To Praise Disgrace: Islamic Semiotic Resources in Turkish Black Metal

Black Metal, an extreme subgenre of metal music, is characterized by its strong anti-religious lyrics and imagery. While there is a significant body of research on black metal within Christian cultural contexts, scholarly work focusing on the genre in Muslim majority societies remains limited. Although the Turkish black metal scene arose already in the late 1980s, it is only during the last decade and a half that references to Islam started to become a noticeable feature of its cultural production. Trough an ethnographic study combined with an analysis of cultural material and observations at numerous concerts, the present work explores when references to Islam became a part of Turkish black metal, as well as how and why they are used. In its analysis of the use of religious, and particularly Islamic, semiotic resources within Turkish black metal, this study offers new empirical and analytical insights into the genre. It investigates the meanings these resources acquire, and how scene participants navigate their black metal identities in a Muslim majority context. By investigating the intersection between Islam, popular culture, politics, apostasy, and blasphemy, this study provides new perspectives on the dynamics of contemporary Turkey. Trough an ethnographic study combined with an analysis of cultural material and observations at numerous concerts, the present work explores when references to Islam became a part of Turkish black metal, as well as how and why they are used. In its analysis of the use of religious, and particularly Islamic, semiotic resources within Turkish black metal, this study offers new empirical and analytical insights into the genre. It investigates the meanings these resources acquire, and how scene participants navigate their black metal identities in a Muslim majority context. By investigating the intersection between Islam, popular culture, politics, apostasy, and blasphemy, this study provides new perspectives on the dynamics of contemporary Turkey. Douglas Mattsson is a researcher at the department of the Study of Religions at Södertörn University, focusing on the intersection between Islam and popular culture, religion and politics, as well as the fields of blasphemy and apostasy studies.