Mark LeVine is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, who has spent the better part of his life trying to understand and teach about the Middle East and Muslim world.  Part of this has been fueled by his interest in music – Mark is both a performer and fan of heavy metal (and other, lesser genres).  This interest led Mark to write Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam, a book that upends the simple “us vs. them” ideas about the Islamic world that tend to lead to things like war and death.  The book’s stories and message have proven so compelling that a CD of the music covered – Flowers in the Desert – and an upcoming documentary continue to tell the story, as does Mark’s website.

I was able to grab an hour of Mark’s time over the phone on Friday.  I peppered him with some questions around a topic that has plagued Americans for over a century – “What the hell is going on over in the Middle East?”

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