Heavy Metal Islam (20 page)

For Shady Nour, son of jailed presidential candidate Ayman Nour, playing metal in his bedroom helps ease the pain of his father’s indefinite incarceration. Cairo, 2007.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL SCHMELLING

Members of Hate Suffocation rehearsing in Cairo. May 2007.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL SCHMELLING

Reda Zine performing with the Kordz. Club Nova, Beirut, Lebanon, 2005.

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

The three members of Palestinian Rapperz standing in front of Israel’s eight-meter-high “Separation Fence” for a publicity photo.

COURTESY OF MOHAMMED AL-FARRA

Arash Jafari, Mark LeVine, and Farzad Golpayegani, performing at Barisa Rock for Peace Festival.

COURTESY OF ARASH JAFARI

Lebanese industrial death metal band Oath to Vanquish, publicity photo, 2006.

COURTESY OF ELIAS ABBOUD

Drummer Eddie Wastnidge and bass player Ali Sanaei of Farzad Golpayegani’s band backstage at the Barisa Rock for Peace Festival. August 2007.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

Sherine Amr and Sara El Kasraivy of Massive Scar Era performing at the Sawi Culture Wheel in Cairo. August 2007.

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YAHYA DIWER PHOTOGRAPHY

Junoon cofounder, Salman Ahmad.

COURTESY OF SALMAN AHMAD

Mark LeVine and Moe Hamzeh, performing at Club Nova. Beirut, 2006.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

Sheikh Anwar al-Ethari, the “Elastic Sheikh,” from Sadr City, with Italian aid worker Simona Torretta, who was kidnapped in Baghdad for three weeks in 2004.

COURTESY OF SHEIKH ANWAR AL-ETHARI

Egyptian metal guitar virtuoso Sherif Marzeban with legendary Swedish metal frontman for In Flames, Anders Friden, backstage at Dubai Desert Rock, 2007.

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

Soap Kills seems to have imagined itself as an anti-Rotana. Picking up on the diagnosis of Morocco’s ills by Hoba Hoba Spirit, Jasmin argues that it’s “schizophrenic” that an adherent of Saudi Arabia’s ultraconservative Islam (and a senior Royal, no less) would create a record label and multiplatform media company that promotes sexual fantasies via scantily clad singers in order to sell insipid, soul-deadening music. As important, this schizophrenia is inseparable from authoritarianism, which in turn is responsible for more personal problems. “Censorship is the reason for sexual frustration,” Jasmin remarked, “and the female Arab pop singers serve as sex fantasies.” That’s why she and Seid decided they were going to use music to “break down the bonds of patriarchy and class bias that have made it so hard for alternative music to break through to the mainstream in the Arab world.”