The Siren Call of Islamist Hip Hop

It's all the rage--and a powerful tool to woo "reverts"--in Europe:

It’s not just a diaspora hip-hop community, which is seeking to enlist young Europeans of North African, Arab, and South Asian descent. In recent decades, Europe has seen the rise of a small, but very active network of Salafis, adherents to a 18th century doctrine that seeks to reject European values by looking within the community for Islamic solutions to modern problems. In its contemporary form, the previously apolitical Salafism has become synonymous with an uncompromising fundamentalist agenda and a quest to forcibly reclaim the glory of Islam during its earliest flourishes.  

The Salafi jihadists —with their rejection of Western society and utopian vision of the coming of new united Ummah (a nation or community), which offers the outcast youth a sense of contribution and acceptance—have had some success winning over converts from Europe’s immigrant hip-hop communities. In Hisham Aidi’s book Rebel Music, Michael Privot, director of the Brussels-based European Network Against Racism, sums the phenomena up as such: “For the fragile youth, Salafism offers an easy alternative, a complete rupture with the past.” 

Hip-hop has a long history with Islam. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, numerous American rappers gave at least a nod to the religion. Napoleon, who was a member of Tupac Shakur’s Outlawz, has become a well known advocate for Islam since converting to the religion after Shakur’s murder. Now going by the name Mutah Wassin Shabazz Beale, the rapper-turned-motivational speaker travels the world telling how Islam saved his life. However, he has drawn criticism for Twitter comments praising the Saudi regime and condemning the Arab Spring.

Don't worry, though. According to the author of this piece, it's not as though the Salafist worldview is likely to prevail:

While much is made of fundamentalist Islam’s rejection of music as frivolous and potentially corrupting, Islam itself is a religion of music. It’s foolish to concede to the fundamentalist assertion that its interpretation of a doctrine or creed is authentic and traditional—in fact, the existence of fundamentalist anything presupposes the existence of an earlier, more liberal tradition.

It does? Since when? Examples, please. In fact, he has it backwards. The existence of a liberal anything presupposes the existence of an earlier, more fundamentalist tradition--and it's the fundamentalist anything that has the staying power.