“I am Satan!” black metal, Islam and blasphemy in Turkey and Saudi Arabia

Otterbeck, Jonas; Mattsson, Douglas; Pastene, Orlando

doi:10.1007/s11562-018-0418-x

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…His study gives a new perspective on musical transgression and the significance of extreme heavy metal in one's life when one is in conflict with their cultural background. Otterbeck et al (2018) further contribute to the study of anti-Islamic music in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. However, there are no exhaustive studies on the Iranian extreme metal scene.…”

Section: Extreme Heavy Metal Music and Transgression In New Contextsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Extreme heavy metal and blasphemy in Iran: the case of Confess

Eckerström

2022

Cont Islam

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Since the revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has imprisoned musicians, especially punk, hip-hop, and hard rock bands, as well as those playing heavy metal subgenres. Extreme heavy metal artists and fans emerged in the 1990s. The government soon targeted them as Satanists and began a systematic crackdown on metalheads. The metalcore band Confess is the most well-known case. The band was arrested in 2015 on counts of blasphemy, disturbing public opinion through the production of music, participating in interviews with the opposition media and propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran, among other charges. The majority of secular countries today do not consider extreme heavy metal to be transgressive. This is not the case in contexts where religious traditions have a significant influence on society. By analysing the narrative of the band Confess, the purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of how Iranian extreme metal musicians resist religious oppression, challenge their government, religious precepts, and social values through their music.

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Section: Extreme Heavy Metal Music and Transgression In New Contextsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Extreme heavy metal and blasphemy in Iran: the case of Confess

Eckerström

2022

Cont Islam

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“…In the early years, as with the Turkish bands, a strong discontent with politics, combined with a deep hatred for Islam. The Turkish metal scene was hampered by a societal moral panic about Satanism, metal, and criminality, fueled by the media and supported by the government (Otterbeck et al., 2018). All odd and established images, such as the supreme state, repressive religious patterns, and other conservative parameters produced and shaped the metal and rock subculture, in accord with the global tendency of this genre.…”

Section: The Search For a Different Kind Of Livingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heavy metal in Turkey: Tracking the tensions of democratization in the 1990s

Yıldırım

2023

Sociology Compass

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Music, as a form of public discourse, invariably becomes a social science field that is considered more in the postmodern era when the boundaries are blurred. This study examines the political and cultural links between the emergence of the heavy metal genre and Turkish democracy. There are correlations between the prevalence of heavy metal in Turkey and the country's social and political transition in the 1990s and the search for a new path. The main argument here is that, among the country's tense democratization efforts and social problems, the heavy metal genre also indirectly carries the distinct traces of a different political search for the youth of the 1990s, although not directly. Democratic politics is a process established by daily life with the direct influence of societal interactions, and Turkish politics, and cultural life, in this case, heavy metal, include important notions in this remarkable manner. The main point symbolized by metal music in Turkey was its lyrical and artistic ability to express different points of view loudly enough against the uniform religious and nationalist culture that could be offensive, while other mainstream ranges such as pop and arabesque music didn't mind this issue.

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“…Thus, despite Obama's and Hoffmann's being non-Muslims they-in their responding to Muslim theological standpoints-present themselves to the public as de facto authorities on Islam who, based on their understanding of what Islam is or ought to be, reprimand and lecture to Muslims about Islam, declaring their theology het-erodox or misinformed. This phenomenon of non-Muslims' producing Islams for dissemination in the public sphere is echoed in non-Muslim artistic expression (Ackfeldt 2019;Otterbeck, Mattsson, and Pastene 2018), journalism (Cesari 2013;Jacobsen et al 2013), and many other places in societies where Muslims constitute religious minorities. Aaron Hughes (2012Hughes ( , 2015 has among others pointed out that epistemologies of theology, politics, and research have become entangled in contemporary Islamic studies, giving the examples of Omid Safi, Tariq Ramadan, and John Esposito whom he claims produce apologetic Islamic theology, which they-like Obama-utilize to declare jihadi Muslim Islam heterodox.…”

Section: Non-muslim Islam As a Research Objectmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Making of a Mosque with Female Imams

Petersen¹

2022

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A female imam leading women in Friday prayer is a powerful image. Khankan appeared on the bbc list of 100 inspirational and influential women in 2016 and she made number 197 on the Global Influence Top list in 2018.1 She was also invited to have tea with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in the Élysée Palace in March 2018, received a Global Hope Award in New York in September 2018, did two TEDx talks,2 was a guest on the bbc's renown HARDtalk in October 2018, and published a biography in three languages that sold quite well.3 This is not an exhaustive list, but the examples demonstrate that after the inauguration of the Mariam Mosque Khankan soon rose to international fame.However, in Denmark things looked different. As briefly mentioned in Chapter 7, on the same day (17 March 2015) that Khankan announced that the Friday prayer would be women-only, not mixed gender as originally announced, Søren Hviid Pedersen, a PhD in political science and avid political commentator, insinuated that Khankan might be an Islamist:And who is behind this new mosque? Well, it is no other than Sherin Khankan, a so-called moderate Muslim who, as everyone knows, at a Radikale [Venstre] party conference in [2002]4 refused to vote for a resolution that denounced sharia and [in 2006]5 participated in a demonstration arranged by Hizb ut-Tahrir, the organization that, as everyone

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“I am Satan!” black metal, Islam and blasphemy in Turkey and Saudi Arabia

Cited by 13 publications

References 6 publications

Extreme heavy metal and blasphemy in Iran: the case of Confess

Extreme heavy metal and blasphemy in Iran: the case of Confess

Heavy metal in Turkey: Tracking the tensions of democratization in the 1990s

The Making of a Mosque with Female Imams

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