Guardian article A stark Arabic chant is emerging as the anthem of the Islamic State. And it’s just the tip of a booming industry turning out songs of bloodshed and devotion. Alex Marshall investigates the rise of the jihadi ‘nasheed’ A key point: Most Islamic scholars now say nasheeds are acceptable, especially during wartime. In fact, the only major disagreement over them seems to be what they should sound like. Most Sunni jihadi groups, including the Islamic State, see instruments as haram (forbidden) and take a bare-bones approach to their composition. Almost all their nasheeds are a cappella, the only accompaniment being an array of sound effects from horses’ hooves (symbolising the Prophet Muhammad’s time in the desert) to bombs. But Shia groups such as Hezbollah do not care for such self-restraint. Many of their nasheeds are packed with drums, sometimes seeming to place as much importance on rhythm as rap or ragga. Their singers also apparently cannot get through a verse without heavily processing their voices with Auto-Tune, and they’re so packed with young men dancing they seem more boyband than militia. Shia groups also have a seemingly endless supply of nasheeds set to dramatic string arrangements, which could have been plucked straight from some Hollywood thriller. Unlike Americans, who have come together as a diverse nation that can kill people to the accompaniment of everything from "Ride of the Valkyries" to Drowning Pool's "Bodies Hit the Floor" to Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue", to rap, the jihadists seem to be divided by their musical styles, with a few movements strongly opposed to music in any form at all. In Iraq and Syria, ISIS jihadists have a clear motivation to kill the Shia fighters, because Hezbollah jihadists dance through guitar riffs and drum solos. Meanwhile the Shias don't want to give up their beats or their heads. That may be what's keeping the whole nasty business going.
Surely any serious student of Middle Eastern history would realize that what we're seeing with the break down of the Islamic nation state is just a replay of the battle between Death Row and Bad Boy records. All they've done is replace rap names like Suge Knight, Tupac, The Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy with nasheed names like al-Assad and al-Baghdadi,
