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IS MUSIC PROHIBITED IN ISLAM
Ali Engineer, Asghar
Ali Engineer, Asghar
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Engineer_music_islam.pdf
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"Is music really prohibited? My studies show it is not prohibited per se. The Qur’an denounces what it calls lahw wa la’b (i.e. fun and play and there was background to it. They Arabs in pre-Islamic times had no serious religious faith and used to indulge in drinking and singing and dancing as we often witness in our societies also. Islam, wanted to engage people in serious activities of reforming social evils and make them obedient to Allah thereby becoming good, just and compassionate human beings undertaking fight against all prevailing social evils. For such way of life naturally lahw wa la’b was serious obstacle and hence the Qur’an warned people against that. However, many Muslims could not distinguish between the two and declared music prohibited whatever its form or context. While Ulama denounced music the Sufi saints generally approved of it and distinguishing between lahw wa la’b and sheer fun they allowed music as a tool to God-realization as music could induce a sort of ecstasy which in turn helped God-realization. Thus sama’ which literally means listening of music was practiced by sufi saints. It was for sama’ that qawwali was invented, as far as my knowledge goes, by Khusro, the celebrated disciple of Nizamuddin Awliya who used to have sama’ mehfil (i.e. congregation for devotional music). The Ulama who were jealous of Nizamuddin Awliya’s popularity, issued a fatwa (religious edict) against him for attending sama’ mehfil and the Sultan asked him to come to his court and defend himself. He went to the Sultan’s court (otherwise he never paid court to any sultan) and defended himself by reciting certain ahadith and came away. Maulana Rum had gone a step further and even resorted to dancing to induce such divine ecstacy and his followers regularly resort to dancing and are known as whirling dervishes."(PG 1)
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