political significance. Yet his exploration of that scene enables him to get to the heart of several contemporary Middle Eastern societies, to experience the stifling frustration felt by young Arabs (and Persians, and Pakistanis) growing up under corrupt, authoritarian regimes, and to consider the means at their disposal for expressing and venting that frustration. Will metal music (or hip-hop, or rap, or what have you) change the world? Doubtful, but it can certainly change the way you think about the modern Middle East and its relationship to the West once you've read "HEAVY METAL ISLAM."

While the concept of the book, namely the rarely discussed role of musical counterculture in the middle East, certainly has potential, its execution is a disaster. Mark LeVine's writing has all of the excitement of an academic dissertation, with none of the depth or research behind it. He clearly knows little or nothing about heavy metal, and also clearly did little or no immersion into the music to learn about it. (The editor also did no fact checking--can't "high brow" books about a "low brow" topic at least have someone acquainted with the topic read it at some point prior to publication?)

Just about every mention about the actual music or bands involved is riddled with errors that a simple Google search would have corrected. Just a few: mentioning a Rage Against the Machine song as being called "F*** you, I won't do what you tell me", describing a poster of the "band" "Cowboys From Hell," and worst of all, discussing Iron Maiden's famous mascot, "Freddy". Come on, people--that is just sloppy!

Despite all of that, the biggest problem remains that LeVine is such an undistinguished writer that "Heavy Metal Islam" is a stultifyingly boring read. I couldn't help but imagine what the book would have been like by a compelling author (such as David Hadju, whose recent "Ten Cent Plague" makes the world of 1950's anti-comic book hysteria pop with life) who could have drawn out the passion and frustration in these people's stories. While it suffers from some of the same repetition as this book, the documentary "Heavy Metal in Baghdad" is a much more evocative depiction of the role of heavy metal in the lives of a group of young Iraqis struggling to fulfill their musical ambitions, while trying simply to survive.

I purchased this book with the expressed intention and aspiration of learning about the Metal culture in the Muslim world. This book accomplished this task marvelously.

The reason I could not allow myself to give this book any more than three stars is chapter five. This chapter is filled with glaring inaccuracies and is tainted by such a strong political bias that it reflects quite poorly on the author and his work.

Chapter five deals with "Israel/Palestine." Indeed, this is a contentious issue in which it is difficult not to have personal feelings. But as a purported professor of Middle East history, the author should have taken care to be accurate and not to pick sides.

The author continuously endorses the Palestinian version of history while dismissing the Israeli version of history as merely "Zionist narrative."

He is critical of Israeli rapper Kobi Shimoni to a fault. He accuses Shimoni of providing "a renewed and largely uncritical nationalist narrative" to Israeli youth. He then asserts that this narrative justifies "routine humiliation and violence that Palestinians suffer at the hands of the IDF."

The author conveniently ignores the fact that this "routine" humiliation Palestinians endure stemmed from daily terrorists attacks that Israelis put up with from Palestinian terrorists after Arafat walked away from the promise of a Palestinian state in 2000.

He also ignores the fact that Kobi Shimoni's music is not only pro-Israel, but pro peace with the Palestinians as well. He decides what music is "good" based on whether the band or artist playing it just so happens to agree with his politics.

He accuses this "narrative" of having no basis in reality while failing to provide adequate historical context for his readers. When he does discuss history, it becomes apparent that he has no qualms about embracing Palestinian narrative.

Below are some selected quotations from page 113 of this book that demonstrate the author's bias.

-"Zionist colonization" What colonialism does he see in the Zionist movement? Jews escaping persecution in Europe and returning to their ancestral homeland does not amount to "colonialism" by the definition of the word.

-"Establishment of a Jewish state on 78% of Palestine..." Palestine was partitioned by the British in 1921 to create the Kingdom of Jordan which formed 78% of Palestine at that time. If a Palestinian state is created in the future, a Jewish state (Israel) will exist in only 18% of Palestine and ¾ of Palestinians worldwide live in Historic Palestine (Israel, Jordan, West Bank and Gaza).

-"Palestinians forced into exile..." Not a single Palestinian would have become a refugee had the Palestinian leadership accepted the 1937, 1938 or 1947 partition plans instead of launching riots and wars aimed at getting rid of the Jewish community in Palestine and later Israel. This is not mentioned in the book.

This author writes quite well about Islam and Metal. I can hardly imagine, however, how he became a professor of Middle East history.

This is a good book. It would have been better had chapter five not been so political and one-sided.

This fine book begins with an introductory chapter on the relationships between rock and resistance in Muslim youth subcultures. Following this introduction are six country-specific chapters which each provide an overview of politics and resistance music, including: Morocco, Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and Pakistan. In each of these chapters, the unique character of local heavy metal and Islamic cultures are analyzed, along with an overview of how local governments have responded to the challenges these oppositional movements pose. For example, the chapter on Morocco states that "fourteen heavy-metal musicians and fans were arrested in February 2003, tried, and convicted of the absurd crime of being 'Satanists who recruited for an international cult of devil-worship,' and of 'shaking the foundations of Islam,' 'infringing upon public morals,' 'undermining the faith of a Muslim,' and 'attempting to convert a Muslim to another faith'" Le Vine observes that "Similar raids have occurred against heavy-metal-listening 'devil worshippers' in Lebanon, Egypt and Iran." An epilogue concludes the book, by taking a look at the future of Islamic societies where youths turn to "heavy metal and hip hop" to "cope with the stress produced by lives spent, at least on the surface, on the margins of their societies."

For a full review see Interface Volume 9 Issue 5.

American and Western rockers like to pretend they're revolutionaries who are sticking it to the man and changing the world. But in Muslim nations, metalheads and rappers fight the sting of real political, cultural, religious, and military harassment. LeVine is both a working musician and an academic expert who has travelled extensively through the Middle East and North Africa, and he delivers a fun and readbale odyssey through several poorly understood nations, highlighting groundbreaking artists and the political/cultural developments that inspire, and are inspired by, the metal and rap underground. In addition to showcasing a great many intriguing artists who are using the power of forbidden music to comment on the struggles faced by their peoples, LeVine also illustrates the great diversity of Middle Eastern societies, presenting complex and varied cultures that are a far cry from the simplistic religious militancy displayed in the Western press since 9/11.

Underground musicians of the region really are sticking it to the man (that is, the religious and/or military big brothers of their countries) and have had a real impact on social movements and cultural awakenings. While you'll need some tolerance for LeVine's lapses into turgid professor-ese (like an ongoing anemic application of public sphere theory and occasional lapses into big pseudo-thoughts like "the complex politics of cultural production"), he more than makes up for it with stirring descriptions of the sounds created by esoteric musicians and the worldviews of the region's progressives and nonconformists. LeVine also presents a plausible (though probably monochromatic) young person's view of the state of the Muslim world and its sociological near-futures, mostly dispensing with unrealistic idealism.

In addition to being a plausible political/cultural study and an even better work of globe-trotting musicology, this book ultimately brings well-deserved attention to musicians who have literally risked their lives or livelihoods to be heard. Count on me to pick up the forthcoming CD from LeVine's growing Heavy Metal Islam artist development project. [~doomsdayer520~]

You don't have to be a fan of heavy metal music to find interest in this book, I know its certainly not my scene. What I like about this book is that Mark Levine isn't relying on interviews alone to tell the stories of how musician's struggle in countries that try to censor them, he puts himself in the middle of it. He spends time with these musicians, he performs with them and he sees the heart and the pain behind the music these artists are creating. The book also goes into the internal conflict some of these musicians face in weighing out religion vs music and how they balance the two.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about some of the things western and eastern cultures have in common and the differences related to that commonality.

Mark LeVine is researching Islam and Heavy Metal and with his book he is granting an insight to those, that otherwise never would have been able to discover what really is happening in the Islam world of music.

He catches the vibes of the present time, the atmosphere of the people and musicians involved and presents their fear and their anger in an objective and in a subjective way.

I recommend to read this book for everyone who is interested and Islam and the arabian countries.

Mark LeVine is a musician who had previously been with Mick Jagger but is now a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of California - Irvine. The book is about heavy metal rock and rapper bands in the Middle East, from Morocco to Pakistan. He speaks of how these bands are seeking peace in the Middle East - but, from his descriptions of that peace, it seems to me that they are seeking a peace without Israel. Although he does claim that the most popular band in the Middle East is a Jewish band called Orphaned Land, consisting of Jewish men who never finished their military service (which indicates Dishonorable Discharges). While their music may be "saturated with religious and biblical themes," I wonder where they really stand in their loyalty to Israel. And Mark LeVine is also Jewish, so why does he concentrate so heavily on a peace without Israel?

This is a grad student's wet dream--a combination of half-understood Interwar social theory, and "cool" manifestations of counter-culture in the Muslim world. In reality, it all has precious little to do with Islam--it's almost exclusively the work of an educated westernized wealthy elite. LeVine is either dishonest or very very foolish. I'm guessing both.

This is apretty good example of what's wrong with academic studies of the Islamic world. LeVine is so impressed with his own theory (which is, in brief, "wouldn't it be, like, totally cool if music, like, liberated the people, man?!?) that he fails to see how utterly irrelevant this music is in the Islamic world. Pretty poorly written too--which is, in any event, standard for these sorts of polemics. A silly book.