The Devil’s Music In Dhaka

Marco Ferrarese investigates how heavy metal performers in Bangladesh navigate the religious tensions posed by their music:

The Muslim concept of Satan (Shaytan in the Koran) is a little different than in Christianity, but playing the devil’s music in a Muslim country is still complicated. [Guitarist for the metal band Jahiliyyah Asif] Adnan, however, says his music and his faith are compatible. “I’m a Muslim and I follow the rules of my religion,” Adnan says. “But that doesn’t stop me from living with a passion for metal, and keep an open mind. Don’t you think that metal is universal by now?” Adnan says Bengali black metallers do not reject the Koran. Rather they use it as a basis upon which to develop their passion for extreme metal, giving it a unique sonic dimension powerfully rooted in Islam. …

Perhaps the best example of a local touch to Bengali metal comes from Severe Dementia and their curious concept album Epitaph of Plassey, which retraces the 1757 defeat of the last independent Nawab of Bengal at the hands of the British East India Company. Hasan Shahriar of Abominable Carnivore, another death/black metal band, also doesn’t see a conflict between Islam and metal. “I grew up listening to my brother’s records, and my mother pushed me even further by buying me a guitar. She asked me to commit, and to do well in what I believed in, according to the will of Allah.

(Hat tip: The Browser)