Song "Find Heaven": A soundtrack to radicalization

If you are trying to make some sense of the phenomenon of radicalization, musician Daniyal Noorani has a simple song and video for you. But look deeper, and you’ll find a much more complex story. Noorani’s art seeks to understand the process of radicalization from all angles – political, cultural, spiritual, and social – in a way that doesn’t judge so much as illuminate. Written and sung in English, “Find Heaven” is being translated into Urdu for an audience in Noorani’s native Pakistan, which has been wracked with extremism for many years.

” I wrote ‘Find Heaven’ at a time when I felt there was no clear public consensus on suicide bombings,” explains Noorani. “At that point, the urban centres of Pakistan had not been as hard hit as they are today and I felt that the country didn’t know how they felt about these activities, whether they were sympathetic or condemning of it.”

Shahed Amanullah is the founder of altmuslim.com.