This is not the Middle East that you know. Not the images we see on the national news and cable shows. Picture an eighteen-year-old Moroccan who loves Black Sabbath and Cannibal Corpse. A twenty-two-year-old rapper from the Gaza Strip. A young Lebanese singer who quotes Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.”
In Heavy Metal Islam (2008) Mark LeVine explores the incredibly vibrant alternative music scenes sweeping the region and bringing with it a new movement of peace and change in countries as diverse as Morocco, Iraq and Pakistan. Through interviews with musicians and fans, LeVine reveals young Muslims struggling to reconcile their religion with a passion for music and a desire for change. These are the risk-takers and revolutionaries, as much on the front lines of the culture war as the suicide bombers and Al-Qaeda martyrs.
