Courtesy: Music made me do it - By: Dr. Gohar Mushtaq
(Excerpt)
Role of music in suicide among young people
In the
modem age, music has played a major role in the increasing trend of suicide
among young people. Allah (SWT) tells us:
~ ... And
never despair of the mercy of Allah ... ~ (Qur'an 12: 87)
Similarly,
in soorat az-Zumar (the Groups), Allah (SWT) says:
9 Ankenberg
and Weldon, The Facts on Rock Music.
... Despair
not of the mercy of Allah, verily Allah forgives all sins ... ~ (Qur'an 39: 53)
The Arabic
name for Satan is Iblees, which means 'the one who despairs,' and one of the
greatest tricks of Iblees is to cause people to despair of the mercy of Allah
(SWT). Part of the modern condition is creating despair. For example, one of
the ways to manifest despair is by watching television. The news on television
portrays a 'doom and gloom' image of the world where everything is hell-bound.
This is a Satanic ideology, an extreme state of despair that Satan loves to
foster, where people kill themselves due to extreme despair and loss of faith.
One should never despair. It is an evil state to enter upon, but this same
despondent message is given to the youth in music, with a much more powerful
tone. Just like drugs can depress people so much that some of them commit
suicide, music can have similar consequences.
Music can
be a powerful depressant, and it can nurture a suicidal mood in its listeners.
Anyone listening to songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss
definitely feels the depressing effects upon them. As pointed out by
psychologist Aaron Beck and associates, hopelessness is considered the most
important contributing factor, and a key psychological state, among people who
commit suicide.i"
10 A.T.
Beck, R.A. Steer, M. Kovacs and B. Garrison, "Hopelessness and
Eventual
Suicide," American Journal of Psychiatry 142 (1985): 559-563.
Those
people who consider music to be a harmless form of entertainment do not
actually understand the power of music.
They do not
realize what is being massaged into their psyches along with music. When a
person listens to music, old memories are triggered, whether the music is sad
or joyous. People can remember the words of songs more easily than prose.
Hence, music can evoke feelings of melancholy, which may cause unbearable
depression to the point that the listener commits suicide.
For
example, a large proportion of country and western music, along with the blues,
has always been associated with depressing lyrics and tales of woe, which in
turn make the listener feel miserable. In a study published in 1992,
researchers Steven Stack and Jim Gundlach assessed the link between country
music and metropolitan suicide rates. The results of their multiple regression
analysis of forty-nine major U.S. cities showed that the greater the amount of
airtime devoted to country music, the greater the rate of suicide among white
Americans. Based on the findings of their study, Stack and Gundlach
hypothesized that country music nurtures in its listeners:
a suicidal
mood through its concerns with problems common in the suicidal population, such
as marital discord, alcohol abuse, and
alienation from work. 11
Country
music and songs often convey the idea of fatalism or hopelessness. They reflect
despair and the futility and hypocrisy of the illusion of modern life. For
example, a feeling of pessimism and bitterness permeates many country songs
about farmers. The
11 Steven
Stack and Jim Gundlach, "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide,"
Social Forces 71, no. 1 (1992): 211-218.
Nitty
Gritty Dirt Band, when singing about a man whose farm had been auctioned off,
chanted the following lines:
Worked this
place all my life, Broke my heart, took my wife.
Now I got
nothing to shoW.12
Similarly,
many country songs repeatedly depict the lonesome and often abusive features of
life among the lower socioeconomic classes.i ' They describe the banality or
dullness of life. For example, Alfred Reed's song "How Can a Man Stand
Such Things and Live?" suggests a connection between suicide and
impoverishment, and Billy Hill's 1989 hit song "There's Too Much Month at
the End of the Money" echoes the feelings of despair associated with
problems of financial strain. 14
Another
common theme in the country music genre that can foster suicidal feelings is
the issue of marital strife and dissolution. In one study published in the
Journal of Marriage and Family in 1990, researcher Steven Stack reported the
results of a content analysis of 1,400 hit country songs. It was found that
about 75 of those songs had the bitter experiences of love as at least one of
their themes. IS In all these cases, the depressing themes conveyed in country
music might be nurturing the suicidal mood in the listeners.
12 Stack
and Gundlach, 'The Effect of Country Music on Suicide."
13
Schaefer, "Slow Country Music and Drinking."
14 Stack
and Gundlach, "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide."
15 Steven
Stack, "New Micro Level Data on the Impact of Divorce on Suicide,
1959-1980: A Test of Two Theories," Journal of Marriage and the Family 52
(1990): 119-127.
When it
comes to rock music, it in fact not only depresses listeners but also
encourages them to commit suicide by giving them the message that "suicide
is the only solution" and that it is the only way out of the depths of
hopelessness. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
suicide is currently the third leading cause of death among Americans aged 10
to 24. Each year, about 4,400 youths kill themselves, and many more attempt to
do SO.16 The following are just a few examples of nationally publicized cases
of suicides under the influence of music:
On December
23, 1985, 18-year-old Raymond Belknap and 20-year-old James Vance climbed out
of a bedroom window and went to a nearby playground after listening to pop
singer Judas Priest's song entitled "Beyond the Realms of Death."
Once there, Belknap placed a shotgun under his chin, pulled the trigger and
died immediately. Vance then took his turn in the same manner, but the gun
slipped forward and disfigured his face; he died three
years later
as a result of his wounds. On the day of the shootings, the two had played
music all day long. While listening to Judas Priest's album, they started
chanting "Just do it, just do it," became violent and ended up
committing (or attempting to commit) suicide.17
The
families of the victims brought legal action against Judas Priest. The bereaved
parents claimed that a subliminal message, "Do it," was present in
the song, which portrayed a hopeless view on life, and that it drove the two
boys to commit suicide. The
I
Iii
'Iii
III
16
"Suicide Prevention", Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
last modified October 15, 2009,
http://www
.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pub/youth_suicide.html.
17 Pamela
Marsden Capps, "Rock on Trial: Subliminal Message Liability,"
Columbia Business Law Review 27 (1991).
music and
its suggestive lyrics, combined with the continuous beat and rhythms,
encouraged and mesmerized the victims into believing that the answer to life
was death. (Belknap v. Judas Priest, Nev. Dist. Ct., August 24, 1990i8
In October
1984, 19-year-old John McCollum committed suicide by shooting himself in the
head after listening to Ozzy Osbourne's song "Suicide Solutions."
This song includes the lyrics:
The
reaper's traveling at full throttle It's catching you but you don't see The
reaper is you and the reaper is me ...
Suicide is
the only way out ... Get the gun and try it Shoot, shoot, shoot.
McCollum
was still wearing the headphones when his body was found. As reported by Chuck
Philips in his Los Angeles Times article on October 04, 1990, entitled "Just
Weeks After Judas Priest Case, Ozzy Osbourne Faces Similar Suits Over
Subliminal Messages," the boy's guardian sued Osbourne and his record
company. The subliminal messages allegedly present in Ozzy Osbourne's song were
blamed for the suicide shooting of McCollum.
There is
additional anecdotal evidence to support the connection between rock music and
suicide. In February 1986, 18-year-old Philip Morton, of the city of Delafield,
Wisconsin, hanged himself from a closet door. At the time of his suicide, he
was listening to rock band Pink Floyd's album The Wall, which includes such
songs as "Goodbye Cruel World" and "Waiting for the Worms."
Those songs were playing continuously in the background. 19
Steve
Boucher, 16 years old, killed himself by putting a gun to his head and pulling
the trigger. His parents protested that the cause of their son's suicide was
his obsession with ACIDC's song "Shoot to Thrill." In fact, Steve was
sitting under his favourite ACIDC poster when he pulled the trigger and killed
himself. 20
Michael
Waller was another teenager who committed suicide in 1991. His parents filed a
lawsuit against Ozzy Osbourne's "Suicide Solution" song.
In all of
the cases described above involving lawsuits by parents, the legal actions
against the singers, musicians and record producers were dismissed by the
courts because, unfortunately, music is constitutionally protected speech under
the First Amendment of the United States constitution.i' Just because the
artists and producers in question were not held legally responsible, however,
does not mean that they bear no blame for the incidents. Social scientific
evidence presented in this book clearly suggests that adolescents often give
more credence to the
opinions of
musical performers about life than to what their parents say. They often try to
emulate the clothing and attitudes of their favourite singers.
19 Terry
Watkins, "It's Only Rock 'n ' Roll. .. But It Kills," accessed on
November 1, 2010, http://www.avI611.org/rockm.html.
20 Ibid.
21 Mike
Quinlan, J.D. and Jim Persels, J.D., "It's Not My Fault, the Devil Made Me
Do It: Attempting to Impose Tort Liability on Publishers, Producers, and
Artists for Injuries Allegedly 'Inspired' by Media Speech," Southern
Illinois Law Journal 18, no. 417 (Winter 1994).
In each of
the cases described above, would the youths have even thought of committing
these crimes if it were not for the songs suggesting it to them? Their families
knew about their fascination with certain kinds of songs and were aware that
they were listening to them dozens of times, over and over again. The lyrics of
those songs very likely influenced them to make their fatal decisions. These
are just a few examples out of the countless
incidents
of violence perpetrated under the influence of music.
Role of
music in subliminal seduction
Subliminal
messages refer to communications directed to the subconscious mind; they are
hidden suggestions that are perceived only by the subconscious. This is
achieved by projecting the messages so quickly or faintly that they are
received by the listener at a level below that of conscious awarcness.F
They can be
audio subliminal messages (hidden behind music) or visual subliminal messages
(airbrushed into a picture and flashed on a screen so quickly that we do not
consciously see them).
Owing to
its seductive power, music plays a superb role in disseminating both audio and
visual subliminal messages to the minds of people. For example, words are
uttered so quickly in a song that we do not consciously remember them, or words
in a song are masked by musical tones or rhythms so that we do not consciously
hear them. To understand subliminal seduction, we have to understand how our
minds work. Our conscious mind has the capacity to
22 Capps,
"Rock on Trial: Subliminal Message Liability."
distinguish
between right and wrong. The moral sense of right and wrong has been revealed
to us as mentioned in the Qur' an:
~And
inspired it [with discernment of] its wickedness and its righteousness) (Qur'an
91: 8)
On the
other hand, our subconscious mind does nothing with the information presented
to it except to store it. When wrong values are passed to the brain in the form
of subliminal messages, they bypass our conscious mind, which is capable of
judging right from wrong. They are stored directly into our subconscious
memory, and, hence, destroy the sense of morality.
The use of
subliminal messages was first brought to the attention of the public in 1957,
when James Vicary asserted that his company, Subliminal Projection Co., had
developed a device that would flash a message on a movie screen every five
seconds for just the smallest fraction of a second. A movie theatre in New
Jersey used the device for six weeks, flashing the messages 'Drink Coca-Cola'
and 'Hungry? Eat Popcorn.' On the days when the
subliminal
messages were shown, popcorn sales increased by 58, and sales of Coke increased
by 18. In general, there was public outrage at the invention because people
considered it an attempt to manipulate the mind.23
There have
been various incidents where the use of subliminal messages has been found in
the media. For example, in the Christmas shopping season of 1973, several
parents complained to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal
23 Ibid.
Communications
Commission (FCC) that the subliminal message 'Get it' was used in a national TV
commercial for a children's game. As a result, Premium Corporation of America,
the maker of the game, voluntarily stopped running the commercial,
"claiming the subliminal's presence was due to a misguided employee.v
"
Subliminal
messages are used in music just as they are used in television, movies and
other modes of communication. In fact, in music, they have an added advantage
in that the mesmerizing influence of music very efficiently masks and transmits
the subliminal messages contained in it.
One of the
problems with subliminal messages is that sometimes they are so quick, so vague
and so subtle that it is difficult to monitor them.25 By their nature, subliminal
messages are extremely similar to the whispers of Satan, which he instills into
the hearts of human beings in a very subtle way, and which are very effective
on humans. The Qur'an says, regarding the whispers of Satan:
~[Satan]
who whispers [evil] into the breasts of mankind.s
~Then Satan
whispered to him; he said: 0 Adam, shall I direct you to the tree of eternity
and possession that will not deterioratevs (Qur'an 20: 120)
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
The
effectiveness of subliminal messages has been shown experimentally in various
studies published in different scientific journals. As cited above, in James
Vicary's movie theatre experiment, there was a significant increase in the
sales of popcorn and Coke when subliminal messages were shown.
Likewise, in
January 1958, Seattle radio station KOL broadcast subconscious messages along
with other recordings; the messages included "How about a cup of
coffee?" and "Someone is at the door." The results of that
experiment revealed that several listeners either made or thought about coffee,
and some went to the door or checked around for people at the door. Similarly,
KY A in San Francisco used subliminal messages during their program to tell
their listeners to write to the station. In six days, the station received
about eighty-seven response letters.r"
One method
employed by the music industry to create subliminals involves the placing of a
short word or phrase under a drumbeat; this involves a conscious decision and
action when recording the songs. For example, in the first suicide case
mentioned in the previous section (Belknap v. Judas Priest), it was found that
the words "Do it" were deliberately placed in the song as a
subliminal message. Pamela Marsden Capps notes that:
The court
found that the words, "Do It," were a combination of the singer's
exhalation on one track and a Leslie guitar on another track. There was,
however, testimony indicating that the message was intentional including: the
regularity of the words, "Do It," in relationship to the drum beats
where the words are located, the presence of a 'punch-in sound' where the
record button was pressed previous to a number of
"
26 Ibid.
appearances
of the words, "Do It," and computer analysis showing that the
singer's breath occurred milliseconds after each "Do It" on the
record.r"
In the case
in which McCollum committed suicide after listening to Osbourne's "Suicide
Solution," subliminal lyrics
were also
involved: The Institute for Bio-Acoustics Research, Inc. (IBAR) was hired to
evaluate "Suicide Solution." Not surprisingly, they found subliminal
lyrics that weren't included in the copyright 'lead sheet.' The subliminal
lyrics are sung at one and one-half
times the
normal rate of speech and are not grasped by the first time listener. However,
they claim the subliminal lyrics "are audible enough that their meaning
and true intent becomes clear after being listened to over and over
again." What are some of the hidden subliminal lyrics? "Why try, why
try? GET THE GUN AND TRY IT! SHOOT...SHOOT. .. SHOOT,"
followed by
a hideous laughter! 28
The purpose
of this discussion is to inform the readers that music and singing are not
simply harmless forms of
entertainment.
Whether in the East or West, musicians and singers who are the apostles of
Satan - intentionally or unintentionally - introduce subliminal lyrics into
songs. Those subliminal messages embedded in music - about promiscuity, drugs
and revolting against elders and religious traditions _ ultimately affect the
behaviour of their listeners and can destroy the moral fabric of the society
within a few decades.
27 Ibid.
28 Watkins,
"It's Only Rock 'n' Roll ... But It Kills."
Role of music in the depiction of
women as sex objects
It has been
shown in the previous sections of this book that sex is the most common theme
of music. One feature that is common in youth-oriented music relating to
courtship and sexual relationships is the depiction of women as sex objects.
Such songs feature sex-driven males competing with one another for females who
are viewed merely as sexual objects or conquests, and whose only value lies in
their physical appearance.f" This depiction of
men as
sexually insatiable and women as sexual objects is especially widespread in
music videos.I" In emerging adults, the frequent viewing of such content
is strongly linked to the endorsement of women as sexual objects. This was
shown by media researcher L. Monique Ward (a psychologist at the University of
Michigan) in a study published in the 2002 issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence"
Repeated
exposure to such depictions may also result in internalization of these gender
roles that show sexually degrading behaviour as central to both males and
females. This suggests that portrayal of women as sex objects could affect the
sexual behaviour of emerging adolescent girls and boys, and a detailed
29 L.
Monique Ward, "Talking About Sex: Common Themes about Sexuality in
Prime-time Television Programs Children and Adolescents View Most,"
Journal of Youth and Adolescence 24 (1995): 595-615. Also see J. Gow,
"Reconsidering
Gender Roles on MTV: Depictions in the Most Popular Music Videos of the Early
1990s," Communication Reports 9 (1995): 151-161.
30 S.A.
Seidman, "An Investigation of Sex-role Stereotyping in Music Videos,"
Journal Broadcast Electron 36 (1992): 209-216.
31 Ward,
"Talking About Sex: Common Themes about Sexuality in Prime-time Television
Programs Children and Adolescents View Most."
scientific
study published in the August 2006 issue of the medical journal Pediatrics
confirms this contention.V
Steven
Martino, PhD, a researcher at Rand Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and
his associate scientists conducted a national longitudinal telephone survey of
1,461 adolescents aged between 12 and 17 years. Participants were first
interviewed at baseline in 2001, when they were 12 to 17 years old, and most
were virgins at that time. The subjects of the study were asked how frequently
they listened to any of more than a dozen musical artists who were the most
popular among the youth then. Follow- up interviews were conducted one and
three years later, in 2002 and 2004, to see whether their choice of music had
influenced their subsequent behaviour.
The study
found that teenagers who listened to a lot of music with degrading sexual
messages (depicting women as sex objects) were almost twice as likely to become
involved in sexual activities within the following two years, as compared to
the teens who listened to little or no sexually degrading music. In its August
7, 2006 article "Study: Sexy Lyrics Lead to Sex Sooner," the
Associated Press quoted Dr. Martino as saying:
Exposure to
lots of sexually degrading music 'gives them a specific message about sex.'
Boys learn they should be
relentless
in pursuit of women and girls learn to view themselves as sex objects.
Commenting
on the influence of music content on adolescent sexual behaviour, Dr. Martino
writes:
32 Steven
C. Martino et al., "Exposure to Degrading Versus Nondegrading Music Lyrics
and Sexual Behavior Among Youth," Pediatrics 118, no. 2 (August 2006):
430-44l.
Musicians
who incorporate this type of sexual imagery in their songs are not simply
modeling an interest in healthy sexual behaviour for their listeners; they are
communicating something specific about what are appropriate sexual roles for
men and women. These lyrics are likely to promote acceptance of women as sexual
objects and men as pursuers of sexual conquest. 33
Another
interesting finding reported by Dr. Martino was the observation that the time
spent listening to music in general and changes in sexual behaviour were
directly proportional. In other words, the more time teenagers spent listening
to any kind of music, the earlier they started their sexual activities. This
was true regardless of the sexual content of music. One likely explanation for
this phenomenon, according to Dr. Martino, is that when teens
listen to
popular music, no matter what its content is, it results in heightened
physiologic arousal and sexual behaviour among such teens 'through a process of
excitation transfer..34
Dr. David
Walsh, a psychologist who heads the National Institute of Media and the Family,
told the Associated Press on August 7, 2006 that the results of Dr. Martino's
study on the teenagers make sense because "the brain's impulse-control
center undergoes 'major construction' during the teen years at the same time
that an interest in sex starts to blossom." With the addition of sexually
arousing lyrics, Dr. Walsh continued, "it's not that surprising that a kid
with a heavier diet of that... would be at greater risk of sexual
behaviour."
33 Martino
et al., "Exposure to Degrading Versus Nondegrading Music Lyrics and Sexual
Behavior among Youth."
34 Ibid.
Natasha
Ramsey is a teen-editor for Sexetc.org, a web site produced at Rutgers
University that provides sex education for teens. In an interview reported by
the Associated Press, Natasha mentioned that the reason she and other teens
listen to sexually explicit songs is because they like the beat. She further
added:
I won't
really realize that the person is talking about having sex or raping a girl.
Even so, the message is being beaten into the teens' heads. We don't even
really realize how much .... Teens will try to deny it, they'll say 'No, it's
not the music,' but it IS the music. That has one of the biggest impacts on our
lives.35
If we look
at any song that has sex and romance as its theme, we will notice that the
emphasis is always on the physical appearance of a woman, thus portraying her
as a sexual commodity. Never do we find such songs praising the intelligence of
woman or her spiritual status. Based on the above-mentioned research, women
lose sight of the value of chastity and modesty under the influence of music
and songs, because they are brainwashed to believe that they are sex objects
and that men compete with each other to win them. While such behaviour may be
appropriate for animals, human beings must act like human beings. Women must
remember that they are not sex objects in the way that they are portrayed in
the music. Modesty (lJaya ') is the most valuable asset for both women and men.
It is so important that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) regarded it as a salient
feature of Islamic faith:
Abu
Hurayrah (~) narrated that the Prophet (PBUH) said: «Faith has
seventy-something or sixty-something branches. The highest of them is
testifying that there is none worthy of worship other than Allah, while the
lowest of them is removing something harmful from the road, and haya' is a
branch of faith. » (recorded by Ibn Abi Shaybah; al-Albani graded it sound with
a good chain of narration)
'Imran bin
Husayn said that the Prophet (m) said: «Haya' does not bring anything except
good.» (Muslim)
Narrated
Abdullah ibn 'Umar (~): «The Prophet (PBUH) passed by a man who was admonishing
his brother regarding haya' and was saying: You are very shy, and I am afraid
that might harm you. Hearing that, Allah's Apostle (~) said: Leave him, for
haya' is (a part) of faith.» (Bukhari)
The meaning
of haya' encompasses modesty, bashfulness, shyness, moral conscience and
self-respect. Its root word in the Arabic language is haydt, which means 'life'
or 'existence.' It means that the life of any nation lies in its moral
conscience and modesty. When shamelessness and immodesty prevail in a nation,
it will result in the death of the nation. Haya' is part of the natural
inclination instilled by Allah (SWT) in human beings.
Muslim
women and men also must not forget their lofty status as the children of
Prophet Adam (;,~). Both women and men are recipients of a soul created by
Allah. He has invested both genders with inherent dignity and has made men and
women the trustees of Allah on earth, as mentioned in the Qur'an in various
places:
qAnd We
[Allah] have certainly honoured the children of Adam ... ~ (Qur'an 17: 70)
Then He
proportioned him and breathed into him from His [created] soul and made for you
hearing and vision and hearts; little are you grateful.s (Qur'an 32: 9)
Your Lord
said to the angels: Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successive authority
... ~ (Qur'an 2: 30)
Islam
elevated the status of both women and men to the highest status that any
civilization can imagine, as is also evident in some of the following hadiths
of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH): «A man came to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) asking:
0 Messenger of Allah, who among people is the most worthy of my good
companionship? The Prophet said: Your mother. The man said: Then who is next?
The Prophet said: Your mother. The man further asked: Then who is next? Only
then did the Prophet say: Your father.» (Muslim)
«Whoever
supports two daughters until they mature, he and I will come on the Day of
judgment like this (and he pointed with his two fingers held together).»
(Muslim)
«Seeking
knowledge is mandatory for every Muslim [male and female].» (recorded by Ibn
Majah and graded as sound by al- Albani)
Marriage of music and television -
darkness upon darkness
Among the
senses given to human beings by Allah (SWT), the senses of hearing and seeing
are the strongest. In the Qur' an,
Allah (SWT)
reminds us:
QSay: It is
He [Allah] Who has produced you, and made for you hearing and vision and heart;
little are you grateful.s (Qur'an 67: 23)
Music and
singing affect the emotions of human beings in two different ways. Music-induced
emotions can be conveyed by the tone of voice of the singer (plus the sounds of
the musical instruments), and they can also be conveyed by nonverbal
expressions such as laughing, crying, attractive gestures (of the female singer
especially), or dancing. The effects of music- induced emotions are much
greater when the visual dimension is combined with the audio dimension. In
music videos, there are dramatic visual effects that mesmerize their viewers
owing to their combined audio-visual power. Listen, for example, to Dr. Brown
and Dr. Hendee, who are considered authorities in the area of clinical
medicine:
There is a
concern that the marriage between television and music is powerful and
synergistic. Multisensory input
reinforces
any message, specifically by enhancing learning and recall36
36 Brown
and Hendee, "Adolescents and their Music: Insights into the Health of
Adolescents."
Many
researchers have emphasized the detrimental effects of the combination of music
and television. In a laboratory study published in the journal Youth Society in
1986, regarding the effects of music television (MTV) , researchers Greeson and
Williams found that when selected music videos were watched by seventh and
tenth graders for just one hour, their concepts about premarital sex changed.
These students were then more likely to
approve of
premarital sex as compared with a control group of adolescents.f" Music
videos were clearly able to transform the viewpoint and moral sense of their
viewers.
In the same
vein, a behavioural study reported by Rehman and Reilly found that when
participants were shown violent music videos, they became desensitized to any
kind of violence committed in the real world immediately after viewing the
videos." It is clear that many of the messages, both in the lyrics and in
the visualization of those lyrics, are sexual in nature. For example, in Paul
McCartney's song entitled "We Got Married," the lyrics go:
"Going fast, coming soon, we made love in the afternoon." Aerosmith'
s song "Love in an Elevator" includes the
lyrics:
"Lovin' it up as I'm going down." As the new medium of music videos
has been introduced into the society, social scientists have started to study
their effects, and they have found that music videos can have a profound
impact upon
their viewers. Recently, there has been growing concern about the pernicious
effects of rock music and music
37 L.E.
Greeson and R.A. Williams, "Social Implications of Music Videos for Youth:
an Analysis of the Contents and Effects of MTV," Youth and Society 18
(1986): 177-189.
38 S.
Rehman and S. Reilly, "Music Videos: a New Dimension of Televised
Violence," Pennsylvania Speech Communication Annual 41 (1985): 61-64.
videos on
adolescents, because both contribute to a breakdown of morality and to the high
teenage pregnancy rate in the United States.39
In one
study, researcher Thomas N. Robinson, of the Stanford University Center for
Research in Disease Prevention (in Palo Alto, California), and his associates
examined the associations among media, music exposure and self-reported alcohol use. They collected baseline and
eighteen-month follow-up data on media usage (which included watching
television, videos and music videos, among others) and lifetime and thirty-day alcohol use from a sample of 1,533 students who were
ninth-graders in six public schools in San Jose, California. They found that
for each one-hour increase in watching music videos, there was a 31 increased
risk of the young person beginning to drink alcohol
within the next eighteen months. The authors of the study noted:
"Increased
television and music video viewing are risk factors for the onset of alcohol use in adolescents. ,,40
In a
similar study performed by Rubin and his colleagues, it was revealed that the
meanings of a song from the music video version were more potent and had a
greater effect upon the viewers than the audio version alone of the same
song.41 Hence, the visual counterpart to the music could be even more damaging
when the audio and video dimensions were combined. The effect 39 Tipper Gore,
Raising PG Kids in an X-rated Society (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987).
40 Thomas
N. Robinson, Helen L. Chen and Joel D. Killen, "Television and Music Video
Exposure and Risk of Adolescent Alcohol
Use," Pediatrics 102, no. 5 (1998): e54-e59.
41 R.B.
Rubin, A.M. Rubin and E.M. Perse, "Media Use and Meaning of Music
Video," Journalism Quarterly 63 (1986): 353-359 .
of
audio-visual versions of music on the viewers is more powerful and synergistic.
People carrying music on their heads
- a prophecy in hadith
The Prophet
Muhammad (PBUH) said: «Soon there will be people from my Ummah who will drink
wine, calling it by other than its real name. There will be instruments of
music and singing on their heads, and they will listen to female singers. Allah
(SWT) will cleave the earth under them and turn others into apes and swine.»
(recorded by Ibn Majah and graded as sound by al-Albani)
Hence, one
of the signs of the end of times is that people will carry musical instruments
'on their heads.' Today when we watch people walking with headphones on their
heads playing the music, we see this nearly 1400-year-old prophecy come true.
Commenting on the recent invention of musical instruments for the head, medical
researchers Elizabeth F. Brown, MD and William R. Hendee, PhD observed that
during the early era of rock music, radios were large and hard to carry around,
but for today's youth, "music is particularly ubiquitous" because:
Music
became portable with the advent of transistor radios. Recent innovations in
miniaturization and the development of light high-quality headphones have made
it possible for teenagers to envelop themselves constantly in rock music.42
42 Brown,
"Adolescents and their Music: Insights into the Health of Adolescents.
"
It is not
surprising, although it is regrettable, that our modem industrialized society
has generated an entertainment industry so ubiquitous that people today can
amuse themselves anywhere on the planet. While walking, running, working, or even
sleeping, they can listen to or watch videos of their favourite tunes, with the
help of
miniature music players such as iPods, cell phones or PDAs.43 In fact, some of
the garment companies sell their customers a 'personal stereo,' which consists
of a jacket with a built-in radio and speakers conveniently attached right
inside the hood.44
Allan Bloom
contends that a huge number of the youths in their teens and early twenties are
addicted to music today. When these young people are at school or in family
gatherings, their minds are still daydreaming and yearning to go back to their
world of music. In fact, in this age when music is everywhere - in the home and
outside the home, on the road and in the library, in the car and in the
shopping malls - nothing prevents them from being connected with their music.45
Lamenting
the condition of the new generation, which is so preoccupied with the music on
its head, Professor Bloom continues:
But as long
as they have the Walkman on, they cannot hear what the great tradition has to
say. And, after its prolonged use, when they take it off, they find they are
deaf.46
43 Personal
Digital Assistants, also known as 'handheld computers' or 'palmtops.' [Editor]
44 Ron
Chepesiuk, "Decibel Hell: The Effects of Living in a Noisy World,"
Environmental Health Perspectives 113, no. 1 (January 2005): A35-A41.
45 Bloom,
The Closing of the American Mind.
46 Ibid.
Before the
advent of Islam, the method of worship of pagan Arabs of Makkah involved
clapping and singing while they were circumambulating the Kaaba (the House of
Allah), as mentioned in the Qur'an:
“And their
prayer at the House was not except whistling and handclapping ... “ (Qur'an 8:
35)
Today, with
the prevalence of music, the wheel of'jahiliyah has come full circle, bringing
us face to face with the same ancient paganism. Music is present even in the
House of Allah, indicating the pathetic and somnambulant (sleepwalking) state
of some of the Muslims. These days, some Muslims are so obsessed with modem
technology that they are talking on their cell phones while performing tawd]
(the circumambulation of the Kaaba that is one
of the
rites of the pilgrimage to Makkah). As Adnan Malik noted in his January 17,
2005 Associated Press report, their cell phones are ringing, and some have
ringtones set to the musical lyrics of famous pop music singers such as Michael
Jackson. Similarly, some people set their cell phone ringers to music and do
not feel any shame when their cell phones ring with the music while they are in
congregational prayers in the mosques, hence disturbing the concentration of
Muslims standing next to them in prayer. This is the result of the obsession of
some Muslims with music. May Allah (SWT) protect us from such an obsession with
music. Ameen.
Positions of the Companions, the Four
Imams and other Islamic Scholars
8 t is
important to mention here the opinions of the various Companions of the Prophet
Muhammad (PBUH), as well as the tabi 'oon, regarding the position of music in
Islam. Imam Qurtubi, in his tafseer AI-Jam'il-AJ:tkam ul-Qur' an, and Imam
Aloosi, in his tafseer Rooh al-Ma 'ani, mention that the Companions (may Allah
be pleased with them) unanimously agreed that music and singing are prohibited,
but they allowed particular exceptions
specified
by the authentic Sunnah. This includes the four Rightly- guided Caliphs (may
Allah be pleased with them); the jurists among the Companions, such as Ibn
'Abbas, Ibn 'Umar, Ibn Mas 'ood and Jabir ibn Abdullah; and the general body of
the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them all).
Position of the Companions of the
Prophet (m) Abdullah ibn Mas'ood (.)
Ibn Mas’ood
(RA), the distinguished Companion of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), said:
"Singing fosters hypocrisy in the heart." 1
Abdullah ibn
'Abbas (.)
"The
duff is prohibited, and the musical instruments are prohibited.':"
'Uthman ibn
'Affan (.)
"Ever
since I took the pledge on the hand of the Prophet Muhammad (m), I have not
played music, told a lie, or touched my private parts with my right hand.t' '
'Umar ibn
al-Khattab (.)
Once 'Umar
ibn al-Khattab (.) passed by a group of pilgrims. He saw a man singing, and the
rest of them were
listening
to his song. 'Umar ('i..,sb") said to them: "May Allah make you deaf,
may Allah make you deaf." (Ithaf as-Sddatul Muttaqeen )4
'A'ishah
as-Siddeegah, the Mother of the Believers (~) Once 'A'ishah (~"2)' the
wife of the Prophet Muhammad (m), went to the house of her brother, whose
daughters were sick.
When she
got there, she saw a singer with long hair who was
1 Ibn
al-Qayyim, Ighdthat ul-Lahfdn min Mas/i'id ash-Shawano
2 Ibn
al-Qayyim, Igluithat ul-Lahfiin min Masd'id ash-Shaytdn.
3
Suhrawardi, 'Awdrif al-Ma 'drif.
4
Mufti-Mohammad Shafee, Islam and Music, cd. Mohammad 'Abdul-Mu'izz
(Karachi:
Maktaba Darul Uloom, 2002), 14.
trying to
amuse the sick girls by shaking his head as he sang. Upon seeing him, 'A'ishah
(~) immediately ordered: "Oh! This is Satan! Get him out. Get him
out."s
Qasim ibn
Muhammad
Qasim ibn
Muhammad was a nephew and student of 'A'ishah (~), the Mother of the Believers.
He also was one of the well- known 'seven jurists of Madinah.' Once when a man
asked him about music and singing, Qasim replied: "I dislike it and forbid
people from singing." The man further asked: "Is it haram?"
Imam Qasim
said to him: "Listen, my nephew! When Allah is going to separate right
from wrong on the Day of Judgment, where is He going to put music and
singing?"?
When the
commandments of the Qur' an, the hadiths of the beloved Messenger (m), and the
understanding of his Companions (may Allah be pleased with all of them) are all
taken together, it is quite clear that Islam has called for a prohibition on
using and listening to musical instruments. To clarify the point further, the
position of the four great Imams and other Islamic scholars will be presented
in the following pages.
5 Bayhaqi,
Sunan al-Kubrd, ed. Muhammad 'Abdul-Qadir Ata (Beirut: Dar al- Kutub
al-'Ilmiyah, 1423 AH/ 2003 CE). See the chapter on: Testimony, Section 64: The person
who sings and makes it his/her profession. Hadith # 21010, 10:378. j
6 Harith
ibn Asad al-Muhasibi, Risalah al-Mustarshideen (Halb, Maktab al- Matboo'at
al-Islamia, 1383 AH).
Position of the four Imams and other
Islamic scholars
Among the
Islamic scholars, all four imams including Imam Abu Hanifah, Imam Shafi'i, Imam
Malik and Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (may Allah have mercy on them) agree that
listening to music is haram in Islam.
Imam Abu
Haneefah Imam Abu Haneefah (80-148 AH) forbids 'listening to all musical
instruments, all types of tambourines, hand drums, and even the striking of
sticks.' 7
Imam Shafi'i
Imam
Shafi'i (150-204 AH) said about music and singing:
"Verily,
song is loathsome; it resembles the false and vain thing. The one who partakes
of it frequently is an incompetent fool whose testimony is to be rejected."
In
addition, it has been clarified by many of his closest students that Imam
Shafiis position on the issue of music is that of prohibition.
Imam
Malik
As for Imam
Malik (93-179 AH), it is generally understood that he found it to be haram,
except for certain forms of innocent singing (without instruments and without
mixed gatherings), which he allowed. Imam Ibn Taymiyah mentioned that when
7 Aloosi,
Roon al-Ma 'ani.
8 Imam
Muhammad ibn Idrees Shafl 'i, Kitdb al- Umm (Egypt: Maktaba al-
Kulliyiit
al-Azhar, 1381 AH), 8:311.
Is-haq ibn
Moosa asked Imam Malik about the view of people of Madinah regarding singing,
Imam Malik replied: "Here, in fact, that is done only by the sinful
ones.?"
Imam
Ahmad ibn Hanbal
Imam Ahmad
ibn Hanbal (164-241 AH) forbade all but those forms of music that have been
mentioned as exceptions in the Sunnah. Imam Ibn al-Jawzi writes in his book
Talbees Iblees that when Imam Ahmad was asked by Abdullah, his own son and
student, about his position on music, the Imam replied: "Singing sprouts
hypocrisy in the heart; it does not please me." 10
Dahhak
"Music
and singing results in the loss of wealth, anger of Allah and destruction of
the heart." 11
Imam Ibn
Taymiyah
The great
revivalist and Islamic scholar Imam Ibn Taymiyah states in his Majmoo'
al-Fatdwa:
The
madh-hab (school of juristic thought) of the four imams is that all instruments
of musical entertainment are haram. It is authentically related in Saheeh.
al-Bukhari and other compilations that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) foretold that
some of his Ummah would seek to make lawful: fornication, the wearing of silk,
the drinking of wine, and musical instruments (ma 'azif); and that such people
would be turned into apes and swine. The term ma 'azij means musical
9 Shaykh
ul-Islam Ibn Taymiyah,Jalah Waj'd wa Samd' (Lahore: AI-Hilal Book Agency, 1365
AH).
10 Ibn
al-Jawzi, Talbees Iblees.
II Ibid.
entertainment,
as has been mentioned by the scholars of the Arabic language. It is the plural
of mi 'zafah, the instrument upon which one makes musical sounds. None of the
disciples of these imams has mentioned the existence of any dissension from the
consensus on the prohibition of all instruments of musical entertainment. 12
Ibn
'Abdul-Barr
Ibn
'Abdul-Barr said:
Among the
types of earnings which are haram (forbidden) by scholarly consensus are riba
(interest), the fee of a prostitute, bribes, payments for wailing over the dead
and singing, payments to fortune-tellers and astrologers, payments for playing
flutes (musical instruments), and all kinds of gambling. 13
Hasan
al-Basri
Abu Bakr
al-Khallal mentioned that it is reported that Hasan al-Basri, the great teacher
of the purification of hearts, said:
Duffs have
absolutely no relation to the affairs of Muslims, and the students of Abdullah
(ibn Mas 'ood) used to tear them 14 apart.
It must be
noted, however, that according to the works of the Muslim jurists, it is
permissible to play the duff on certain occasions of joy such as weddings,
since that is not designed
12 Shaykh
ul-Islam Ibn Taymiyah, Majmoo: al-Fat/iwa (Riyadh: Mat'ba ar- Riyadh, 1381 AH),
11:576.
13 Ibn
'Abdul-Barr, al-Kiifi, quoted in Shafee, Islam and Music.
14 Muhammad
Nasir ad-Dcen Al-Albani, Tahreem Aldt at-Tarab (The Prohibition of Musical
Instruments) (Egypt: Maktaba Ad-Daleel, 1996).
solely for
entertainment and pleasure but instead for announcements and such.
Harith
ibn Asad al-Muhasibi
One of the
imams of Islamic spirituality, Harith ibn Asad al- Muhasibi, explicitly stated
his position on singing: "Music and singing are prohibited for us just
like the meat of a dead animal is prohibited.t'<'
Junaid
ai-Baghdadi
Another
great authority on tasawwuf (Islamic spirituality), Shaykh Junaid al-Baghdadi,
said: "If you notice that a student of spirituality is asking for
permission to listening to samd' (religious songs), then this means that he
still has spiritual defects in him.'.16
AI-Fudayl
ibn Iyad
This
statement of the great Islamic scholar of the science of purification of
hearts, al-Fudayl ibn Iyad, can be considered no less than an axiom and a
golden rule of thumb: "Ghina' is a
prelude to zina." 17
Imam Abu
Hamid al-Ghazali
Imam
al-Ghazali, after a long discussion about the permissibility of religious
singing in his book IlJya' 'Uloom-
ud-Deen
(Revival of the Islamic Sciences), clarifies that listening to music and
singing that are accompanied by women, the use of musical instruments, or
lustful poetry is completely prohibited in 15 Al-Muhasibi, Risiilali
al-Mustarshideen.
16
Suhrawardi, 'Awdrif al-Ma'drl].
17 Ibid.
Islamic
teachings.i''
Imam
an-Nawawi
Imam
an-Nawawi, the great hadith scholar whose two collections of hadith, Riydd
as-Sdliheen and Forty Hadiths, have gained widespread acceptance in the Muslim
Ummah, said the following about music:
It is
unlawful to use musical instruments - such as those which drinkers are known
for, like the mandolin, lute,
cymbals,
and flute - or to listen to them. It is permissible to play the tambourine
[duff] at weddings, circumcisions, and other times, even if it has bells on its
sides. Beating the kuba, a long drum with a narrow middle, is unlawful.l''
Ibn
Qudamah
Ibn Qudamah
gave the following verdict about listening to music:
Musical
instruments are of three types, which are haram, These are the strings and all
kinds of flutes, and the lute, drum and stringed instruments and so on. Whoever
persists in listening to them, his testimony should be rejected.i"
18 Imam Abu
Hamid Al-Ghazali, Il;ya' 'Uloom ud-Deen (Karachi: Darul Isha 'at Publishers,
1978).
19 Muhammad
ash-Shirbini aI-Khatib and Yahya ibn Sharaf an-Nawawi, Mughni al-Muhtaj, quoted
in Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller, Reliance of the Traveller (Maryland: Amana
Publications, 1994), 775.
20 Muwaffaq
ad-Deen Ibn Qudamah, Al-Mughni. (Egypt: Dar aI-Minar, 1367 AH), 9:173.
Shaykh
Shahab ud-Deen Suhrawardi
Renowned
Islamic scholar Shaykh Shahab ud-Deen Suhrawardi is the founder of the
Suhrawardi school of
spirituality.
He authored a book entitled 'Awdrif al-Ma'drif, which can be regarded as the
magnum opus, or masterpiece, on the subject of the science of purification of
the hearts. He devoted two chapters of the book to singing; in the first
chapter, he discussed the permissibility of religious singing, and in the
second chapter, the prohibition of other types of singing. Throughout the
entire discussion, he did not deviate in the slightest from the stand of the
Prophet's Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) and the mainstream
Islamic scholars: that religious singing is permissible only under limited
conditions. He writes in the second chapter:
When people
indulge in sama' (listening to religious singing), they waste a lot of time.
The taste in their prayers is reduced. Those people become addicted to going to
the gatherings of sama'. In order to seek pleasure from the singers, they
arrange for these get-togethers more and more frequently, even though it is not
a hidden matter that Sufi scholars consider such kind of gatherings as
impermissible and rejected."
Abu Ali
ar-Rudhbari
Another
scholar of the science of purification of the heart, Shaykh Abu Ali
ar-Rudhbari, was once asked about a man who sought pleasure with musical
instruments and claimed that "such an act is halal (permissible) for me
because I have reached such a (spiritual) station that differen~conditions do
not affect me."
21
Suhrawardi, 'Awdri] al-Ma'drif.
Shaykh
Abu Ali retorted: "Yes, that person has reached a station. But where?
In the hellfire!,,22
Shaykh
Ahmad Sirhindi Faroogi
Shaykh
Ahmad Sirhindi Farooqi (also known as Mujaddid Alf Thdni, or 'reviver of the
second millenimum') was largely responsible for the reassertion and revival of
Islam in India in the second millennium AH against the Moghul emperor Akbar and
his anti-Islamic government. He wrote:
Religious
music, singing and dancing in reality belong to amusement and vain play ....
There are so many Qur'anic
verses,
hadiths and narrations of scholars of Islamic jurisprudence about prohibition
of music and singing that it is
hard to
count them. In spite of that, if someone tries to bring an abrogated hadith or
unreliable narration to prove the permissibility of music, then his claim will
be rejected because no Islamic jurist in any period in Islamic history has
given a fatwa in favour of music and singing or dancing.... Some immature Sufis
of our times, by using the actions of their teachers as a pretext, have made
religious music and singing as their religion and consider it as a form of
worship. The Qur' an tells us about such people:
~Who took
their religion as distraction and arnusement.s (Qur'an 7: 51)
... All
praise is due to Allah, and it is of His blessings that our spiritual teachers
did not suffer from this disease and kept followers like us away from such
matters.t''
22 Ibn
Hajar Al-Haythami Al-Makki, Kaff ar-Ra'fi, quoted in Shafee, Islam and Music.
23 Shaykh
Ahmad Farooqi Sirhindi, Maktubdt Mujaddid Alf Thdni (Collected=
Shaykh I
Abdul-Aziz ibn Bilz
Shaykh 'Abdul-Aziz
ibn Baz, who was the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and an authority on Islamic
sciences, issued the following verdict about music and singing:
Listening
to music and singing is haram, and it is an evil practice. It hardens the
hearts and prevents people from
remembrance
of Allah and establishing the prayers.i"
Shaykh
Nuh Ha Mim Keller
Nuh Ha Mim
Keller is a contemporary scholar. Formerly a Catholic, he became Muslim in 1977
at al-Azhar in Cairo and later studied the traditional Islamic sciences of
Hadith, Shafi'i and I:IanafiJiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), legal methodology and
tenets of faith in Syria and in Jordan, where he has lived since 1980. He has
the following to say about music:
Some people
claim that recorded music is not actually music because it comes from
recording, and it does not come from a musician. This is an unreliable
position, because the amount of revenue generated by the recorded music in the
U.S. in the year 2002 was around 12 billion U.S. dollars, and the amount for live
musicians was 1.7 billion U.S. dollars. So obviously they are not buying it
because it is not music. There are six Saheeli (authentic) hadiths that
expressly forbid musical instruments. Hence, ifthere is fear of Allah ttaqwd)
and faith (eemdn) in the
heart, the
ruling is clear, i.e., the primary basis for musical
=Letters),
trans. Syed Zawwar Hussain Shah (Karachi: Idara Mujaddadia, n.d.), Book 1,
Letter 266.
24 Abu Sad,
Playing and Listening to Music and Singing: In Light of Qur'an and Sunnab (in
Urdu) (Karachi: Dar-ut-Taqwa, 2003).
instruments
is that they are forbidden (J;aram). It is clear from the hadiths, and the
hadiths are authentic in their chains of transmitters. There is no doubt that
the Prophet (PBUH) said it, and he said it for our benefit.... What is music?
If you look at the nature of music, it is pure, unadulterated expression of the
musician's self (naJs). So why let it into your nafs ... ?
People who
think it is permissible to listen to records and jazz concerts are blind, and
the jurists (juqaha) who give out legal verdicts (fatawa) making music
permissible are blind, because part of fatwa consists in 'purification of the
self' (tazkiyatun- naJs). Allah tells us in the Qur'an what the Islamic Law
(Sharia) is doing in our lives:
~He has
succeeded who purifies it [his own self]~ (Qur'an 91: 9)
This is the
fatwa interest. It is not to let people do anything they want. The interest of
fatwa is often lost sight of in our times by the jurists (muftis) who often do
not have any clue about it and do not know about tazkiyatun-nafs - what will be
the effect of music on the soul of the person that you are giving the fatwa to,
what will happen to his religion (de en) when you give him this fatwa. This is
an interest that the person giving the fatwa must be conscious of it and he
must be observing. And how many people giving legal verdicts (fatwas) are not
jurists (muftis) in our times, even if they memorized all the books of all the
schools of thought (madh-habs) and they are Imam of al-Azhar or whoever else.
If they gave the fatwa that music is OK, then they do not understand the effect
of music on human psyche (nafs)25
25 Shaykh
Nuh Ha Mim Keller, "Is Listening to the Recorded Music Permissible?"
,
http://www.sunnipath.comlResources/Questions/QA00004456.aspx.
Permission=
Muhammad
Taqi Usmani (former Justice)
Renowned
Islamic scholar and former Judge of the Islamic Sharia Court of Pakistan,
Muhammad Taqi Usmani, writes:
At the time
of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and during the time of his Companions,
non-Muslim people of the world were fond of musical and other entertainments.
It was quite possible to create such entertainments in order to convey the
message of Islam to them, but the Companions of Prophet Muhammad (~) did not
try to amuse people by dramas, music and plays; instead, they conquered the
hearts of people by presenting their exemplary character to them ... Today, if
we are not willing to change our non-Islamic habits and customs for the sake of
Islamic preaching, and we want to propagate the message of Islam by merely
making dramas, musical shows and films, then only Shay tan could be the
inventor of such ideas.i"
Conditions under which
Singing is Permissible
Since it
was mentioned in the above discussion that certain exceptions do exist, they
will be elucidated here. The exception concerns singing and playing the duff on
the occasions of celebrations. As far as the rest of
the musical instruments (other than the duff) are concerned, they are not
permissible under any circumstances. It must also be noted that most
of the music employed these days in weddings goes beyond the Islamic zone of
=to use
this quote was confirmed in a personal communication from Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim
Keller; for further information, consult http://www.sunnipath.com.
26 Justice
Muhammad Taqi Usmani, Isldh-e-Muashara (in Urdu) (Reform of
Society)
(Karachi: Maktaba Darnl Uloom, 1998).
permissibility,
The duff is a round hand drum that resembles a tambourine without the metal
disc attachments. We know that it was allowed on special occasions, like
weddings and Eids (the two Islamic celebrations, one at the end of the fasting
month of Ramadan and the other at the culmination of the hajj).
We find
this in the following hadiths: «It has been narrated by 'A'ishah (RA), the
wife of the Prophet, that once the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) came home, and at
that time, two little girls were singing songs about the battle of Buath. The Prophet
(PBUH) lay down on the bed and turned his face away. Then Abu Bakr came and scolded
her, saying: These musical instruments of Satan in the house of the Prophet of Allah
(SWT)! Prophet Muhammad turned to him and said: Leave them.
In the
words of 'A'ishah (~): When Abu Bakr got busy in other matters, I told the two
girls to leave, and they left. That was the day of Eid.
The
Abyssinians were playing in the mosque with shields and lances. Then either I
asked the Messenger (PBUH), or he himself said: Do you want to have a look? I
said yes, so he let me stand behind him, with my cheeks against his cheeks, and
said: Carry on, Banu Arfidah. When I became bored, he asked: Is that enough for
you? I said yes. He said: Then you may leave.» (Bukhari)
Muhammad
ibn Hatib al-Jumahi relates that the Messenger of Allah (SWT) said: «The
difference between the unlawful and the lawful (in marriage celebrations) is
the duff and the voice.» (recorded by Ibn Majah and Tinnidhi, who considered
its chain of narration reliable)
«It was
narrated by 'A'ishah (RA) that when she prepared a lady as a bride for a man
from the An.~ar [the Muslim citizens of Madinah who gave refuge to the Prophet
(PBUH) and the other Muslim emigrants from Makkah], the Prophet (PBUH) said: O'A'ishah!
Haven't you got any amusement (for the wedding), as the Ansar like amusement?»
(Bukhari)
Hence, on the occasions of
marriage and Eid, we have been allowed the singing and the duff as the previous
hadiths clearly specify.
In Conclusion: the legal ruling on
listening to music and singing
I
As stated
in the beginning of the book, in Islamic Sharia, the correct approach to an
issue is an essential element in deriving a ruling. This requires that we
understand the Islamic commandments through the text of the Qur' an and the
Sunnah. Then we take that understanding and apply it to the issue as it exists
in reality. By combining our understanding from the Qur'an and the Sunnah and
applying it to the issue, we derive the fatwa on the permissibility or
impermissibility of the issue at hand. In doing so, we also look at the harms
and the benefits related to the issue. The approach of the Islamic Sharia is to
weigh the benefits and harms of everything, because the ultimate aim of Sharia
is to benefit the society.
We can
dissect the problem into three parts:
1. Musical
instruments such as duffs, pianos, guitars and fiutes
2. Lyrics
3. Singers or composers
We have
looked at the evidence from the Qur' an and the Sunnah regarding music and
singing. We have also looked at the positions taken by the Companions of the
Prophet (may Allah be pleased with them) as well as our great Imams and other
Islamic scholars. Furthermore, we have scientifically looked at the harms
caused by music to individuals and the society. Hence, when we apply our
understanding from all of these sources to the issue of
listening
to music and singing, we give the following decisive ruling with regards to
music:
Musical
instruments that are designed solely for entertainment are haram, with or
without singing. Moreover, the use of the sounds of musical instruments
generated by any means whatsoever (digitally produced or computer-generated or
even produced by the mouth of the singer) is also haram. However, the majority
of Islamic scholars permit the use of the duff when played on special occasions
by men or women in separate-gender gatherings. Note that the natural sounds
(such as the waterfall sound or chirping of the birds) used in songs do not
constitute
musical
sounds.
As far as
the songs are concerned, if their lyrics consist of anything that is unlawful,
if the environment in which singing is carried out is unlawful (such as singing
in mixed gender gatherings, vain amusement and entertainment, and singing by
professional singers), or if they prevent one from his or her obligatory
duties, then they are haram. If the songs are free from the above-mentioned
things, and they are NOT accompanied by any musical instruments (except the
duff) or the sound of musical instruments generated by any means whatsoever
(such as digitally produced or computer-generated), then it is permissible to
sing them.
Critical Analysis of Arguments Used in Favour of 'Islamic'
Music
8s there
such a thing as 'Islamic' music? Can we listen to 'Islamic' music? Can music be
used to further the noble cause of the spread of Islam? Is the subject of music
a highly controversial issue in Islam? The purpose of this chapter is to
provide answers to all these questions by logically analyzing some of the
arguments that some Muslims use in favour of music.
If we
simply look at the Islamic history, we will notice that there is not a single
Islamic scholar who took music as his profession. Since human nature needs
novelty, Islam is acutely aware of the fact that even religious music
eventually leads to haram music. In fact, there is nothing Islamic about
'Islamic music,' just like the terms 'Islamic bingo' or 'Islamic beer' or
'Islamic socialism' do not exist in the vocabulary of Islam. If we put the
'halal' label on a beer bottle, it will not make it pure; that is only a
deception to the eyes. Alcohol can still not be
used to inspire us for any noble cause or simply as a mild entertainment.
Similarly,
if we recite the name of Allah (SWT) while slaughtering a pig, this will not
make the pork halal. By the same token, if we call the interest (earned on our
money deposited in the banks) a profit, it will still be usury, which is
absolutely forbidden in Islam.
So it is
manifestly erroneous for Muslims - particularly some scholars who follow the
so-called 'modernist' trend set by modernist scholars and intellectuals - to
use terms such as 'Islamic music.' They confuse Islam and music and are thus
responsible for the confusion of Muslims and for leading them astray. Some of
them even suggest that the Companions and tabi 'oon listened to music and
singing, and that they saw nothing wrong with it. However, they cannot produce
hadiths with authentic chains of narration going back to these Companions and
tabi 'oon, which would prove what they falsely attribute to them with respect
to music. Imam Muslim mentioned in his introduction to his Saheeh. Muslim that
Abdullah ibn Mubarak said: "The chain of narration is part of religion.
Were it not for the chain of narration, whoever wanted to could say whatever he
wanted to."
Listening
to music is a non-Islamic practice that has been clearly prohibited by Allah
(SWT) and His Messenger (PBUH), so there can never be such a reality as
'Islamic music.' Music and Islam are as far apart from each other as East and
West. Based on the evidence from the Qur' an, the Sunnah and the verdicts of
the Islamic scholars, we can say:
Oh! Music
is music, and Islam is Islam, And never the twain shall meet.
In the
following pages, we will address some of the most common arguments put forward
by people in favour of music.
The
response to each argument contains a critical and logical analysis of that
argument.
Prohibition of music - Is it a
controversial
issue or a matter of consensus in
Islam?
Argument:
Music is a
highly controversial issue in Islamic fiqh. Many eminent scholars have considered
it forbidden, but there are other eminent scholars - classical and contemporary
- who permit singing and the use of musical instruments.
Response:
The best
question to ask such people is: "Are you able to name one scholar who
claimed that music was a highly controversial issue in Islamic fiqh?"
No doubt it
is true that some contemporary scholars hold the usage of musical instruments
permissible, with certain conditions attached. Nevertheless, it does not render
the issue a controversial one in Islamic law.
Here we
must understand a fundamental maxim that rules the Islamic spirit and law. The
fact that a handful of scholars hold a view that opposes the overwhelming
majority neither makes the issue controversial nor makes the difference a
tolerable one. This axiom is agreed upon among the jurists, and this becomes
apparent when they discuss the principle that states: "There is NO censure
in issues of disagreement, while the censure is only in
issues of
consensus." 1
The
scholars explained the meaning of 'issues of disagreement' by stating that odd
or weak opinions are
I Haytham
bin Jawwad AI-Haddad, "Music: A Simple Matter of Disagreement?",
accessed June 1, 2007, http://www.islarnicawakening.com.
excluded
from this principal altogether, rendering them open for censure. For this
reason, Ibn al-Qayyim, in his work I'ldm al- Muwaqqi 'een, explains at length
the difference between issues subject to ijtihdd (using one's knowledge of the
Qur'an and the Sunnah to derive rulings on matters not specifically mentioned
in either source of Islamic law) with conditions attached, and issues not
subject to ijtihad, even if there may be scholars who held a contrary opinion.
Failing to
differentiate between the two issues, or not implementing this rule, leads to
major legal problems.? In fact, this may lead to the destruction of the Ummah.
Although this might come as a surprise to us, it is important that we open our
hearts and minds to certain truths. If we were to read through the works on
comparative Islamic fiqh, especially the voluminous manuals such as al-Mughni,
al-Majmoo', FatIJ al-Bdri, 'Umdat al-Qiiri or at- Tamheed, we would rarely find
a legal issue that is free from any dispute; and if we were to accommodate
differences at every legal dispute, we would end up with no Islam at all. It is
precisely for this reason that the scholars would often say: "One who
deliberately seeks out religious allowances becomes a heretic."
It must be
noted that just because there happens to be any level of difference of opinion
over an issue, this does not necessarily render the difference as a tolerable
one. The tolerable difference is where there is room for ijtihad, which occurs
only when the difference of opinions is a major one. Moreover, it must be
performed objectively and sincerely. 3
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
Having said
that, let us focus our attention on the tiny minority of scholars in the past
who have been reported as considering music to be permissible; they include Ibn
Hazm, Shawkani, an- Nabulsi and al-Ghazali. It must be noted that none of those
scholars lived in the first two centuries after the death of the Prophet (m).
In the period closer to Prophet Muhammad (m), his Companions and the pious
predecessors, pioneers of Islamic tasawwuf and all four great Imams, music and
singing accompanied with music were considered prohibited in Islam.
Ibn Hazm
did not accept the hadith of Saheen al-Bukhari regarding the prohibition of
music. Ibn Hazm was no doubt a virtuous and astute scholar, but his personality
was full of contradictory qualities. He belonged to the school of Dhahiri fiqh
(those who apply only literal wordings of Qur'an and Sunnah in assessment of
judicial issues), which is obsolete and outdated now. In the area of Hadith
assessment and verification, Ibn Hazm held some very abnormal and unfounded
views. Al-Hafidh ibn 'Abdul-Hadi, the accomplished Hadith scholar and student
ofIbn Taymiyah, says of Ibn Hazm that "he often errs in his critical
assessment of the degrees of traditions and on the conditions of their
narrators.'?" For example, he was not even aware of the name of Imam
Tirmidhi, the famous compiler of the hadiths and student of Imam Bukhari.
Al-Hafidh
Dhahabi writes about Ibn Hazm:
Ibn Hazm's
statement that Imam Tirmidhi is majhool (unknown) is a baseless claim. In fact,
Ibn Hazm was
4 Hafidh Shams ud-Deen Abu Abdullah AI-Maqdisi
Ibn 'Abdul-Hadi Al- Hanbali, Tabaqiit Ulamd al-lfadeeth (Beirut: AI-Resalah
Publishing House, 1996 CEI1417 AH).
completely
unaware of Imam Tirmidhi and his book of hadiths Jdmi' Tirmidhi.i
Al-I:IMidh
Ibn I:Iajar al- 'Asqalani, a well-known Hadith scholar, has the following to
say about Ibn Hazm:
Ibn Hazm
possessed great memory, but due to his excessive reliance on memory, he often
made errors in his critical assessment of the degrees of hadiths and on the
conditions of their narrators, and he would often suffer from the worst kind of
whims."
As far as
Imam al-Ghazali is concerned, he clarifies in his book IJ:tya' 'Uloom-ud-Deen
(after a long discussion about the permissibility of religious singing) that
listening to music and singing accompanied by women, musical instruments, or
lustful poetry is completely haram in Islamic teachings." Hence, we can
see that Imam al-Ghazali placed strict conditions on listening to religious
music. When we look at the most sophisticated musical instruments today, the
environment in which music is played, and the lyrics of the songs, it is clear
that all the prerequisite conditions for listening to religious music that were
set forth by people like Imam al-Ghazali are nullified. This makes the act of
listening to music, and singing accompanied by it, an impermissible act based
on the standards set forth by Imam al-Ghazali.
Contemporary
Islamic researcher Khalid Baig, in his path- breaking book Slippery Stone,
discusses the position of al-Ghazali in the following words:
5 Hafidh
Shamsud-Deen Dhahabi, Mizdnul E'tid/il (Cairo: Dar al- II:1ya' Kutub al-
'Arabiyya, 1382 AH).
6 Ibn Hajar
al-tAsqalani, Lisdnul Miziin, ed. Shaykh 'Abdul-Fattah Abu Ghuddah (Beirut:
1423 AHI 2002 CE).
7
Al-Ghazali, IlJya' 'Uloom ud-Deen.
Interestingly,
most people who refer to his arguments seem to forget his conditions. For
example, few realize that al-Ghazali declared sama' to be impermissible for the
youth, the target audience of most music business today. In other words, music
fans have found in al-Ghazali a convenient prop on which to hang the
justification for their indulgence. But this is an exception of al-Ghazali,
Anyone who wants to seriously understand the issue must not separate
al-Ghazalis conditions from his arguments. When that is done, those invoking
al- Ghazali in support of their license may be in for a rude shock. Al-Ghazali
does use words like haram and makrooh [disliked] for activities and conditions
that describe most of what is going on today even in the nasheed [Islamic
songs] department, let
alone the
secular music.f Let's take the case of scholars like 'Abdul-Ghani an-Nabulsi,
who was of the opinion that religious music is permissible, The verse of
soorat al-Jumu 'ah (Friday), which mildly rebukes amusement during the time of
prayers, says:
~And
when they see some merchandise or amusement, they break away to it, and leave
you [O Prophet] standing. Say: What is with Allah is better than amusement and
merchandise, and Allah is the best of providers.s (Qur'an 62:11)
An-Nabulsi
claimed that the way amusement has been mentioned in this verse shows that
there seems to be nothing
8 Khalid
Baig, Slippery Stone: an Inquiry into Islam's Stance on Music
(Garden
Grove, CA: Open Mind Press, 2008),
wrong with
it.9 He tried unsuccessfully to use this argument in defense of religious
singing, and the widely circulated fatwa of al- Azhar also copied this argument
in an attempt to prove that music and singing are Iegitimate.!" This
reasoning has been very strongly refuted by the famous commentator on the Qur'
an Mahmood Aloosi:
Shaykh
'Abdul-Ghani al-Nabulsi, may Allah forgive him, argued for the permissibility
of lahwa from this verse of soorat al-Jumu 'ah. You should know that that is
based on a claim and a misconception. Even stranger is his argument from the
conjunction between permissible trade and lahwa in the beginning of the verse.
And that is also weird that he wrote epistles to show their permissibility that
are used by a group attributed to Mawlana Jalal ad-Deen ar-Roomi. These
epistles revolve around arguments that are weaker than the waist of the baby
gazelle ... These are baseless lies that no sensible person can accept. 11
Regarding
Shawkani's position on music; it seems that he just followed Ibn Hazm due to
his love for the Dhahiri school of thought, which was initially strengthened by
Ibn Hazm but is almost obsolete today. Otherwise, all the major Hanbali
scholars - Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Imam Ibn Taymiyah, Ibn al-Jawzi,
9
'Abdul-Ghani an-Nabulsi, ItjiilJ ad-Daldlat fee Sarna' al-Allit (Explaining the
Arguments for Listening to Instruments) (Damascus: 1302 AH).
10 Dar
al-Ifta al-Masriyah, http://www.dar-alifta.org, fatwa number 3280, dated 12
August 1980, quoted in Baig, Slippery Stone: An Inquiry into Islam's Stance on
Music. This ruling was given by the Grand Mufti and Shaykh of Cairo's Al-Azhar,
which has been a major centre of Islamic learning for over a thousand years.
Michael Mumisa's English translation of this fatwa has been widely promoted by
a Muslim music business in the UK.
11 Aloosi,
Roon al-Ma 'ani, soorat al-Jumu 'ah, verse 11, 28: 417.
Ibn
al-Qayyim, Ibn Qudamah and others - regarded music as forbidden in Islam. 12
The
assumption about music being a controversial topic only underlines the lack of
research on one's part. It has been clearly shown in this book that the vast
majority of the scholars throughout Islamic history have agreed that music is
forbidden.
An obvious
question that arises here is how can the vast majority of scholars from all
legal schools throughout the past fourteen centuries agree on the prohibition
of musical instruments, while the truth happens to be to the contrary? Would it
not occur to us that by adopting the other view, we are implicitly imputing
error on the part of a vast majority of the scholars throughout the past
fourteen centuries? Why would Allah (SWT) order us on the one hand:
“ ... So
ask the people of the message if you do not know.”
(Qur'an 16:
43)
while the Prophet
(PBUH) declared that the scholars are the inheritors of the prophets:
«Certainly, the scholars are the inheritors of the prophets, for indeed the
prophets did not leave behind dinars (gold) or dirhams (silver), but (they left
their) knowledge. Whoever accepts it receives a great fortune.» (a sound hadith
recorded by Abu Dawood)
Yet, on the
other hand, such a vast majority of the scholars would consent to an invalid
legal opinion for over fourteen centuries?
Would this
not, in turn, cast doubt on the integrity of Islam, which was conveyed to us by
none other than these scholars?
12 See
Chapter 5 for references to the Hanbali scholars mentioned here.
Hence, we
should not wonder why and how a scholar would oppose such a vast majority of
the scholars. The question more worthy of springing to mind is: How could such
a vast majority of scholars be wrong in believing musical instruments to be
forbidden?
To sum up,
both Imam Qurtubi (in his tafseer Ahkdm ul- Qur'dn) and Imam Aloosi (in his
tafseer Rooli al-Ma'dni)
mention
that the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) unanimously agreed upon
the prohibition of music and singing but allowed particular exceptions
specified by the authentic Sunnah. This includes the four Rightly-guided
Caliphs and the jurists among the Companions such as Ibn 'Abbas, Ibn 'Umar, Ibn
Mas 'ood and Jabir ibn Abdullah, as well as the general body of Companions (may
Allah be pleased with them). Imam Ibn Taymiyah wrote:
The view of
the four Imams is that all kinds of musical instruments are haram, It was
reported in Saheeli al-Bukhdri and elsewhere that the Prophet (PBUH) said that
there would be among his Ummah those who would allow zina, silk, alcohol and musical instruments, and he said that they
would be transformed into monkeys and pigs ... None of the followers of the
Imams mentioned any dispute concerning the matter of music. (Majmoo' al-Fatdwa,
11/576)
Unintentional hearing of music
Argument:
How can we
consider music to be forbidden in Islam when there is music everywhere? When we
go to supermarkets, offices, restaurants, or stores, we are bombarded with
music. There is no way to escape music in this technological age.
Response:
There is a
difference between listening and hearing. If we happen to hear music against
our free will, while we are in a certain public place, this does not justify
listening to music. Imam Ibn Taymiyah commented on this matter:
Concerning
(music) which a person does not intend to listen to, there is no prohibition or
blame, according to scholarly consensus. Hence blame or praise is connected to
listening, not to hearing. The one who listens to the Qur' an will be rewarded
for it, whereas the one who hears it without intending or wanting to will not be
rewarded for that, because actions are judged by intentions. The same applies
to musical instruments that are forbidden: if a person hears them without
intending to, that does not matter. (Majmoo' al-Fatdwa, 10/78)
Answers
to some commonly raised objections
Argument:
We are
listening to music and singing because everybody in the society is doing so.
Response:
The Qur' an
tells us that the fact that something is done by the majority of people is not
a justification to make it permissible.
Music has been
prohibited by Allah (SWT) and His Messenger (PBUH).
In fact,
each of the prophets of Allah (peace be upon them all) came to this world at a
time when the majority of people were not obeying Allah (SWT), to such an
extent that the deviance appeared to be the norm in the society. The Qur'an
tells us not to follow the majority:
“If you
follow most of those upon the earth, they will mislead you from the way of
Allah. They follow nothing but assumption, and they are not but falsifying.s
(Qur'an 6: 116)
The Qur' an
also says:
“ ... And
indeed, disobedient, many among the people are defiantly
(Qur'an 5:
49)
The
criterion between truth and falsehood is not the majority; it is the Qur' an
and Sunnah. Any act or custom that passes the criteria set forth by the Qur' an
and Sunnah is the truth. Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, the famous poet of Islam, said in
one of his poetic verses:
Falsehood
likes dual nature (hypocrisy) whereas truth is one.
Do not
accept the compromise of truth and falsehood.
(Kulliyat
Iqbal)
Argument:
If this
thing (music) is prohibited in Islam, why was this not clearly mentioned in the
Qur'an? We only obey the
commandments
of the Qur' an.
Response:
This is
another excuse propounded by people who indulge in the actions prohibited in
Islam. This objection, which is not new, was raised by many hedonists
(pleasure-seekers) and apologetics, as well as modernist Muslims, over the
entire course of Islamic history. The Qur'an provides clear and conclusive
proof of the prohibition of music in Islam, but we must go to the Sunnah of the
Messenger of Allah (SWT) for further clarification of any commandment of Islam.
The Qur' an is general and does not go into the fine details of the various
commandments; it directs us to follow Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) for guidance. The
Qur' an tells us clearly:
“ ... And
whatever the Messenger has given you - take. And whatever he has forbidden you
- refrain from ... “(Qur'an 59: 7)
Mohammad
Asad explains that the rejection of the Sunnah by some of the present day Muslims
is the outcome of an inferiority complex from which those Muslims suffer when
they are confronted with the dazzling Western civilization. He notes: This
'Westernization' is the strongest reason why the Traditions of our Prophet and,
along with them, the whole structure of the Sunnah have become so unpopular
today. The Sunnah is so obviously opposed to the fundamental ideas underlying
Western civilization that those who are fascinated by the latter see no way out
of the tangle but to describe the Sunnah as an irrelevant and tlterefore not
compulsory, aspect of Islam - because it is 'based on unreliable Traditions.'
After that, it becomes easier to twist the teachings of the Qur' an in such a
way that they appear to suit the spirit of Western civilization. 13
13 Muhammad
Asad, Islam at the Crossroads (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf Publishers, 1991).
Our beloved
Prophet (PBUH) prophesized in his hadiths about the kind of people among
Muslims who would raise such objections to the commandments of Islam. One hadith
narrated by Abu Rafi' goes as follows: «Let me not find one of you reclining on
his couch when he hears something regarding me, which I have commanded or
forbidden, saying: We do not know. What we found in Allah's Book, we have
followed only that.» (recorded by
Abu Dawood
and graded as sound by al-Albani)
In another
hadith narrated by al-Miqdam ibn Ma'dikarib, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) warned us:
«Beware! I have been given the Qur' an and something like it, yet the time is
coming when a man replete on his couch will say: Keep to the Qur' an; what you
find in it to be permissible, treat as permissible, and what you find in it to
be prohibited, treat as prohibited.» (recorded by Abu Dawood and graded as
sound by al-Albani)
Argument:
I am
listening to music just to kill time.
Response:
First of
all, the person must realize that we do not kill time.
Actually,
it is time that kills us. With every breath, with every tick of the clock, as
the time passes, we get closer to our final destination, to our grave, to our
death:
~And that
to everything] )
your Lord
[Allah] is the finality [return of (Qur'an 53: 42)
The Prophet
(PBUH) spoke to us about how much we lose when we waste our time, saying:
«There are two blessings that many people squander: health and time.» (Bukhari)
One cannot
dispute the fact that spending time in any entertainment consumes time that
ought to be reserved for carrying out religious obligations and doing good
deeds. We all know that we will be standing before Allah (SWT) to be questioned
about how we spent our time. Did we spend our time wisely, or did we just kill
it? Abi Barza Aslami narrated that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said: «No one will
be permitted to turn his two feet away on the Day of Resurrection until he is
questioned about the following: about his life, how he spent it; his knowledge,
how much he acted upon it; his wealth, how he earned it and spent it; and his
body, how he employed it.» (a reliable hadith recorded by Tirmidhi)
Islam does
not like people involving themselves in trivial pursuits. Furthermore, even if
we accept that the persons who say, "I am just killing time by listening
to music," are doing what they say, then they are also killing something
else - their sense of morality, which is a major loss.
Hadith
about two girls singing to 'Nishah, the Mother of the Believers
Argument:
Music is
permissible in Islam because it is mentioned in a hadith that two girls were
singing to 'A'ishah (~,), the Mother of the Believers, and at that time,
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was there. In addition, there is another hadith about
the Abyssinians playing in the mosque of the Prophet in which the Prophet (PBUH)
showed them to 'A'ishah (~). These hadiths can be used as p evidence that music
and singing is allowed in Islam.
Response:
People who
try to make music permissible quote the hadith of 'A'ishah (~), which is as
follows: «It has been narrated by 'A'ishah, the wife of the Prophet (PBUH),
that once Abu Bakr (~) came to her home, and at that time, two Ansari girls
were singing songs about the battle of Buath. They were not professional
singers. Abu Bakr scolded her, saying: These musical instruments of Satan in
the house of the Prophet of Allah (SWT)! It was the day
of Eid, so
Allah's Messenger said to him: 0 Abu Bakr, there is an Eid for every people,
and this is our Eid day.» (Bukhari)
Another
version of this hadith provides additional details about this incident: «It has
been narrated by 'A'ishah (~), the wife of the Prophet, that once the Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH) came home, and at that time, two little girls were singing songs about
the battle of Buath. The Prophet (PBUH) lay down on the bed and turned his face
away. Then Abu Bakr came and scolded her, saying: These musical instruments of
Satan in the house of the Prophet of Allah (~)! Prophet Muhammad turned to him
and said: Leave them. In the words of 'A'ishah (~J When Abu Bakr got busy in
other matters, I told the two girls to leave, and they left. That was the day
of Eid. The Abyssinians were playing in the mosque with shields and lances.
Then either I asked the Messenger (PBUH), or he himself said: Do you want to
have a look? I said yes, so he let me stand behind him, with my cheek against
his cheek, and said:
Carry on,
Banu Arfidah. When I became bored, he asked: Is that enough for you? I said
yes. He said: Then you may leave.» (Bukhari)
1. The first of these hadiths, which is
widely quoted by people who try to justify the permissibility of music, has the
Arabic sentence 'Endi jdriyatdni tughanniydni, which translates as
"There
were two little girls who were singing." While explaining the word jariyah
in 'Umdatul Qiiri, his commentary of Saheeb al-Bukhdri, Shaykh Ai 'nee writes:
"Among women, jdriyah. refers to a little girl who has not reached the age
of puberty, just like ghuldm refers to a little boy who has not reached the age
of puberty." 14 This kind of singing is in no way similar to the kind of
singing by sexually attractive female singers in the present day. In fact, in
Islam there is no room for gatherings where men and women freely mix with each
other and listen to each other's singing, even on the occasions of marriage or
Eid.
2. In both versions of this hadith, it
is stated that Abu Bakr objected to the singing by those girls. This in itself
shows that
Abu Bakr
must have heard of the prohibition of music and singing from Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH), and that is why he thought that this prohibition included every
instance. The Messenger of Allah (SWT) clarified to Abu Bakr that on the
occasion of Eid, it is permissible (with limitations). In addition, the Prophet
Muhammad (PBUH) did not express his pleasure with this act. For this reason, he
did not participate in the act, as he might have done if it were a commendable
act; instead he turned his face away.15 There is a difference between hearing
something and listening to something.
3. Commenting on the above-mentioned
hadiths of 'A'ishah (~) in Bukhari, Imam Baghawi writes:
The poetic
verses those girls were singing (in the hadith of al- Bukhari) were about
battle and bravery, and in their
mentioning
there was a support to a religious matter (jihad).
14 Hasan
'Abdul-Ghaffar, "Islam and Music", Meesiiq, January 2003.
15 Aloosi,
Roof; al-Ma 'ani, vol. 21.
Otherwise,
those poetic verses, which discuss lewdness and evil deeds and express
forbidden (haram) matters, are not allowed to be recited in a song. That is
why, if such verses were sung in front of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), he would
have spoken against it.16
4. 'A'ishah (~~J, the Mother of the
Believers, herself considered singing to be prohibited. That is why, in the
first hadith of Bukhari mentioned above, she made a point of saying that these
two girls were not professional singers. Al-Hafidh Ibn Hajar al- 'Asqalani
writes in explaining this hadith:
From this
hadith, a group of Sufis has taken the proof of permissibility of singing and
listening to singing. However, to refute their false claim, that portion of the
hadith is enough in which 'A'ishah (~ob) clarified that those two girls were
not 0' professional singers. Thus, if there was any doubt that might arise from
the early wordings of the hadith, she eliminated that doubt. (Fatli al-Bdri,
vol. 2)
In fact,
some of the scholars of Hadith have considered the narrations of 'A'ishah (~),
the Mother of the Believers, in Saheeli al-Bukhdri about the singing of girls
as a proof and censure against music and singing. For example, Shaykh 'Abdul-
Haqq Muhaddith Dehlavi states:
Some people
have used the hadeeth of Jdriyatain (tradition about two girls) as a proof for
the permissibility of singing but the truth of the matter is that this
tradition is a proof against singing except at certain occasions such as Eid...
The maximum that can be proved from this tradition is that on certain occasions
such as Eid, etc. there is permission of
16 Imam
Baghawi, Sharah as-Sunnah, vol. 4 quoted in Shafee, Islam and Music.
singing.
Otherwise, it is hardm and it is still a musical instrument of Satan as it is
obvious from the tradition. 17
It must be
noted here that the singing that Shaykh 'Abdul-Haqq is referring to as haram is
singing that is accompanied by musical instruments or singing consisting of
anything unlawful in Islam.
Some people
use the portion of this hadith about the Abyssinians playing in the mosque of
the Prophet (PBUH) as evidence
that singing is allowed. However, they never mention that Bukhari included this
hadith in his Saheeli under the heading 'Chapter on Spears and Shields on the
Day of Eid.' Those Abyssinian slaves were playing with weapons, not with
musical instruments, and there is a huge difference between the two.
Pop culture in the name of Islam
Argument:
We can use
'Islamic' music to promote the noble cause of the spread of Islam. 'Islamic'
pop music can do a good job in
promoting
the message of love and peace. After all, Muslim artists are using pious themes
and purposes in their songs as a means to achieve a positive end.
Response:
These days,
we have many nasheed artists who make the rounds of Islamic conferences and conventions,
singing in the name of Islam in order to entertain the attendees. They may have
good intentions to remind the listeners of Islam and to make Islam
17
'Abdul-Haqq Muhaddith Dehlavi, Sharah Safr-us-Sa'adah quoted in Shafee, Islam
and Music.
attractive,
especially to young people, by offering an alternative to pop music. Sad to
say, in their desire to compete, some Muslim nasheed artists use musical
instruments or digitally produced music in their 'Islamic' songs, and sometimes
human voices are used to create the sounds of other musical instruments. Thus
they make permissible what has been forbidden in Islam. A new type of pop
culture is growing around some of these performers, who in reality have become
Muslim pop stars. These Muslim singers do not realize that they only deceive
themselves, as Allah tells us:
“They
[think to] deceive Allah and those who believe, but they deceive not except
themselves, and perceive [it] not.” (Qur'an 2: 9)
Yvonne
Ridley is a British journalist and activist who came to prominence in
September 2001 after she was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan while
working for London's Daily Express. She was held hostage for eleven days and
said that she was treated with respect during her captivity. She promised her
captors that she would read the Qur' an after her release, and she later did.
She accepted Islam in 2003. In her recent thought- provoking article, Ms.
Ridley has the following to say about the newly emerging pop culture in the
name of Islam:
Eminent
scholars throughout history have often opined that music is haram, and I don't
recall reading anything about the Sahabah whooping it up to the sound of music.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for people letting off steam, but in a dignified
manner and one which is appropriate to their surroundings. IS
18 Yvonne
Ridley, "Pop Culture in the Name of Islam," last modified April=
Commenting
on one such Islamic singing event held in London, Ms.
Ridley continues:
The reason
I am expressing concern is that just a few days ago at a venue in Central
London, sisters went wild in the aisles as some form of pop-mania swept through
the concert venue.
And I'm not
just talking about silly, little girls who don't know any better; I am talking
about sisters in their 20's, 30's and 40' s, who squealed, shouted, swayed and
danced. Even the security guys who looked more like pipe cleaners than
bulldozers were left looking dazed and confused as they tried to stop hijabi
sisters from standing on their chairs. Of course the stage groupies did not
help at all as they waved and encouraged the largely female Muslim crowd to
"get up and sing along." (They're called 'Fluffers' in lap-dancing
circles!)
...
Apparently the sort of hysteria ... is also in America, and if it is happening
on both sides of the Atlantic, then it must be creeping around the globe and
poisoning the masses. Islamic boy bands like 786 and Mecca 2 Medina are also
the subject of the sort of female adulation you expect to see on American Pop
Idol or the X-Factor. Surely Islamic events should be promoting restrained and
more sedate behaviour.i"
Sadly
enough, many of those Muslim 'artists' claim that they are furthering the
'noble cause' of the spread of Islam by using music. However, Islam does not
permit its followers to use negative means to achieve a positive end. Music
cannot be used as a means to promote virtue. Such Muslim 'artists' claim that
they are promoting the message of/peace and love through their music.
=24, 2006
http://www.islamicawakening.comlviewarticle. php ?articleID= 1261.
19 Ibid.
The fact of
the matter is that our attempt to promote idealistic concepts is very similar
to the Christians using emotional language and idealism to promote what they
cannot defend using convincing, rational arguments. The result of Christian
attempts to sugarcoat their inconsistencies ended up in people turning away
from them. We must not expect any different results.
The Muslim
public has lost faith in the so-called 'music for peace and love,' since they
have realized that it does not deal with real life problems. It only numbs
their sense of pain regarding the global suffering. In the current atmosphere,
how can music contribute to stopping the Western troops from attacking innocent
people in Muslim countries? How will the music stop the Israelis from shedding
the blood of innocent women and children in Lebanon and Palestine? In fact,
have we ever noticed violence magically turning to peace because of music? Let
us be sincere and truthful to ourselves and not deceive ourselves by using
fancy slogans such as 'music for peace and love.'
Let us ask
a simple question: Is there any proof suggesting that music has achieved any
such noble goals? The answer to this question is a simple 'NO.' In fact, in the
history of Islam, music has done nothing to promote peace and love. It has only
corrupted the Muslim youth throughout Islamic history.
Imam Shafi
'i' s famous statement about music clarifies that music cannot be used for
pious themes and purposes:
I visited
Baghdad and I saw something which has been invented by heretics, and it is
known as taghbeer. They divert people from paying attention to the Qur' an
through the use of taghbeer. 20
20 Ibn
al-Qayyim, Ighdthat ul-Lahfiin min Masii'id ash-Shawano
Taghbeer
was a practice invented in Baghdad. People would gather, and a singer would
sing poems stressing the importance of the hereafter and disliking this world.
The singing was accompanied by musical instruments and sometimes dancing. Imam
Shafi'i regarded such a thing as an act of heresy, even though those people
were using music for pious themes and purposes.
Discussing
the non-compromising attitude of Islam, Muhammad Taqi Usmani writes in his book
Reform of Society:
The
question is: if a people of a certain period or region could be attracted to
Islam through the use of music, then would it be permitted to sing Qur' an to
them, accompanied by the use of a guitar and piano, for the sake of the
'preaching of Islam'? If it were possible that people of a certain area would
accept Islam when they saw the photograph of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon
him), then would Muslims (God forbid) agree to print an imaginary photograph of
the Prophet? If some people may accept Islam if they are impressed by the dance
and singing of Muslim women, then should we send groups of women dancers to
those people for the purpose of 'preaching' Islam? What kind of thought process
is this, that whenever acts of evil become predominant and rampant in the
world, people not only make them permissible (halal) but also start considering
them inevitable for the preaching and progress of Islam .... At the time of the
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and during the time of
his
Companions, non) Muslim people of the world were fond of musical and other
entertainments. It was quite possible to create such entertainments in order to
convey the message of Islam to them, but the Companions of Prophet Muhammad (~)
did not try to amuse people by dramas and plays; instead, they conquered the
hearts of people by presenting their exemplary character to them. As a result
of that, the Prophet's Companions waved the flag of tawheed (Oneness of Allah)
to all comers of the world. Today, if we are not willing to change our
non-Islamic habits and customs for the sake of Islamic preaching, and we want
to propagate the message of Islam by
merely
making dramas, musical shows and films, then only Shay tan could be the
inventor of such ideas?l
Sufism and music
Argument:
Most of the
Sufi scholars regarded listening to religious music and singing as permissible;
therefore, we can listen to music.
Response:
This is not
true. In fact, the founding fathers of Islamic spirituality and tasawwuf took
an uncompromising stand against music. Being the experts on the science of
purification of the hearts, the early Sufi scholars were quite aware of the
corrupting influence of music on the human soul.
Only a tiny minority of some
of the later Sufis regarded Islamic singing - without the use of musical
instruments - as permissible, but with stringent conditions attached to it.
However, those are only a tiny minority of the total body of actual Sufis.
We
may find plenty of contemporary pseudo-Sufis who regard music and singing as
permissible, but as far as the pioneers and the greatest of the Sufi scholars
are concerned, they regarded music as haram.
21 Usmani,
lsldh-e-Muashnra,
In chapter
5 of this book, the verdicts of Islamic scholars such as Hasan al-Basri, Harith
ibn Asad al-Muhasibi, Shaykh Junayd al-Baghdadi, Shaykh Shahab ud-Deen
Suhrawardi and Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi Farooqi have already been given; it should
be clear to the reader that those scholars took an unequivocal stand against
music. It is hoped that after reading those definitive verdicts from Islamic
scholars, it will be clear to the reader that the real Sufi scholars, who were
also experts in the knowledge of Hadith, have always considered music to be
haram. What we see with the present day Sufis - such as qawwiilis,22 nasheeds
with musical instruments and dancing in ecstasy - is completely against Islam.
It has no basis in our religion.
Music and Islamic worship
Argument:
Music and
singing can be used to express our love for God, and listening to religious
music can elevate us to higher spiritual stations. This is why some of the
Sufis regarded music as permissible.
Response:
In
Hinduism, Christianity, Sikhism and other religions, music entered into the
acts of worship, but Islamic worship has no place for music in it whatsoever.
In response to this argument, it would be most appropriate to quote one of the
greatest of the Islamic spirituality scholars to explain the position of music
in Islamic 22 Qawwfili is a traditional form of devotional music, found in
Pakistan and India and associated with Chisti Sufism. One well-known
contemporary singer (qawwal) was Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. [Editor]
worship. In
a letter to one of his students, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi criticized some of the
pseudo-Sufis who were addicted to religious music and singing:
Alas! In
this group of Sufis, there are many who try to find the solution to their
restlessness in listening to religious music and singing, and they try to find
their beloved [Allah] in the songs of the singer. For this purpose, they have
made music and dancing as their way even though they must have listened to the
hadith of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH): «Allah has not put a cure in anything
haram.» [Narrated by Umm Salamah in Tabarani with an authentic chain] ... If
they had the slightest knowledge of the reality of saldn (prayers), they would
have never been attracted towards religious music and singing.
When they
did not find the path of truth, they took the path of falsehood. O my dear
brother! Just like a difference that exists between prayers and singing, a
difference of similar amount exists between the excellence and perfection
achieved by prayers as compared to the states caused by listening to singing. A
hint is enough for a wise person.23
Some people
say that they want to play music to express their love of God. Is this the only
way to express our love? The question to ask is whether the Companions of
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) expressed their love through playing music. The answer
is no. The Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) used to recite the
Qur'an, utter remembrances of Allah (SWT), give charity, perform voluntary
fasting, feed the poor and needy, and pray voluntary late night prayers to
express their love of Allah (~). If there was any better way to please Allah
(SWT), the Companions would have done it. Actually, the Companions of
23 Sirhindi,
Maktubiit Mujaddid Alf Thdni (Collected Letters), Letter 261.
Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH) knew the corrupting influence of music on worship and therefore they
stayed away from it. Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, the great Islamic poet and Islamic
scholar, clarified in his famous lectures that the real Islamic spirituality
does not permit music, in order to prevent the corruption of the mystical
experience with music. He said:
Indeed with
a view to secure a wholly non-emotional experience the techniques of Islamic Sufism
at least take good care to forbid the use of music in worship, and to emphasize
the necessity of daily congregational prayers in order to counteract the
possible anti-social effects of solitary contemplation.f"
Fundraising in Islamic Gatherings through
Musical Entertainment
Argument:
'Islamic'
music can be used to promote the noble cause of Islam. Entertainment sessions
containing music and singing can be used to attract Muslim teenagers and adults
to Islamic conferences and conventions in order to raise funds for Islamic
projects.
Response:
Nowadays,
Islamic conventions and conferences are held frequently, and they are sometimes
accompanied by musical entertainment. A lot of people are attracted to these
gatherings due 24 Sir Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought
in Islam (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1994).
to the
entertainment factor, although some Muslims who fear Allah (SWT) go there to
seek Islamic knowledge, and prominent Islamic scholars are invited to
disseminate the sacred knowledge of Islam. According to a hadith mentioned
previously: «Certainly, the scholars are the inheritors of the prophets, for
indeed the prophets did not leave behind dinars or dirhams, but (they left
their) knowledge. Whoever accepts it receives a great fortune.» (a
sound
hadith recorded by Abu Dawood)
We must
remember that the heirs of the prophets should be respected, and Islamic
conventions should not be polluted with the presence of singers and comedians
on the stage. In the Qur' an, Allah (SWT) told the Prophet (PBUH) and his
followers in clear terms to stay away from those people who introduce
entertainment in religion, and to remind people with the Qur' an (for example,
in Islamic gatherings and conventions):
~And leave
those who take their religion as amusement and diversion and whom the worldly
life has deluded. But remind [them] with the Qur'an .. ) (Qur'an 6: 70)
The Qur' an
and Sunnah tell us that Prophets Abraham and Ishmael (peace be upon them)
taught people in the Arabian Peninsula how to pray and how to perform the
rituals of hajj.
However,
over the next few centuries, the people of that region completely disfigured
the religion brought forth by Prophet Abraham. They introduced entertainments
into it, and a few thousand years later, when Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was sent
as a prophet in that area, the ritual of hajj was reduced to a business
festival. Tawaf was replaced by naked men and women clapping, shouting and
dancing while circumambulating the House of Allah (SWT), as described in the
Qur'an:
~And their
prayer at the House [the Kaaba] was not except whistling and handclapping ... P
(Qur'an 8: 35)
Hence, the
acts of worship were replaced with acts of entertainment.
If we read
about the life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), we will notice that he enjoyed time
with his family. In following the Sunnah, Muslims are encouraged to take part
in entertainment along with their families. They are encouraged to have their
meals with family, play with their children and have picnics with relatives.
These are considered Islamic entertainments. One of the issues of this era is
that Muslims do not spend much time with their families. When at home, they
give their time to cable or satellite television; if there is time is
remaining, they spend it on the Internet. The world of virtual reality is much
more exciting to them than spending time with their spouses and children. They
think that entertainment lies outside their homes, but in reality, the true
entertainment lies with their very families.
We must
remember that Islamic conventions are not entertainment centers where we have
'Islamic' singers on the stage, entertaining and amusing their audiences and
outside in the hallways, with young Muslim boys and girls in mixed gatherings
laughing and chatting, completely unaware of the Islamic concept of haya'.
Muslims are to be eloquently solemn and exemplary for others and not show any
frivolousness.
Islam holds
a unique position among all the other religions of the world in that Islam does
not permit comprorrlise with the ways and customs of secularists and
modernists. Allah (SWT) warned the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), as well as all the
true believers:
“They wish
that you would soften [in religious commandments], so they would soften [toward
you].” (Qur'an 68: 9)
Islam
clearly prohibited the use of non-Islamic methods in the preaching of Islam:
“There
shall be no compulsion in [acceptance: of] the religion. The right course has
become clear from the wrong ... ~
(Qur'an 2:
256)
Permissible entertainment in Islam
Argument:
We need
some entertainment in our lives, so we listen to music because it is the most
common entertainment.
Response:
The last
refuge taken by Muslims while, defending the enjoyment of music is to claim:
"Listening to music is just
entertainment,
and we need entertainment in OUlr lives." It is true that all of us need
entertainment in our lives, blJt the truth of the matter is that listening to
music is not merely ~ntertainment. As has been shown in the previous chapters,
ttere is a lot of corruption and filth that comes along with this
entertainment. It is similar to the case of alcohol
or gambling (such as the lottery); they are also forms of entertainment, but
there ale a multitude of harms that come along with them. Since their harm is
greater than their benefit (as stated in the Qur'an), alcohol
and gambling are prohibited in Islam. We must also bear in mind that music is
not the only form of entertainment that is prohibited in Islam. Gambling,
intoxication, reading vulgar literature, using animals (cattle or chickens, for
example) as targets in archery, and cruel sports like cockfighting or dog
fighting are all forms of entertainment. Yet all these 'entertainments' are
prohibited according to Islamic teachings.
Islam is a
complete and comprehensive religion that addresses all aspects and needs of our
lives, and this includes our need for diversions and recreation. It provides
lawful means for us to fulfil our needs. Imam Bukhari narrates in AI-Adab
al-Mufrad that the Companions of the Prophet (may Allah be pleased with them)
used to throw watermelons to each other, but in times of seriousness, they
proved themselves to be true men of action.
In the
Sunnah, we see that the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) participated
in many different forms of lawful entertainment and play. They engaged in
sports like footraces, horseracing, wrestling, and archery. They spent time in
lighthearted conversation. Pastimes are permissible as long as they provide the
participant with relaxation or exercise, and at the same time do not compromise
the laws of Islam in terms of dress, intermingling of men and women, music,
gambling, betting or anything else.
Hence,
Islam is not against lawful forms of entertainment. However, according to Islam,
listening to music, and singing accompanied by music, is NOT an acceptable
entertainment.
Examples of
Permissible and Impermissible Entertainments
Permissible
Participating
in sports like footraces, horseracing." wrestling, swimming and archery
Listening
to Islamic poetry without any musical instruments in gender-segregated settings
Playing
with your spouse and children
Qur' anic
recitation by various reciters
Reading,
watching
Going on
picnics with family or friends and enjoying the beauty of nature
Hiking and
sailing
Impermissible
Gambling
Spending
time in lighthearted conversation Drinking alcohol
with family members and friends
Listening to music or to singing accompanied by mUSIC
Listening
to beautiful-sounding
Playing
chess or listening to vulgar materials
Cruel
animal sports such as bullfights, cockfights and the like
25 The
permissible type of horseracing involves no gambling, no intermingling of the
sexes, and no alcohol or other haram activities.
Examples
of Islamic Gatherings without any musical entertainment
!
Argument:
It is very
hard to have Islamic gatherings without the use of any musical entertainment.
How can we attract Muslim youth to Islamic conventions without having any
musical entertainment?
The fact is
that music is a strong force, and we are afraid that Islamic gatherings may not
be very effective if we do not use 'Islamic' music.
Response:
It is
entirely possible to have Islamic meetings without the use of music. In fact,
the Islamic gatherings that are free of such entertainment prove to be highly
effective and influential upon the lives of their attendees. Here are a few
examples of Islamic gatherings without any musical entertainment:
1. Hajj and
'umrah (the minor pilgrimage). Every year, millions of Muslims travel to Makkah
to perform the holy rites of the hajj and 'urnrah, and to Madinah to visit the
Prophet's Mosque. All the pilgrims visit the holy Kaaba and carry out specific
rituals. During hajj, they also congregate in the vast valley of 'Arafah from
noon until sunset to engage in prayer, glorifying Allah (SWT) and begging His
forgiveness. In spite of all the hardships of travel, overcrowding and high
temperatures, the experiences of hajj and 'urnrah are so moving and spiritually
invigorating that most Muslims return to their countries having undergone a
complete spiritual transformation. Many Muslims make sincere repentance of
their sins, intend never to commit those sins again and pledge to uphold their
daily prayers and other religious obligations. The number of Muslims who attend
the annual 'Islamic convention' of hajj is more than two million.
2. 'Umrah
during Ramadan. More than one million Muslims perform 'umrah during the month
of Ramadan and gather in Makkah to attend the blessed night prayers during the
last ten days, especially on the twenty-seventh of Ramadan. Yet in those
blessed Muslim gatherings, there are no 'entertainment sessions.'
Muslims do
not come to these gatherings to amuse themselves; they attend these conferences
with seriousness and humility. It is interesting to note that a few decades
ago, most Muslims performing hajj or 'umrah were elderly people who desired to
carry out these obligations before their death. However, the situation is
completely different now. Presently, a large proportion of the pilgrims to hajj
and those performing 'umrah are young men and women in their thirties, even
though youth is the time when people are said to need the most entertainment.
These Muslim men and women attend such Muslim gatherings with elegance and
sincerity; consequently, they reap the fruits of these congregations in the
form of new spiritual strength and vigor.
3. Friday
congregational prayer. A third example of an Islamic gathering is the weekly
meeting of Muslims for the Friday congregational prayer, which is preceded by a
sermon from the Imam, similar to a speech given in any Islamic convention or
conference. This event, which takes place every week at every major mosque on
the face of this earth, is no less than an Islamic conference or convention.
Yet there is one thing completely absent from it, and that is any entertainment
session. In spite of the absence of any entertainment in these weekly
assemblies,
Muslims -
young and old, practicing and non-practicing -attend the prayer submissively.
The Friday congregational prayers do not have musical entertainment like that
found in many weekly church gatherings, yet Muslims (including many who do not
perform the five daily prayers regularly) try not to miss this weekly faith-enhancing
experience. The approach of Islam - nip the evil in the bud Islam is a religion
that is in complete accordance with human nature. The Islamic approach to
dealing with vice and corruption in the society is to nip the evil in the bud.
For example, 'db' (Father) was one of the names of Allah (SWT) in almost all
the primitive religions, as well as in Christianity and Judaism.
However,
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) abrogated that name of Allah (~) for us to call upon in
our prayers. The reason is quite obvious: Shirk (polytheism, or associating
partners with Allah) and anthropomorphism crept into the creed of Christianity
through this door. The Christian theologians made Prophet Jesus the son of God.
It was the
same case with gambling. Other religions were lenient regarding gambling, and
today gambling takes place even inside churches, under the name of 'bingo.'
Music was
no different. With the exception of Islam, music entered almost all other
religions of the world at their inception. In the beginning, the hymns seemed
very innocent because they were wearing the 'sacred' garments of religion.
Today, when traditional religious music has taken off its coat, the monster of
rock music has emerged out of it. In early Christianity, music was strictly
forbidden, as stated in the Bible:
Take thou
away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy
viols?6 (Amos 5:23, King James Version)
Woe unto
them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that
continue until night, till wine inflame them! And the harp, and the viol, the
tabret,27 and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work
of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands. (Isaiah 5:11-12, King
James Version)
In early
Christianity, singing with the accompaniment of instruments was strictly
forbidden. The only thing permitted was to sing with voices only, without
any musical instruments.
However,
with the passage of time and growing secularization of the Christian societies,
music crept into the churches. Puritan intellectual John L. Girardeau wrote
about the introduction of music into Christianity:
It deserves
serious consideration, moreover, that notwith- standing the ever-accelerated
drift towards corruption in worship as well as in doctrine and government, the
Roman Catholic Church did not adopt this corrupt practice until about the
middle of the thirteenth century. 28
That was
the time when Luther, like other Christian reformers, declared instrumental
music to be permissible and urged his followers to use it in the service of
God: "I would like to see all the 26 Viols were bowed, stringed musical
instruments used during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries; they are
different from violins. [Editor]
27 A tabret
is a percussion instrument similar to a tambourine. [Editor]
28 John L.
Girardeau, Instrumental Music in the Public Worship of the Church (Richmond,
VA: Whittet and Shepp, 1888), 158-159, quoted in Baig, Slippery Stone: an
Inquiry into Islam's Stance on Music.
arts,
especially music, used in the service of Him who gave and made them. ,,29
Today, music has become an important part of worship in many churches.
If there
are minute benefits in music, its harms are much more than its benefits. The
ruling of the Qur' an in such issues is clear:
~They ask
you [0 Muhammad] about alcoholic drink and
gambling. Say: In them is great sin, and [some] benefit for people, but their
sin is greater than their benefit.s (Qur'an 2: 219)
The same
principle can be applied to all addictions including drugs, alcohol, gambling, music, TV, wasting time in web
surfing and Internet chatting, and idle talk. The Islamic approach of nipping
evil in the bud can also be seen in commandments of the Qur' an not to go close
to zina or even to the means and routes to zma:
~And do not
approach unlawful sexual intercourse. Indeed, it is ever an immorality and is
evil as a way.s (Qur'an 17: 32)
Allah, the
Exalted, the Almighty commands us not to go close to any form of shameful deed,
whether committed openly or secretly:
29 Martin
Luther, Luther's Works, preface to the Wittenberg Hymnal (1524), 53:316, (1965)
quoted in Baig, Slippery Stone: an Inquiry into Islam's Stance on Music.
... And do
not approach immoralities - what is apparent of them and what is concealed .. )
(Qur'an 6: 151)
The
modernist writers on Islam do not realize what the end result would be if we
began the practice of making forbidden things permissible in Islam. The bitter
fruits of such additions or deletions in divine injunctions can be seen in
other religions.
Christianity
made music and gambling permissible in order to show their enlightenment; today
music, singing and dancing are done inside the churches in the name of
religion. The same kind of dancing is done in the name of religion in Hindu
temples. It may be of interest to readers to note that some of the greatest
musicians entered into the music business through the route of religious music.
The late Egyptian musical singer Umm Kalthum used to sing religious songs with
her father when she was a child; later on, she became the queen of Arabic
music. Similarly, Elvis Presley's early introduction to music came from gospel
singing in church and in school; later on, he emerged as the king of rock and
roll and pop music.
Islam knows
that the more people are exposed to the evils in society, the more they become
desensitized to them. Thus, if children are exposed to lascivious songs,
suggestive music and sexy dances in their childhood, their whole worldview of
sexual morality will be tarnished. Their moral uprightness will be destroyed
from their very childhood. The natural inclination with which they were born,
which was instilled by Allah (SWT), will be disfigured. They will lose the
ability to distinguish between modesty and immodesty, morality and immorality,
and chastity and promiscuity.
Ibn
al-Qayyim writes in I'ldm ul-Muwaqqi 'een (vol. 2) about this approach of
Islam:
Among
Islamic scholars, some consider the use of the duff to be disliked, even on the
occasion of marriages. The reason for this approach is based on the rule of
Islamic Sharia known as sadd biib zaree 'ah, which means that some of the
permissible acts are forbidden because they may result in a back door for the
introduction of prohibited acts in the society. It is similar to the idea that
exchanging gifts among people is an act of Sunnah, but it is prohibited to
present gifts to a government official or to someone who has given us a loan,
because this paves a way for bribery and usury (interest) and creates
corruption in the society. Similarly, to stare at the face of a woman (who is
not a person's wife) intentionally is prohibited because in this way the germs
of fornication are nourished in the society, even though someone could argue
that by looking at the beautiful female faces, we are only enjoying the
artistry of Allahr'" Similarly, Imam Ibn Taymiyah, weighing the harms and
benefits of music and religious music and singing (like qawwalis), stated:
But their
harms are much more than their benefits. It is similar to the case of alcohol and gambling, in which there are some benefits
for people but the harms of alcohol and gambling
are much more. It is for this reason that Islamic law has not made them
permissible."
30 Ibn
al-Qayyim al-Jawziyah, l'ldm ul-Muwaqqi 'een (Lahore: Ahl Hadeeth Academy,
1976).
31 Ibn
Taymiyah, Risdlah. Waj'd wa Sarna'.
In
conclusion, Islam prohibits music and singing because they lead a person to
commit sins. Hence, Islam takes preventive measures rather than suffering the
consequences. As explained by Ibn al-Qayyim, this is based on the Islamic
juristic idea of preventing an evil before it actually materializes. Based on
this Islamic principle, preventing harm is given precedence even over achieving
possible benefits.
Music creates heedlessness
and a hole in one's soul
Music, by
its very nature, creates heedlessness of remembrance of Allah (SWT). This is
why musical instruments
are known
in the Arabic language as maldhi, meaning instruments that prevent one from the
remembrance of Allah (SWT). Music is Not food for the soul; on the contrary, it
creates a hole in one's soul. It clouds the minds of the listener and takes him
or her into a delusional state, far from the remembrance of Allah (SWT) -
making the
listener oblivious to the purpose of his creation on this earth. Allah (SWT)
says:
“And the
poets - [only] the deviators follow them; do you not see that in every valley
they roam and that they say what they do not do? Except those [poets] who
believe and do righteous deeds and remember Allah often .. ) (Qur'an 26:
224-227)
It is clear
that singing and music are closely related to poetry; in fact, they are
inseparable. Allah (SWT) has made it clear that the ones who follow the poets
are people who have strayed from the right path. The only exception made by Allah
(SWT) in the Qur'an are the poets who remember Allah (SWT) frequently, and we
know that very few poets in the history of Islam fall under this category. Of
course, there are no legal objections to Muslims practicing the art of poetry
in defense of Islam and its values. In fact, Sultan Bahoo, the famous poet from the subcontinent, said
in one of his poetic verses:
Whatever
moments are spent in heedlessness (not remembering Allah) are spent in a state
of disbelief in Allah.
This is the
lesson taught to me by my spiritual teacher. Poetry accompanied by musical
instruments takes its listeners into a delusional state of heedlessness and
invites them to a culture of permissiveness and liberalism. There is a clear
link between music and behaviour, and then crime by extension, as shown in this
book using scientific evidence.
In
addition, most soft, romantic songs have lyrics that border on shirk, where the
person who is the object of one's desire or love is put on a pedestal equal to
or above Allah (SWT), and the person who is in love is constantly thinking of
that person, thus turning away from Allah (SWT) and remembrance of Him. This
takes a person's heart into a state of hypocrisy. Ibn al-Qayyim writes that one
of the characteristics of such singing is that it:
distracts
the heart and prevents it from contemplation and understanding of the Qur' an,
and from applying it. Among the signs of hypocrisy is one's rarely remembering Allah
(SWT) and one's laziness in rising to prayer, along with its poor performance
.... A person's addiction to song peculiarly makes listening to the Qur' an a
heavy weight upon his heart, hateful to his ears. If this is not hypocrisy,
then hypocrisy has no reality?2
There are
two types of memory: short term and long-term. As the name implies, short-term
memory lasts for a shorter period of time than long-term memory. Converting
short-term memory to long-term memory (a process known as coordination)
requires rehearsal. This involves, among other things, repetition, rhyming, and
emotional attachment to the incident or the message. If we look at songs, we
find that all these factors are available to make them a part ofthe long-term
memory of a person. There is repetition in the lyrics of the songs, and there
is rhyming as well.
In
addition, music arouses emotions in its listeners. Hence, music and songs
become part of the long-term memory of a person who indulges in music. When the
memory of a person is flooded with music and the lyrics of songs, it becomes
hard for that person to contemplate the Qur' an and its message. It becomes
hard for such a person to engage in remembrance of Allah (SWT) as mentioned in the
Qur'an:
“ O you who
have believed! Remember Allah with much remembrance.s (Qur'an 33: 41)
Dr. Bilal
Philips is a Western convert to Islam and a contemporary Islamic scholar. 33 In
one of his public speeches, Dr. Philips pointed out that when he accepted Islam
in 1971, he learned about the prohibition of music, so he stopped listening to
32 fun
al-Qayyim, Ighdthat ul-Lahfdn min Masii'id ash-Shaytdn.
33 See the
next chapter for his detailed biography.
his record
collection. When he used to invite non-Muslim friends to his house to tell them
about Islam, he would sense that they felt uncomfortable having discussions
with no music in the background. They found something amiss.
Actually,
that is the trick of the Western society. Whether you are at work, shopping in
a department store, or using a restroom, there is background music. It ensures
that you are immersed in worldly pleasures and materialistic desires so that
you neglect to remember Allah (SWT). It ensures that you do not have time to think
about the purpose of your creation." On the other hand, Allah (SWT) makes
us think by addressing us:
“ And the
Qur'an is not the word of a devil, expelled [from the heavens]. So where are
you going?~ (Qur'an 81: 25-26)
This
question put forth by the Qur' an makes us remember that the purpose of our
creation, our death and our life after death is different from the purpose depicted
in the words of Satan, that is, music. The Qur'an is the word of Allah (SWT),
whereas music is the word of Satan. Music is a delusion of this world, which
paralyzes one's mind and does not let him or her think about the fundamental
question, "So, where are you going?"
Music affects the bestial souls of
human beings, not their angelic souls
Now let us
have a philosophical examination of the idea that music is food for the
human soul. First of all, we know that human
34 Dr.
Bilal Philips, Silence, audio recording of lecture in Saudi Arabia, n.d.
beings are
made of two things: dust and soul. It is mentioned in various places in the
Qur' an that our body is made from the soil of this earth. For example:
~And among
His signs is that He created you from dust...~
(Qur'an 30:
20)
Then Allah
(SWT) sends an angel to blow the spirit into this material being, as He (SWT) mentions:
~So when I
have proportioned him and breathed into him of My [created] soul, then fall
down to him in prostration.~(Qur'an 38: 72)
This
soul blown into human beings is unique to humans; they do not share it
with other living creatures on this planet. Allah (tMt) refers to the dual
nature of human beings when He describes the creation of Adam (AS):
“ [Allah]
said: O Iblees [Satan], what prevented you from prostrating to that which I have
created with My Hands ... ?” (Qur'an 38: 75)
The human
body is made from the ingredients of this world, but the soul is blown into the
body by an angel. A human being consists of both a body and a soul; he or she
is at once a physical being and a spirit. The human body possesses desires
similar to those of animals (such as hunger, thirst, and sexual urges), whereas
the human soul strives for heavenly desires. It is due to the presence of
the soul that a human being is regarded as the best of the creations of Allah
(tMt). Thus, human beings are a combination of a celestial element (the
spirit) and a terrestrial element (the body or flesh).
Islamic
scholars make a second classification according to which the human being possesses not only the rooh(soul), but also a
nafs, which is the type of soul present in animals as well as in human beings.
Hence, humans have two souls, or spiritual powers,
analogous to this dual nature. Shah Waliullah Dehlavi, in his famous
book Hujjatullah al-Bdlighah, writes that Allah (tMt) has given human beings
two kinds of powers. One power is due to the higher, angelic soul, which exists
only in humans; it urges humans to grow close to Allah, the Exalted, the
Almighty, and to perform good deeds. The other power is due to the lower,
animal or bestial soul, which urges them to perform acts that are unworthy of
being a human. These two powers are always in conflict in the human being?5
It is
mentioned in the Qur' an that Allah (tMt) has created everything in pairs:
(“ Exalted is He who created all pairs - from
what the earth grows and from themselves and from that which they do not know.s
(Qur'an 36: 36)
Allah (tMt)
has endowed human beings with a dualistic nature, not only with respect to the
body and soul but also with respect to
35 Shah
Waliullah Muhaddith Dehlavi, Hujjatullah al-Bdlighali (Karachi: Darul Isha'at,
n.d.).
a pair
of souls (angelic and carnal). In describing the dualistic nature of human
beings, Syed Muhammad Al-Naquib Al-Attas, a contemporary Islamic thinker, writes:
Man also
has two souls (nafsan) analogous to his dual nature:
the
higher, rational soul (al-nafs al-ndtiqahi; and
the
lower, animal soul tal-nafs al-hayawdniyyahy.
When God proclaimed the
reality of His Lordship to man, it is the rational soul that knows God.
In order for man to fulfil his Covenant with God, to constantly confirm and
affirm the Covenant within his total self so that it is enacted as action, as
work ('amal, i.e., with reference to 'ibadah) performed in obedience to God's
Law (i.e., the Sharia), the rational soul must assert its supremacy and exert
its power and rule over the animal soul, which is subject to it and which must
be rendered submissive to it. 36
Music
affects this bestial or carnal soul of humans. The angelic soul of a human being is not affected by music (or, if
anything, it is negatively influenced). If music were influencing only the angelic
soul in humans, then animals would remain unaffected by music, but we know from
everyday experience and observation that this is not the case.
When
songs are sung to camels, they are so powerfully
affected that they start to run rapidly, bearing heavy burdens, until they fall
down in a state of exhaustion.
A cow produces more milk if music is played while it
is being milked.
Some owners
of pig farms play music at their farms
because in their experience, the pigs eat more food and become fatter when they
listen to music.
When a
flute is played in front of a snake, it becomes
mesmerized by the sound. Ibn al-Qayyim wrote:
36 Muhammad
Al-Naquib Al-Attas, Islam and Secularism (Delhi: New Crescent Publishing
Company Company, 2002).
The thing
which is activated and excited by listening to songs and music is the animal
(carnal) soul, not the human soul or 'angelic soul.' What is presented as a
proof of this (by Islamic scholars) is the influence on animals and birds when
singing and music are played to them?7
